Sweden has now announced that starting on July 1 its navy will stop, inspect and potentially seize all suspect vessels transiting its exclusive economic zone, and is deploying the Swedish air force to back up this threat. Since the combined maritime economic zones of Sweden and the three Baltic states cover the whole of the central Baltic Sea, this amounts to a virtual threat to cut off all Russian trade exiting Russia via the Baltic — which would indeed be a very serious economic blow to Moscow.
It would also threaten to cut off Russia’s exclave of Kaliningrad, which is surrounded by Poland, from access to Russia by sea.
This is the kind of action that has traditionally led to war. The Swedish assumption seems to be that the Russian navy and air force in the Baltic are now so weak, and so surrounded by NATO territory, that there is nothing Moscow can do about this.
However, it is very unlikely that the Swedes would take this step unless they also believe that in the event of a clash, Washington will come to Sweden’s defense, even though the EU and Swedish decisions were made without U.S. approval and are not strictly covered by NATO’s Article 5 commitment.
And despite all the hysterical language about Russia being “at war” with NATO countries, these moves by the EU and Sweden are also based on an assumption that Russia will not in fact lose its temper and react with military force.
This is what's called piracy. But by all means, that's after all how my dear Swedish state began.
At that time, it was almost impossible for a country without much trade to have such a large fleet as Sweden had. But it was not used to protect its own trade but to tax other people's money.
Now they're back again.Hopefully this will land the Swedish state in International Court of Justice. Or given a slight bloody nose by Russia.