Tools of Hegemony: Military Technology and Swedish-American Security Relations, 1945-1962 (review)

Mikael Nilsson sets out to prove that in the early Cold War the United States used its military technology to wean Sweden from its traditional policy of neutrality, forcing the Swedish government to accept U.S. hegemony. Nilsson focuses on guided missiles, a technology transfer that has received little attention in either U.S. or Swedish historiography. Sweden, together with the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union was among the first countries to work on guided missile development. Sweden's research and development was based on German V1 and V2 rockets that had erroneously crashed on Swedish territory toward the end of the Second World War. This did not, however, make up for the lack of technological know-how and resources of a small country. To overcome these obstacles, Stockholm looked westward, but Washington would help only in exchange for consent to its hegemony.

Nilsson admits that hegemony does not rely solely on forceful measures and that lesser powers can submit themselves for their own security and prosperity. Yet he emphasizes that resisting U.S. military and economic might in Western Europe during the early Cold War was difficult. In the immediate postwar period, Sweden nevertheless tried to remain aloof from any bloc building in Europe because it intended to maintain its traditional policy of neutrality. The crux of the matter was that consent to U.S. hegemony undermined the credibility and thus the practicability of neutrality. Consequently, because the stakes appeared high, the Swedes looked for ways and means to collaborate with the United States without overtly siding with it. The process that brought about Swedish consent to U.S. hegemony was gradual.

Before the full onset of the Cold War, Sweden's foreign policy was generally unconstrained. But by 1948, as the Swedes attempted to establish a neutral Scandinavian Defense Union, they began to feel the weight of U.S. power. According to Nilsson, Washington's threat to withhold arms deliveries from a neutral defense union was instrumental in bringing Denmark and Norway into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Stockholm, for its part, remained neutral, and without military technological support from the United State its guided missiles program ran into a "cul-de-sac" (p. 174). By the late 1940s, however, Swedish leaders found that remaining aloof from the Western bloc was becoming ever more difficult if they desired their country to be economically prosperous and to equip its armed forces according to the defense policy of armed neutrality. Therefore, Stockholm gave its consent to U.S. hegemony in two steps. First, through its participation in the European Recovery Program, it effectively aligned itself with theWestern side. Second, through its agreement to comply with the rules of the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls, it participated in the strategic embargo against the Soviet bloc. As a consequence of these processes, by early 1952, Harry S. Truman had declared Sweden eligible for reimbursable military aid under the Mutual Defense Assistance Act.

Despite this eligibility, which underlined Sweden's importance in U.S. strategic thinking, Stockholm did not immediately receive access to guided missile technology. Washington could not deliver to a neutral what it was withholding from its allies. However, by the late 1950s, the Eisenhower administration decided to release guided missile technologies to NATO countries, and Sweden was treated on the same footing as Washington's allies because of its prior consent to U.S. hegemony. Consequently, as the 1960s began, Stockholm became a privileged buyer of U.S. missile systems. Although these purchases led to ever more constraining military-technological arrangements with the United States, they also led to the abandonment of Sweden's independent missile program, which had formed the basis for the country's licensing and manufacturing agreements with foreign countries.

The transfer of military technology from the United States to Sweden was interwoven with important defense coordination between the two countries. Nilsson thus concludes that the Swedes undermined the credibility...