Mistral and Sweden’s security

Ever since the announcement of the controversial Mistral arms deal between France and Russia on Christmas Eve 2010, the Swedish press has been publishing articles about the implications of the deal for Baltic security, and Sweden's security in particular. On January 7 Dagens Nyheter noted that concern about the sale of the Mistral assault ships to Russia was high because these helicopter carriers can be used for landing operations - presumably in the course of a military invasion. Bo Pellnäs, a Swedish defence analyst, commented that although the carriers will be based in Murmansk, they can be moved anywhere. This, against the background of reports that Russia is to increase its military expenditure by 60 percent, and last fall held its largest military exercise in the Baltic Sea since the 1980s, is giving rise to fears in Sweden that the country's security may  be compromised.

On January 5 a member of the Swedish parliament, Mikael Oscarsson, requested a statement from Foreign Minister Carl Bildt on what the deal means for the security of the Baltic Sea as a whole. Oscarsson also said that it was necessary to ask Russia about the purpose of the invasion capability, and that a tightening of Sweden's defence with Poland might be needed.

Now, in an interview published in the Swedish current affairs journal Världen idag (The World Today), Oscarsson says that his concerns are heightened by the internal political situation in Russia in the aftermath of the recent unsolved murders of journalists and the sentencing of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev.

"We need greater cooperation between Sweden, Poland and the Baltics, but we should also invite Russia to talks. I'm not one of those who say that the Russians are coming, but we cannot assume that anyone else will defend us. Therefore, we need to respond and ensure that we have a fleet that works."

In Poland, Polskie Radio has taken up Mikael Oscarsson's question, and there are reports that the military ties between Sweden and Poland may strengthen in response to Russia's investment in the new warships.

he U.S. think tank and news agency Stratfor's East Europe analyst Marko Papic says that just five days into the new year Mikael Oscarsson's question to Carl Bildt shows that the geopolitical map may be redrawn.

"The area of Sweden, Poland and Russia will be crucial for European security and political issues in 2011," he said in a statement.

Google Book Settlement - the saga continues

According to Dagens Nyheter journalist Juan Flores, who seems to be the man on the case for that particular Swedish daily, Bonnier has become the first large publishing house in Sweden to dispute the Google arrangement. Bonnier's company lawyer, Dag Wetterberg, will be quite busy right now, as Google has evidently scanned some 60,000 titles by Bonnier authors, and in 6,000 of these cases the whole book has been scanned. Bonnier is being offered a lump sum of a million Swedish kronor (i.e. about €100,000, slightly less in sterling) for this monumental control of titles, which Bonnier thinks is far too little money for far too much long-term power.

It would seem to outsiders like me that this is becoming a rather hubristic exercise on the part of Google. It also looks as if Google has been scanning thousands, maybe millions of books, if we extrapolate from the Bonnier case, on the sneak, hoping that they will be able to do something with these scans that will afford Google a profit. According to the Bonnier lawyer, Google seem to have been scanning away at U.S. universities that have Swedish departments (well, no problem in the UK, there aren't many...), and this could mean that every Swedish book bought by these universities before the beginning of 2009 can end up on a Google data base.

The Bonnier lawyer does not appear to be a Luddite, merely wondering who is going to profit from all this. Obviously, it is a great boon for books to be scanned, should the originals be destroyed by accident or war. But I hope that European publishing houses will wake up to what is going on, before they find out that, by doing nothing, they have signed up to wholesale control of their publications by Google.

The other large Swedish publishing house, Norstedts, has not yet come to a decision as to how to tackle this issue.

I do get the feeling that this whole issue has been handled badly by the various players, leading to a situation where publishing houses worldwide are suddenly finding themselves in an opt-out position, never an enviable one to be in.