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| Title |
The plan for a Scandinavian Defence Union
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| Document type |
Synopsis
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| Source |
European NAvigator. Etienne Deschamps. Translated by the CVCE.
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| Keywords |
military cooperation, NATO, North Atlantic Treaty, Northern Europe
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| Copyright |
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| Caption |
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| Location in the digital library |
HISTORICAL EVENTS >> 1950–1956 The formation of the community of Europe >> Nordic cooperation >> Plans for a Scandinavian defence union
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| Document extract |
The plan for a Scandinavian Defence Union
On 10 May 1948, just three months after the ‘Prague coup’ which had heightened Western fears of the threat of Communist expansion, Sweden proposed to Denmark and Norway the establishment of a neutral Nordic Defence Union. This would initially be for a period of ten years and would be neutral in the sense of being conditional on none of the members of the Scandinavian bloc joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), under discussion at the time. The plan also stipulated that the signatory states would remain outside any armed conflict unless directly attacked. Sweden, a neutral country that had been totally spared the devastation of the Second World War, was actually in a powerful military and financial position. In particular, it had a significant military aeronautical industry and sought single-handedly to safeguard its ‘armed neutrality’. The United States however, being particularly interested in gaining privileged access to strategic air and sea bases in the North of Europe and the Baltic Sea, and considering the Scandinavians incapable of standing up to Soviet pressure on their own, let it be known on 14 January 1949 that only Member States of the Atlantic Pact would qualify to receive US military support. At the same time, Denmark and Norway, having been badly affected economically by the war and by t (...) Read more in ENA |
| See also |
Address given by Harry S. Truman (Washington, 4 April 1949)
The North Atlantic Treaty (Washington, 4 April 1949)
Cartoon by Low on the weaknesses of common European defence (9 March 1949)
Cartoon by Wos on the establishment of NATO (24 March 1949)
Evgeny Kustnetsov, The Multilateral Force debates
Eurofor staff declared operational (Florence, 28 November 1997)
Willem van Eekelen and Manfred Wörner at the first meeting between the North Atlantic Council and the WEU Council (Brussels, 21 May 1992)
Final Communiqué of the Ministerial Session of the North Atlantic Council (Reykjavik, 24 and 25 June 1968)
'The Nordic Treaty' from the EFTA Bulletin
Rome Declaration of the Atlantic Alliance on Peace and Cooperation (Rome, 8 November 1991)
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