NS Military Worldbuilding Thread No. 12

[The Grand World Order]

No. Race has nothing to do with why Sweden has not been invaded. Sweden has not been invaded because tactically and strategically, it makes sense for nobody in that region of the world to do so. In Africa, where resources and weapons are abundant, and national alliances are not, it makes sense. It's the difference between the late-stages of an RTS wherein all has stabilized and people are more focused trying to maintain stability against the inherent march of time and societal decay- and the beginning of an RTS where there's a mad scramble for limited resources on the world map to try and get ahead of the guy in the starting plot next to you.

Sweden also spent most of the Cold War as a mostly neutral country trying to moderate relations between the East and West, and building up its defense forces to make it not worthwhile to invade Sweden. Sweden specifically avoided joining NATO both to protect itself and its neighbor, Finland, because even to this day, Russia will throw a tantrum if NATO's directly on its borders. Sweden championed similar ideals to the West while avoiding being militarily relevant, yet costly to invade. Sweden could be used as a way into Norway but would that really be worth the cost of fighting Sweden's defense forces?

It also speaks volumes that there really is a pretty major interest to be served in invading African nations (resources,) most of the continent's militaries aren't really competent, and they're as far from white as it gets, yet the west's primary military involvement is against ISIS affiliates at the request of local governments, and the main plundering entity at the moment is another non-white country, China, and even then they're not doing so militarily other than ex-PLA/PAP security contractors to protect their interests.

[Hahoalki]

Why wasn't Russia allowed to join NATO back when the Soviet Union fell? Was it a case of the NATO countries trying to keep NATO relevant, or were there signs that Russia would try to "go imperial" even back then?

Would Russia have felt the need to "act up" the way it has been if it would have been allowed into NATO?

[Spirit of Hope]

Why wasn't Russia allowed to join NATO back when the Soviet Union fell? Was it a case of the NATO countries trying to keep NATO relevant, or were there signs that Russia would try to "go imperial" even back then?

Would Russia have felt the need to "act up" the way it has been if it would have been allowed into NATO?

Did Russia even apply for NATO membership?

[The Grand World Order]

Why wasn't Russia allowed to join NATO back when the Soviet Union fell? Was it a case of the NATO countries trying to keep NATO relevant, or were there signs that Russia would try to "go imperial" even back then?

Would Russia have felt the need to "act up" the way it has been if it would have been allowed into NATO?

Did Russia even apply for NATO membership?

No. The Soviets did in 1954 but this was rejected as an attempt to cripple NATO the same way the Soviets crippled the UNSC, plus the Soviets didn't seem willing to integrate their military with NATO.

Also, I don't think Russia "acting up" is anything new. This time around, though, the countries they want aren't still smoking from Nazi Germany invading them the first time, and then being chased on fire back through them.


Tbh though Russian NATO aspirations are prolly not a matter for the NS Military Worldbuilding thread

[The Christian American Republic]

Sweden has not been invaded because tactically and strategically, it makes sense for nobody in that region of the world to do so. In Africa, where resources and weapons are abundant, and national alliances are not, it makes sense

1- America invades places in different regions and Russia invaded Finland back when aggression in Europe was less unacceptable

2- Sweden only applied to join NATO recently.

I have invaded Sweden numerous times.

So have I, but this world order is rapidly moving to the NS-metaverse as well as IRL.

When I invade Nordic countries as either Muslim countries or Christian countries with a non-white President I get nuked these days)

(And people do invade for depending on your political views, either humanitarian intervention or conquest, IRL e.g. Ukraine).

My question because I have a Hellenic nation-
How would the world react to a Greece with a better funded military and educational requirements for voting invading Britain?

[The Grand World Order]

When I invade Nordic countries as either Muslim countries or Christian countries with a non-white President I get nuked these days)

w-

what

are you seriously using the summieposting threads of you invading Sweden as a statement about the workings of RL politics

you're not getting nuked because of the color of anyone's skin, you're getting nuked because you're in threads where people are trying to "win" with one-liner posts rather than write anything coherent

[Noocratic Callipolis]

When I invade Nordic countries as either Muslim countries or Christian countries with a non-white President I get nuked these days)

w-

what

are you seriously using the summieposting threads of you invading Sweden as a statement about the workings of RL politics

you're not getting nuked because of the color of anyone's skin, you're getting nuked because you're in threads where people are trying to "win" with one-liner posts

Ok. I didn’t consider that was why I was nuked but IRL no one invades Sweden because America would defend it.
Even though America could probably financially benefit more by invading it.

That’s why in my new thread I demand people have a reasonable casus belli.

[Gallia-]

Why wasn't Russia allowed to join NATO back when the Soviet Union fell?

Because literally one WP member joined before it. NATO requires unanimous approval to be considered for membership.

Was it a case of the NATO countries trying to keep NATO relevant

It was more the United States trying to avoid ceding territorial-economic sovereignty to the burgeoning European Union, which it did and does, views as a strategic competitor. Not to the extent of the PRC, as most EU members are US vassals or NATO members, but certainly a long-term threat. NATO tried to reinvent itself as a Americanized form of the European Development Bank, and failed tremendously in the task because it's a military alliance, not a infrastructure development fund.

If the US had stepped aside, allowed the EDB to expand Eastwards, and kept NATO stagnant at best, much of the current NATO-Russian tensions would be non-existent today. Of course, the guy who helped invent NATO (George Kennan) literally told people that in 1994 this, but they were pretty high on hopium and neoliberalism at the end of the day, unfortunately. Which is why the US and EU turned the PRC into what it is today and have unwittingly badgered Russia's greatest bugbear: being invaded by the Western Europeans.

It would be akin to the WP expanding from Eastern Europe into Mexico and Canada if the US had lost the Cold War and the Labour Party won or something. I suppose you wouldn't be able to blame them but another Veracruz or Pancho Villa Expedition would be more or less expected at that point, as America's bugbear is letting the Europeans run significant political-economic alliances within the Western Hemisphere.

[The Grand World Order]

Ok. I didn’t consider that was why I was nuked but IRL no one invades Sweden because America would defend it.
Even though America could probably financially benefit more by invading it.

That’s why in my new thread I demand people have a reasonable casus belli.

and what, pray tell, is the reasonable casus belli for the US invading Sweden out of nowhere? Afghanistan was actively harboring and helping an organization that killed 3,000 Americans in a nation-traumatizing terror attack, Iraq had a genocidal dictator with a track record of invading his neighbors, destabilizing the conduit that much of the world's (not just the US) oil flows through, and was supposedly developing nuclear weapons


I'll tell you what. The reason your threads are going awry is because nobody in them is actually roleplaying. They're throwing numbers at a text box. RP is cooperative storytelling, and when the majority of the posts are shorter and less developed than my drunken rants at 3AM, the entire thing is going to collapse. Your latest thread opens with a whopping three sentences of in-character context. You cannot expect anyone to take this seriously; if the opening post is three borderline silly sentences, why would anyone respond with anything substantial? You also probably shouldn't keep churning out new accounts for every new thread that you make. All in all, the issues you are running into are not issues of IC national responses (countries can even have no casus belli, some people roleplay countries that eschew international norms and choose to be the pariahs,) they are issues of general RP quality. It sounds harsh, but that's how it is. There are recent and good examples of RP and opening posts, even if it's mostly dogwater today. Generally, wars and such should be discussed OOCly among the participants before IC activity happens. Not every detail needs to be discussed, and even the "winner" might be ambiguous, but the participants should generally be on the same page. It also helps avoid the awkward chat-style posts where the dialogue between characters is spread across several pages (e.g. I can coordinate OOCly with the other party what the person says, then condense it all into a single, higher-quality post that isn't jarring to read.) Like I said, RP is a cooperative storytelling practice. It's not a game that you "win."

[Noocratic Callipolis]

Iraq had a genocidal dictator with a track record of invading his neighbors, destabilizing the conduit that much of the world's (not just the US) oil flows through, and was supposedly developing nuclear weapons

It’s true he was genocidal but the war was economic not based on moral revulsion at genocide in my opinion, at least not purely that.
(otherwise why have neither the Democrats nor Republicans intervened in Myanmar).

It wasn’t even instability because going to war when a future President would probably pull out relatively soon would cause more instability than a dictator remaining in power.

Also I don’t know if Gaddafi’s Libya was engaging in genocide (which is considered the “crime of crimes” under international law)

Regarding the casus belli for invading Sweden it’s normally nations I have on here that consider abortion to be evil and/or consider their gender education system to be both weakening and oppressive as well as a form of child abuse.

In addition, perhaps more importantly, they believe that Sweden has self-incurred weakness making their conquest both achievable and deserved as well as believing it’s in their economic interests.

In addition, regarding Afghanistan harbouring terrorists; in many of my RPs Sweden is harbouring rapists and refusing to extradite them due to their opposition to the death penalty.

[Gallia-]

US cared so much about Saddam's genocides it supplied the satellite BDA of Halabja to the Iraqi Supreme Command and never enforced the NFZ over Iraqi Kurdistan tbh.

Iraq made America mad because it did something that America hates with a fury rarely seen in the West since the 19th century: attempt to redraw a map.

[The Grand World Order]

US cared so much about Saddam's genocides it supplied the satellite BDA of Halabja to the Iraqi Supreme Command tbh.

What countries say and what countries do are not the same.

It's easier to not have global outrage over your invasion of a country when that country is led by someone who committed a genocide, you yourself don't have to actually care.

[Noocratic Callipolis]

US cared so much about Saddam's genocides it supplied the satellite BDA of Halabja to the Iraqi Supreme Command tbh.

Exactly

It's easier to not have global outrage over your invasion of a country when that country is led by someone who committed a genocide, you yourself don't have to actually care.

Similarly on RPs I use reasons or excuses to invade Sweden, namely actions that offend most people the two continents that make up the majority of the world (Africa and Asia) and are against mainstream interpretations of the two main world religions (Christianity and Islam)

[Gallia-]

US cared so much about Saddam's genocides it supplied the satellite BDA of Halabja to the Iraqi Supreme Command tbh.

What countries say and what countries do are not the same.

Yes, the US doesn't care about genocides. It never has. It never will. It invaded Iraq in 1991 because it invaded Kuwait. It invaded Iraq in 2003 because it wanted to spread democracy from the barrel of a gun. One was a fairly justifiable war of liberation and protection of cartographers from doing their jobs (even if it was, much like the Third Gulf War, built on a literal lie). The other was a naked act of aggression against a sovereign state on false pretenses and perpetuated for fairly cynical motives. Saddam's genocides, which were backed and supported by the United States under Reagan, had nothing to do with it. That's just a cope justification by Gen X and Millennial veterans who suffered moral injuries because they were told one thing and did another, instead of just being proud of wrecking brown people or whatever, like normal imperialists were in the 1800s.

America would probably invade Sweden if it announced it was going to start selling microchips to China in a few years I suppose. That seems a fairly typical US response. More likely it would just declare total economic warfare because it can't afford to send soldiers though, much less occupy Sweden. It could barely afford to occupy Afghanistan lol, and Americans lose automatically if Sweden just never surrenders. The US lost its brutal imperial streak after WW1 I think when it watched the British Empire self-immolate, so they'll just build roads, get blown up, and go to the village and beg for their forgiveness or w/e for building a road I guess. That would be a pretty realistic RP portrayal of what actually happened in Afghanistan at least. Not Iraq though. Iraq was more Soviet but the US still lost somehow.

The USSR would have leveled the village. Not because the Swedish villagers shot at them, but because they're in the way of the road. Only after evacuating the village to a protective dormitory-factory structure though. Based and musclepilled, Soviets out here creating the Fordist version of the Strategic Hamlet. Farms are CRINGE. Just build food with hammers and nails lmao.

[Noocratic Callipolis]

What countries say and what countries do are not the same.

Yes, the US doesn't care about genocides. It never has. It never will. It invaded Iraq in 1991 because it invaded Kuwait. It invaded Iraq in 2003 because it wanted to spread democracy from the barrel of a gun. One was a fairly justifiable war of liberation and protection of cartographers from doing their jobs. The other was a naked act of aggression against a sovereign state on false pretenses and perpetuated for fairly cynical motives. Saddam's genocides, which were backed and supported by the United States under Reagan, had nothing to do with it.

America would probably invade Sweden if it announced it was going to start selling microchips to China in a few years I suppose. That seems a fairly typical US response.

Why is America going to let Sweden into NATO, a country whose own military say they wouldn’t be able to stop an invasion?
Arguably they’d slow NATO down rather than being a valid check on Russia.

[Gallia-]

in many of my RPs Sweden is harbouring rapists and refusing to extradite them due to their opposition to the death penalty.

cant believe julian assange started a nuclear war by lying to a chick about wearing a condom and sweden calls that rape

no one expected this plot twist

[Noocratic Callipolis]

in many of my RPs Sweden is harbouring rapists and refusing to extradite them due to their opposition to the death penalty.

cant believe julian assange started a nuclear war by lying to a chick about wearing a condom and sweden calls that rape

no one expected this plot twist

No, don’t be silly, in this scenario people who commit rapes in my NS nations (proven ones because they’re horrible violent brutes/dumb enough to target reliable witnesses/other strong evidence) move to Sweden before enough evidence is collected to charge them, Sweden will not extradite people who will face the death penalty in their destination.

This provides a casus belli of harbouring violent people (thus can be interpreted as deterring attacks on my NS nation) rather than purely relying
on the casus belli’s of the humanitarian defence of
toddlers and foetuses (which
Is out of fashion).

[The Grand World Order]

Yes, the US doesn't care about genocides. It never has. It never will. It invaded Iraq in 1991 because it invaded Kuwait. It invaded Iraq in 2003 because it wanted to spread democracy from the barrel of a gun. One was a fairly justifiable war of liberation and protection of cartographers from doing their jobs. The other was a naked act of aggression against a sovereign state on false pretenses and perpetuated for fairly cynical motives. Saddam's genocides, which were backed and supported by the United States under Reagan, had nothing to do with it.

You're entirely missing the point. The point is that it's easier to justify things on the world stage when your opponent is a piece of shit. I can justify robbing a pedophile more easily than I can justify robbing my neighbor, even if I helped the former set up his internet at some point.

America would probably invade Sweden if it announced it was going to start selling microchips to China in a few years I suppose. That seems a fairly typical US response.

hot take

Why is America going to let Sweden into NATO, a country whose own military say they wouldn’t be able to stop an invasion.
Arguably they’d slow NATO down rather than being a valid check on Russia.

By this logic, most of NATO "would slow NATO down," Iceland for instance doesn't even have an actual military. NATO's thing is to standardize the militaries of each member nation so that (ideally) they can easily conduct joint operations, rather than have each country use wildly different doctrines, organization, et cetera.

[Gallia-]

Yes, the US doesn't care about genocides. It never has. It never will. It invaded Iraq in 1991 because it invaded Kuwait. It invaded Iraq in 2003 because it wanted to spread democracy from the barrel of a gun. One was a fairly justifiable war of liberation and protection of cartographers from doing their jobs. The other was a naked act of aggression against a sovereign state on false pretenses and perpetuated for fairly cynical motives. Saddam's genocides, which were backed and supported by the United States under Reagan, had nothing to do with it.

You're entirely missing the point. The point is that it's easier to justify things on the world stage when your opponent is a piece of shit.

The Second Gulf War sold on lies. The Third Gulf War was sold on lies. The US committed more genocides than Saddam, both during the Cold War, and during its time actively supporting Saddam. Saddam wasn't "a piece of shit" after all, that's something CNN invented on TV. Saddam's genocides are pretty par the course for what nation building leaders do, from Ronald Reagan in Nicaragua to Ronald Reagan in Iraq, which is probably why the US actively supported Saddam's genocides by propping up his regime during the First Gulf War.

If Saddam is a piece of shit, to you, what does that make Ronald Reagan or George Bush? They were the only people who both had the knowledge of Saddam's genocides' full extent and the power to stop him in his tracks by not supporting him? Bush got mad because Saddam tried to redraw a coastline by 30 miles or so, not because he killed Kurds or Marsh Arabs. What? Do you think the Director of the CIA under Ford didn't have a few notches in his genocide belt before he ascended to Presidency? Lol. Saddam went to war against Madison Avenue and CNN's propaganda machine, he lost in the Anglophone media, unsurprisingly. As far as objectively bad leaders go, he's far less bad than the typical US president, who supports at least two, sometimes three or four, Saddams (or worse) at once. Saddam just bullied some ethnic minority separatists in his own country. Big deal? The USA does that all the time when it bombs Neo-Nazis with 40mm grenades courtesy the ATF and FBI.

The US can just bullshit any dumb reason to invade anyone at any time.

The 2-minute hate machine would turn on and everybody would hate Sweden in like an hour because it's feminist or they painted a street sign in rainbows or something. Fox News would be all over that so the Red Team can say "wow femnazis!" and CNN and Bloomberg would produce reams of fake headlines about how Swedish military computer chips are found in Chinese missiles or something so the Blue Team can say "wow Chinese agents!" and unify in their hatred. This is what targeted advertising does lol.

You're the one missing the point: It's trivial to muster up any stupid reason to invade a country. The US does it all the time. All wars are done for fairly banal and stupid reasons at the end of the day.

The question isn't "why would the US invade Sweden". That's a red herring, because the US has invaded Mexico for far stupider and less damaging shit than Sweden could ever do to it. The question is "why is this dude RPing in a thread where he "gets nuked" by people for invading Sweden instead of exploring the concept" lol. The answer is this dude RPs to "win" because he thinks RPing is "a game" and not a collaborative storytelling medium like old old PNP RPGs.

That's all you really need to say tbh.

Also he's like sextuple posting with himself or something which is weird af.

[Noocratic Callipolis]

The point is that it's easier to justify things on the world stage when your opponent is a piece of shit

A headmaster/headmistress/head hijra/whatever so you don’t get mad
would be fired in most countries of the world (which is mostly Asia and Africa and is mostly religious) for running their school like Egalia.
In a lot of countries they would be arrested.
This includes powerful countries like Russia.

In many countries , abortionists are regarded, rightly or wrongly, as “pieces of shit.” even in some US states, in-fact.

In my NS RPs, there usually isn’t three countries that dictate almost all world policy, for various reasons.

NATO's thing is to standardize the militaries of each member nation so that (ideally) they can easily conduct joint operations, rather than have each country use wildly different doctrines, organization, et cetera

How would Sweden or Iceland benefit America even in “joint operations”?

[The Republic of Western Sol]

Hi all! I need ideas for tactics for my nation that revolves around my tech with an essence of German blitzkrieg and some scorched earth tactics, if anyone can find me anything which would work I’d be more than appreciative

Also I may need some fighter tactics for small, fast and nimble, yet lightly armoured craft

[Noocratic Callipolis]

Does patriotic propaganda from a young age (primary school) make those kids better soldiers who they get older and enlist?

[The Grand World Order]

You're entirely missing the point. The point is that it's easier to justify things on the world stage when your opponent is a piece of shit.

The Second Gulf War sold on lies. The Third Gulf War was sold on lies. The US committed more genocides than Saddam, both during the Cold War, and during its time actively supporting Saddam. Saddam wasn't "a piece of shit" after all, that's something CNN invented on TV. Saddam's genocides are pretty par the course for what nation building leaders do, from Ronald Reagan in Nicaragua to Ronald Reagan in Iraq, which is probably why the US actively supported Saddam's genocides by propping up his regime during the First Gulf War.

If Saddam is a piece of shit, to you, what does that make Ronald Reagan or George Bush? They were tbhe only people who both had the knowledge of Saddam's genocides and the power to stop him in his tracks by not supporting him?

Bush got mad because Saddam tried to redraw a coastline by 30 miles or so, not because he killed Kurds or Marsh Arabs lol.

It's amazing how close you're getting to seeing the point and yet it still sails right over you. I am quite literally saying that Saddam's actions were useful for American propaganda to mitigate exposure to diplomatic/economic risk. You are trying to make it sound like I'm arguing that these were the genuine motivators for the US to invade in 2003, when I'm not. Rather than entertain your whataboutism and strawmanning, it's time to stop derailing the thread.

Does propaganda from a young age (primary school) make those kids better soldiers who they get older and enlist?

If it's effective, it's good at improving recruiting outcomes, but it's not going to necessarily make them more competent at doing military tasks. A patriotic society doesn't make people better at shooting, units more cohesive, or the officers more competent at leading; it's even less applicable for roles that aren't direct combat ones (i.e. what most soldiers do.) Private Snuffy isn't going to turn a wrench on a fuel truck better because he was indoctrinated in grade school.

[Gallia-]

How would Sweden or Iceland benefit America even in “joint operations”?

Iceland provides a useful landing pad for P-3s and F-15s. That's about it.

Dunno what Sweden would do. Not fight for the Soviets/Russians I guess, so not much? Sweden is joining America/NATO because it's too lazy to buy its own nukes and too poor to bother funding a real army though. That's just the size of it: it's afraid of being bombed but not quite afraid enough to actually spend money on itself, so it's just looking for a national defense free ride. Given its extremely close level of essentially near-NATO membership in the 1950's through now though it's not really surprising, as I think Sweden would have been considered a Soviet amphibious landing target had there been stiff resistance in Norway whereas Finland wouldn't since it had a treaty.

They kinda tanked their armed forces in the 1990's, along with a host of other government venues, to pay down the massive real estate collapse al a Japan they had though.

The Second Gulf War sold on lies. The Third Gulf War was sold on lies. The US committed more genocides than Saddam, both during the Cold War, and during its time actively supporting Saddam. Saddam wasn't "a piece of shit" after all, that's something CNN invented on TV. Saddam's genocides are pretty par the course for what nation building leaders do, from Ronald Reagan in Nicaragua to Ronald Reagan in Iraq, which is probably why the US actively supported Saddam's genocides by propping up his regime during the First Gulf War.

If Saddam is a piece of shit, to you, what does that make Ronald Reagan or George Bush? They were tbhe only people who both had the knowledge of Saddam's genocides and the power to stop him in his tracks by not supporting him?

Bush got mad because Saddam tried to redraw a coastline by 30 miles or so, not because he killed Kurds or Marsh Arabs lol.

It's amazing how close you're getting to seeing the point and yet it still sails right over you. I am quite literally saying that Saddam's actions were useful for American propaganda to mitigate exposure to diplomatic/economic risk.

Saddam's actions were enabled by the United States in the first place. You might consider it a form of political blackmail, tbh.

The US, like any empire, is just good at spinning off consequences of its own actions from itself to its vassals. All empires do this.

I'm not sure what exposure the US had to diplomatic or economic risk. Who would get mad at the US for invading Iraq? In either US-led Gulf War? Itself? The biggest issue it had was convincing its own soldiers to fight and not to question why they were in Iraq, making the place worse and killing civilians, because Americans need to see themselves as superhero do-gooders instead of seeing themselves as colonials suppressing uppity fuzzy-wuzzy. That's one part of the British Empire that actually functioned well, and that the USA ditched, for some reason, in the 20th century. Perhaps earlier, since a lot of the US reasoning for wars in the 19th century tended to be "we're not evil like the British" or something.

You don't seem to understand that I think, perhaps because you fell for the dupe? The US went to Iraq make things worse, succeeded wildly, and left.

This made a lot of America soldiers very sad because they thought they were going there to do good things, but they did bad things instead, and for some reason they are upset by this. They should just own the fact that bombing weddings and shooting crowds of gawkers is part and parcel of war and a good, moral thing to do. Except the US moral compass doesn't allow for that, so you get moral injuries, because the US is a flawed empire like all empires. It's just flawed morally, rather than economically, and that's arguably worse. The way to avoid this is to teach soldiers that killing the enemy is morally just, because civilians don't exist, except for our side. It doesn't really do this successfully though because soldiers come prebaked with moral compasses saying that human rights exist or something.

I think we're sorta just talking past each other rather than addressing either's point. I'm saying that the US has consistently done more evil than any "empire" it's ever knocked down, both because it's existed longer, and because it's the dominant hegemonic force in the world. Any imperial conquest necessarily requires massive application of violence to innocent people to succeed, obviously. Whether that's considered a necessary evil or a laudable good is probably the sole difference between the American Empire and Hitlerite Empire I suppose.

So my argument is about the standing of the USA, immaterial of its own views, as an empire. Your argument seems to be that the US's argument for its imperial wars was couched in its own morals though. They're more adjacent than one is subsumptive of the other I think.

[Noocratic Callipolis]

The Second Gulf War sold on lies. The Third Gulf War was sold on lies. The US committed more genocides than Saddam, both during the Cold War, and during its time actively supporting Saddam. Saddam wasn't "a piece of shit" after all, that's something CNN invented on TV. Saddam's genocides are pretty par the course for what nation building leaders do, from Ronald Reagan in Nicaragua to Ronald Reagan in Iraq, which is probably why the US actively supported Saddam's genocides by propping up his regime during the First Gulf War.

If Saddam is a piece of shit, to you, what does that make Ronald Reagan or George Bush? They were tbhe only people who both had the knowledge of Saddam's genocides and the power to stop him in his tracks by not supporting him?

Bush got mad because Saddam tried to redraw a coastline by 30 miles or so, not because he killed Kurds or Marsh Arabs lol.

It's amazing how close you're getting to seeing the point and yet it still sails right over you. I am quite literally saying that Saddam's actions were useful for American propaganda to mitigate exposure to diplomatic/economic risk. You are trying to make it sound like I'm arguing that these were the genuine motivators for the US to invade in 2003, when I'm not. Rather than entertain your whataboutism and strawmanning, it's time to stop derailing the thread.

Does propaganda from a young age (primary school) make those kids better soldiers who they get older and enlist?

If it's effective, it's good at improving recruiting outcomes, but it's not going to necessarily make them more competent at doing military tasks. A patriotic society doesn't make people better at shooting, units more cohesive, or the officers more competent at leading; it's even less applicable for roles that aren't direct combat ones (i.e. what most soldiers do.) Private Snuffy isn't going to turn a wrench on a fuel truck better because he was indoctrinated in grade school.

Thank you.

Iceland provides a useful landing pad for P-3s and F-15s. That's about it.

Dunno what Sweden would do. Not fight for the Soviets/Russians I guess, so not much? Sweden is joining America/NATO because it's too lazy to buy its own nukes and too poor to bother funding a real army though. That's just the size of it: it's afraid of being bombed but not quite afraid enough to actually spend money on itself, so it's just looking for a national defense free ride. Given its extremely close level of essentially near-NATO membership in the 1950's through now though it's not really surprising, as I think Sweden would have been considered a Soviet amphibious landing target had there been stiff resistance in Norway whereas Finland wouldn't since it had a treaty.

They kinda tanked their armed forces in the 1990's, along with a host of other government venues, to pay down the massive real estate collapse al a Japan they had though

Thank you too, it makes sense.