In 1966, soon after Sweden abandoned its ambition to develop a nuclear weapon, Alva Myrdal, a champion of Sweden’s nuclear reversal and a later Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said that “If there is to be something of an eleventh commandment: Thou shalst not carry nuclear weapons—why should it only be valid for some?” For the past 60 years, Sweden and to a lesser extent its neighbor, Finland, have been bridge-builders between adepts of nuclear deterrence and pro-disarmament abolitionists. They have played a similar role within the European Union since their accession in the mid-1990s, occupying an intermediate position between the mainstream of NATO members and the small group of disarmament advocates. […]
Sweden and Finland have traditionally been “bridge-builders” between the NATO allies covered under the U.S. nuclear umbrella and a small group of resolute nuclear abolitionists such as Ireland and Austria. Past bridge-building attempts include the launch of the first E.U. Strategy against the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, initiated by Sweden to mitigate the transatlantic and intra-European rift created by the 2003 invasion of Iraq, largely justified on proliferation grounds. Most recently, Sweden convened the “Stockholm Initiative for Nuclear Disarmament,” also known as “Stepping Stones,” again intended to reconstitute a European consensus around the matter in the face of growing polarization. Some fear, however, that if these Nordic countries join NATO, their role as mediators could be in peril.