Aligning the Non-Aligned: a re-interpretation of why and how Sweden was granted access to US military materiel in the early Cold War, 1948–1952

Abstract

The article argues that previous research into how Sweden came to be eligible to purchase armaments in the United States in the early Cold War has misread the historical evidence. Instead of there being a change in US policy in early 1950, as has been argued by several Cold War scholars, this article states that it was the incremental changes of Sweden’s security policy that eventually made the US government view the Swedes as possible non-aligned allies in the Cold War. The difference is crucial. The Swedish adherence to the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (CoCom) embargo is a critical factor when trying to understand the perceived change in the US policy, because this was a confirmation of the Swedish consent to US hegemony in Western Europe. Furthermore, this article argues that, contrary to what prior research has assumed, it was never part of US policy to get Sweden to join the North Atlantic Treaty (NAT or NATO later). The evidence for assuming that this was ever a US policy objective is simply lacking. The article thus presents a much needed re-evaluation of US–Swedish security relations during the late 1940s and early 1950s.