User talk:Knowmore1919
83.253.130.212 argues that “Tunander is chiefly known for promoting a fringe narrative about 1980s submarine incursions in Sweden blaming an elaborately staged NATO false flag operation involving much of the Swedish military top brass” and that Tunander “is an outlier even among those who dispute the government's conclusion that Soviet submarines were responsible for most/all violations of Sweden's sovereignty.” 83.253.130.212 argues that the article “falsely suggest that Tunander enjoys mainstream credibility in Sweden and Norway, when in fact he does not.” Any scholarly research that liberates itself from an old paradigm is at the time by definition not “mainstream”, but let us first find out if Tunander’s “enjoys mainstream credibility”. Tunander’s analysis is supported by Ambassador Mathias Mossberg, the Secretary General of the latest Swedish Submarine Inquiry (from 2001). Mossberg was also the Secretary General for the 2002 Swedish Security Policy Inquiry (the Swedish Cold War history report 1969-1989) and recently Swedish representative to the inquiry of the death of Dag Hammarskjöld for UN Secretary General António Guterres. Mossberg had been Soviet expert in the Swedish Foreign Ministry and he had been heading the Foreign Ministry’s Analysis Group. Mossberg has written a foreword to Tunander’s latest book (in Swedish: “Det svenska ubåtskriget”, Medströms 2019). Of course, a scholar does not have to arrive to the same conclusions as the Government, however the Government has not concluded, as 83.253.130.212 states, “that Soviet submarines were responsible for most/all violations of Sweden's sovereignty”. This is false. The latest official inquiry concluded that it may have been both Western and Soviet intrusions. The first inquiry (the Parliamentary Inquiry) from 1983 concluded that the intrusions originated from the Warsaw Pact, most likely from the Soviet Union. In 1987, however, a Government Group under former chief of Swedish military intelligence, Major General Bengt Wallroth, wrote a report for Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson stating that there was no evidence supporting these earlier claims about Soviet intrusions. This Government Group report was declassified in 2001. The second inquiry from 1995 with General Bengt Wallroth as its Secretary General concluded that there had been no evidence for pointing to the Soviet Union or to any other particular state. This inquiry rejected the conclusions of the 1983 inquiry. This is also what then Defence Minister Anders Thunborg later stated: “It was wrong to point to the Soviet Union”. The 1995 inquiry argued that there had been a number of intrusions into Swedish waters, but there had not been possible to tie these intrusions to any particular state. In 2000 former US Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and former UK Navy Minister Keith Speed claimed, in long TV interviews, that they had operated submarines in Swedish waters regularly and frequently to test the readiness of the Swedish Naval forces. Prime Minister Göran Persson said the following day in the Swedish Parliament: “If there are any documents I don’t know, but I know that a former Secretary of Defense, a US Secretary of Defense, in a long interview, in clear wording, has presented a rationale for what, according to his view, NATO apparently did in our waters”. The third inquiry was appointed shortly after this interview. Prime Minister Persson appointed Sweden’s former Ambassador to Washington, Rolf Ekéus, to investigate what had happened, and he appointed Ambassador Mossberg as its Secretary General. Tunander was recruited to the Inquiry as a Civilian Expert. This third inquiry (from 2001) concluded that there may have been both Soviet and Western submarine intrusions. The report states: “There is no solid evidence that allows any conclusions to be made about the nationality of the violating submarines. [… The Soviet Union can] scarcely be excluded as a possible violating state. Nor can the possibility of intrusions by Western submarines be excluded. Nevertheless, the fact remains that it has not been possible to identify the nationality of any of the submarines.” This is now the official Swedish view. However, after new evidence appeared in 2007-2008, Ambassador Mossberg wrote a book (in 2009 with a new edition in 2016), that strongly suggests that intrusions most likely originated from the West. Ambassador Ekéus wrote a support on the cover of Mossberg’s book, and Mossberg wrote a foreword to Tunander’s recent book. It is true that many officers in the Swedish Navy still believe that these intrusions primarily originated from the Soviet Union, but neither the Government inquiry’s top representatives, nor the intelligence service has found support for this “Navy view”. In the Nordic countries, Tunander’s contributions were supported by Norwegian Commodore Jacob Børresen, who wrote the relevant parts of the Norwegian Defence History (2004), by Danish Chief Investigator Svend Aage Christensen and historian Frede P. Jensen, who wrote the official Danish Cold War History Report in four volumes (2005), by Colonel and Professor Pekka Visuri, who wrote the Finnish Cold War History (2006), and by Finnish President Mauno Koivisto (2008), who argued that the intrusions most likely were Western provocations. There have, of course, also been other views in the Nordic countries: some supporting the hypothesis that there were Soviet submarines and others that there actually was nothing at all. These views have all been part of the Swedish and Nordic debate. However, major representatives of the Scandinavian Cold War History Inquiry reports have supported the analysis made by Tunander. Tunander’s books and articles do not “promote a fringe narrative”. Tunander does not argue that the intrusions into Swedish waters were staged by NATO as stated by above critic. Tunander argues that some of the British operations linked to Stay Behinds were coordinated by two NATO committees, but these submarines were most likely never detected. He supports the view of former Chairman of NATO Military Committee General Vigleik Eide and of former British NATO Secretary General George Robertson that these had been national operations and not operations decided within the framework of NATO. Tunander published a Norwegian book in 2018 about the Libya War (“Libyakrigen”). The book has a foreword written by the former Chief of the Norwegian Intelligence Service, Major General Alf Roar Berg, who expressed criticism of the war and strong support for Tunander’s book. The fact that four out of five of Tunander’s recent books have forewords written by responsible generals, ambassadors and historians writing the official inquiry reports does not make Tunander into a “fringe” academic with lack of “mainstream credibility”. In the public sphere, different scholars and analysts have arrived to different conclusions, and this controversy is emphasized in the article. Tunander’s conclusions, however, have been closer to those made by several above-mentioned ambassadors and historians writing the official inquiry reports. He has probably also contributed to their change of view. 83.253.130.212 argues that the article “promotes” Tunander’s “theories” and “that he is not widely perceived to be a credible source”. This is not fair. An article about Tunander obviously has to present his scholarly research, similar to articles about any other scholar. The Wikipedia article about Hans Morgenthau presents his “political realism” as a contribution to international relations theory, despite that he politically was not considered “mainstream”, because he turned against the Vietnam War. An article about Samuel Huntington will bring up his ideas about “the clash of civilizations”, which some people did not consider “mainstream”. Tunander refers to Morgenthau in his analysis of the “dual state”, while Huntington refers to Tunander in his analysis of the Euro-Russian divide. If you present Morgenthau’s and Huntington’s ideas, this does not mean that you are “promoting” them. 83.253.130.212‘s statement about Tunander not being “perceived to be a credible source” is rejected by the official Danish Cold War History report, by the Finnish Cold War history and by the Secretary General of the official Swedish Cold War history inquiry and of the official Swedish submarine inquiry. The latter concluded that Tunander is not just “credible”, his recent book reflects “the current state of research about what happened in the Swedish waters in the 1980s” (from Mossberg’s foreword to Tunander’s book 2019). The Danish report considers Tunander’s analysis credible, because it is consistent with analyses made by the Danish intelligence service, and the Danish report considers Tunander and former Chief Historian of the CIA, Benjamin B Fischer, as the only credible scholars in the world writing about psychological operations (see Vol. 3, page 478). In Norway, Tunander wrote the chapter on “Norway and the Nordic Region” for the regular text book in political science, and he wrote the Foreign Ministry’s official text on the Nordic Region on the Foreign Ministry’s own website. Of course, there are people that like to comment on anyone and like to discredit anyone, who is not considered politically correct, but that has nothing to do with scholarly research. One last more private comment: This author was last year invited to Swedish authorities analyzing the security policy of the 1980s. Tunander’s research on the submarine intrusions into Swedish waters was carefully analyzed and his arguments were taken very seriously by the most senior officials. What 83.253.130.212 considers “mainstream” is certainly no longer the official Swedish view. New information has already made this “mainstream view” obsolete and it might soon be turned into a “fringe view”. Wikipedia better represent contemporary research rather than that of yesterday.
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