An op-ed published in Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet July 12 calls on NATO to play tough with Russia. Author Marcus Willershausen, is the spokesman on defense and security policy for the youth organization of the Liberal Party, which is part of the government coalition. Willershausen concludes: “The West has scaled up support for Ukraine step by step and every time Putin has warned about the Western escalations and threatened with nuclear weapons,” which he hasn’t done “but all the time it has been empty words. To play hard would be a better strategy than allowing Putin to dictate how we support Ukraine.”
Willershausen is not inside the very pro-war government, but the Liberal Party is. He is echoing the stated policy of Carl Bildt, who in his Holberg debate with Prof. John Mearsheimer, on Dec. 1, 2022, “Will Fear Keep Us Safe?” said that the West should reject any nuclear weapons blackmail by Russia. Willershausen calls for NATO to provide aircraft and ground troops to Ukraine and allow Ukrainian attacks inside Russian territory.
He does not explain, however, just how Ukrainian/NATO attacks on Russia’s early warning sites (or Crimean family beaches) is supposed to “defend” Ukraine.
