Partnering against Russia's bad behavior.

• Author: McKinley, Craig R.
• Position: President's Perspective

* Perhaps surprisingly, Sweden has been on my mind over the past month, and there are two very good reasons. First, Carl Bildt, the nation's former prime minister and foreign minister, came to Washington, D.C. in early May and gave a powerful presentation at the Brzezinski Institute of Geostrategy, a subsidiary of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The title of Bildt's presentation, "Europe Surrounded Not by a Pang of Friends--But by a Ring of Fire," left no doubt about his thinking.

During the five decades of the Cold War, Sweden maintained a strictly neutral position. Bildt said this is no longer the case. The nation today is seriously concerned about what it perceives as a delicate--perhaps deteriorating--international situation.

Bildt argued convincingly that the expectations of the post-Cold War period--that Europe would become peaceful, more cooperative and more tightly integrated--had not been realized. One issue is the ongoing problems in the Middle East. But a more direct threat to stability in Europe is Russian behavior: its interference with and eventual invasion of Ukraine, and its illegal annexation of Crimea, he said.

Bildt described recent Russian actions under President Vladimir Putin as "revisionist, reactionary and perhaps reckless." This has led to a general perception that Russia is today "an unpredictable country." This suggests that NATO should return to its "core mission," and that "hard power is back in business," he said. This was a most sobering appraisal.

Second, I had the opportunity in early June to represent the National Defense Industrial Association at the 15th U.S.-Sweden Defense Industry Conference, a biennial gathering jointly sponsored by NDIA and its counterpart, the Swedish Security and Defense Industry Association.

Measured in any category, from geographic to economic size, the United States is many times bigger than Sweden. Accordingly, the overall U.S. defense budget is 80 times its size, and its modernization accounts 100 times larger.

However, Sweden and the United States are both known for developing and leveraging technology and applying it to a broad array of endeavors spanning commercial and defense activities. These two countries are recognized worldwide as leaders in technology development and innovative thinking. This has allowed Sweden to historically have a global impact disproportionate to its size.

Despite the worrisome conditions described by Bildt, only a handful of...