Sweden Ready to Use Force Against Mystery Submarine

Russia, Netherlands Both Deny Submarine Is Theirs

After days of wandering around the Baltic looking for a mystery submarine, Sweden’s military now says that they are ready to use “armed force” to try to force the submarine to surace.

Sweden’s Navy has been scouring the area off the coast after reports that someone spotted a “man-made object,” putatively a submarine, surfacing in the country’s waters.

Supreme Commander General Sverker Goranson claimed the submarine was violating Sweden’s sovereignty. Swedish officials have speculated that it was a Russian ship in distress, adding a sense of Cold War intrigue to the situation.

Russian officials noted that the Netherlands was carrying out a naval exercise in the Baltic that included an emergency surfacing exercise. The Netherlands and Russia both maintain that the submarine, if indeed it exists at all, is not theirs.

What this means if Sweden does start dropping depth charges remains to be seen, but Swedish military officials concede that despite many previous searches for submarines, they’ve never actually caught one.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.