Today's Russia , China or America could never be dominant players in a serious Baltic Sea war - the same goes for Britain, France, Italy and Japan, even in their naval heyday.
Geographic hard power here trumps military hardware Faux Power.
Sweden's long twin coasts and many mid-Baltic islands dominate the central Baltic - Germany's two coasts much less so, but its similarly central Baltic location and bigger population make up for that.
This is a 'sea' where land-based artillery and rockets alone can practically dominate the naval battle, never mind mentioning land-based aircraft , coastal mines and coastal boat torpedo runs.
So Swedish neutrality totally secured German's northern front (and a hostile British toehold in neutral Norway and Denmark won't have changed that much.)
Just as Swiss neutrality really secured Germany's southern front.
It still had two very wide, level and easily accessible fronts to the West and East, but that did not stop it fighting several such "Two Front" wars.
But would Germany have really been willing to fight three or four fronts all at once, no matter how small the Northern and Southern frontal assaults were ?
No comments:
Post a Comment