“No matter how capable your ships, they can only be in one place at one time,” said Christian Le Miere, senior fellow for Naval Forces and Maritime Security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. It was recently invited for war games with the United States. The Swedish navy, with five anti-submarine corvettes, is still regarded as skilled in anti-submarine warfare. In 1981, in an incident known as “Whiskey on the Rocks,” a Soviet nuclear Whiskey-class submarine was stranded near a major naval base deep inside Swedish waters after it ran aground, causing a diplomatic standoff. When Russian warplanes staged a mock bombing run on Sweden last year, Danish jets belonging to NATO based in Lithuania took to the air to shadow them after Sweden’s air force was caught napping. With the Ukraine crisis heightening tensions, Sweden’s defence capability was already under the spotlight. Local media reported that several were now in a Swedish museum. In 2008, Sweden sold some of its anti-submarine helicopters and pensioned off the rest. Sweden has fewer big fighting ships than Norway, which has half its population. The Nordic state and European Union member, which last waged war two centuries ago, spends more on its generous family welfare benefits than on a military that accounts for around 1 percent of GDP after years of steady defence cuts. Sweden’s military said on Wednesday that it would be scaling down the hunt, with some ships returning to port, although it remained on high alert. Stockholm’s huge archipelago is now forecast to suffer severe storms, hampering the search. More than 200 troops, stealth ships and helicopters have scoured waters off Stockholm since Friday in Sweden’s biggest military mobilisation since the Cold War, after reports of foreign “underwater activity” - suspected to be a Russian sub. The Swedish minesweeper HMS Kullen is seen in the search for suspected "foreign underwater activity" at Namdo Bay, Stockholm October 21, 2014.
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