On the 6th of March 2025, BBC Headline reads: “Sweden is ‘no longer a country that cannot be trusted’”, a report by Jorn Madslien.

I never thought of Sweden as an untrustworthy country. That was a clever headline as it got me to click to read the whole article. This is how the article begins:

War, cross-border conflict and geopolitical upheaval are rarely deemed good for business.

Yet that appears to have been the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on two of the aggressor’s neighbours to its west – Finland and Sweden.

Hi, my name is Terence and I’m your host for the Daily Monsoon, a podcast where I connect current events to matters of faith. Trump has been busy. I wonder whether he has read the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” and decided to do everything the book says not to do.

He has in these few days paused military aid to Ukraine, then he paused intelligence sharing to Ukraine. A lot of pressure to get Ukraine to go along with whatever the US plans for the negotiating table.

I am sympathetic to Ukraine. Russia is the aggressor. Ukraine is the victim. In a good and just world, Russia would be kicked off Ukrainian soil.

But at the same time, I don’t think Trump is necessarily wrong to do what he is doing. That may sound like a contradiction. I will share more on another day, just not today. Because I want to see what happens next before I commit to a position. Personally, I think many people commit too early when they didn’t have to and because they staked out that position, it becomes psychologically hard for them to admit they were wrong, so they double down.

While I resist on commenting directly on Trump’s decisions on Ukraine, I want to talk about the effect.

Europe is taking Trump seriously. UK, France, EU are all talking about how Europe needs to step up in its defensive capabilities. And today’s article shows how Sweden has benefited from the NATO alliance.

The obvious benefit is to the alliance’s military, it’s might and coordination. They can now share intelligence, assets and plans that were previously inaccessible to Sweden and Finland.

The obvious winners are the private sector that can offer product and services to a larger demand. A demand made larger by having a bigger customer base. Instead of supplying to fulfil Sweden’s needs, it can now supply to fulfil NATO’s needs. Great news for the military industrial complex.

That’s the thing right? When war or the prospect of war becomes profitable, you are going to open the floodgates. People will be incentified to go to war or to threaten war.

You can spin it positively. From the article:

Johan Sjöberg, security and defence policy advisor at the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise, says Nato membership has opened doors for Swedish companies, not least because “the perspective of other countries and companies [towards them] has changed”.

Mr Sjöberg adds that he favours a “holistic view, that security is good for business, as increased security and stability provide long-term credibility”.

One interesting part of the article is the Nordic idea of “Total Defence”.

I quote:

Also applied by Norway and Denmark, it considers national infrastructure such as the internet and telephony, energy generation and distribution, road networks, and secure supplies of food, medicine as parts of a total defence system.

Much of this may not be registered as defence spending in the statistics, but at the same time, none of it is free.

This brings to mind, Singapore’s recent problems with making packed food for emergency use. The idea is you can keep your cooked meal for months and just open up to eat, no heating up needed. Great idea, except for the embarrassing problem of food poisoning. So Singapore is sorting that out now.

So defence is not just about who has the biggest baddest anti-aircraft guns or anti-missile launchers. It’s also about food, the Internet, and so on.

As a Christian, how do I read all this?

Well, the Bible is clear that we should strive for peace. Jesus is the Prince of Peace.

The Bible is also clear, there will be war. So Christians are not surprised with war. We don’t live in the fantasy that if we are better fed, better educated, better enriched, there will be no war. There will be war because sin exists. As long as greed, envy, lust, sin, exist in the hearts of men, there will always be war and violence.

So, the way I see it, the way I interpret it, the problem is not the military industrial complex. Cause a lot of people think that if we can just get rid of them, then there will be peace. No.

Do you think if America gets rid of all the military defence contractors, the makers of bombs, guns and jets, imagine if you just wave a magic wand, or if China buys over all of them, and makes all of them from China, do you think if American military manufacturing might was gone, there will be world peace?

Of course not. Ah… the thing is we need to get China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Europe, everybody else to stop making guns then there will be world peace. I don’t have to tell you that is unrealistic. Why would anyone give up on their military power?

Well, that is what the world did with nuclear weapons right? The countries that have them saw how terrible nuclear weapons are, so they agreed, they won’t proliferate it, we will limit the countries who have this technology. They won’t amass it, in fact, as I understand it, they actually agreed to reduce their stockpiles. And for a time, American and Russia, agreed to inspections to ensure that they were keeping to the deal.

So there is hope that countries can be sane enough, reasonable enough, to make war less deadly, what a funny thing to say, make war less deadly. Or we can work to make war less likely.

We do our best. Just because we know that it is impossible to eradicate war, it doesn’t mean we just give up. Become fatalist. Que sera sera. Whatever will be, will be. No. We continue the good fight.

That is how Christians practise their faith. God already knows the future. God is able to make that future happen. Nobody can thwart God’s will. Then it seems naturally to say, “Why should we bother doing anything since God can just snap his fingers and make whatever he wants happen?”

But that’s not God’s design for us.

For reasons that are his and his alone, God’s desire is for us to work according to his will. And his will is for there to be peace, not war. Love, not violence. And so, Christians work towards peace, despite knowing there will always be war. And we love, knowing that we will be hurt. And Christians await that final day, the Lord’s Day, when true peace will truly reign.

This is the Daily Monsoon, a podcast where I connect current events to matters of faith. Thanks for listening. Bye.