Yet, all these worries raised by Swedish citizens -- and cited by MacFarquhar in the Times -- are not unreasonable concerns since nuclear weapons often are stored in NATO countries, NATO members are obliged to go to war to protect allies, and there have been problems with rape cases in countries with NATO or other foreign bases.
How those realities might affect a country agreeing to a NATO military association are reasonable concerns for Swedes to raise, but instead these worries are dismissed as Russian disinformation without any evidence to support the charge.
No Evidence
MacFarquhar even concedes the point that his lead allegation lacks evidentiary support, writing: "As often happens in such cases, Swedish officials were never able to pin down the source of the false reports."
Russian President Vladimir Putin, following his address to the UN General Assembly on Sept. 28, 2015.
(Image by (UN Photo)) Details DMCA
MacFarquhar then adds: "But they, numerous analysts and experts in American and European intelligence point to Russia as the prime suspect, noting that preventing NATO expansion is a centerpiece of the foreign policy of President Vladimir V. Putin, who invaded Georgia in 2008 largely to forestall that possibility."
Though MacFarquhar cites the Russian "invasion" of Georgia supposedly to thwart its entrance into NATO as a flat fact to support his thesis, that historical reference is a far more complicated issue since it was Georgia that launched an attack on South Ossetia, a breakaway province, and killed Russian peacekeepers stationed there.
An investigation by the European Union laid most of the blame on Georgia for initiating the conflict, with the Russians then reacting to the Georgian assault. A 2009 report on the E.U. mission led by Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini rejected Georgian claims about self-defense, finding that Georgia, not Russia, started the conflict.
"None of the explanations given by the Georgian authorities in order to provide some form of legal justification for the attack lend it a valid explanation," Tagliavini said.
The E.U. report stated: "There was no ongoing armed attack by Russia before the start of the Georgian operation. Georgian claims of a large-scale presence of Russian armed forces in South Ossetia prior to the Georgian offensive could not be substantiated by the mission. It could also not be verified that Russia was on the verge of such a major attack."
In other words, Putin's military did not "invade" Georgia in 2008 "largely to forestall" Georgia's entrance into NATO, but as a reaction -- arguably an over-reaction -- to Georgia's violent offensive into South Ossetia.
Yet, MacFarquhar cites this dubious point as some sort of indirect "evidence" that Putin is responsible for questions posed by Swedish citizens about what a NATO association would mean for them.
After acknowledging no real evidence and citing a historical "fact" that really isn't a fact, MacFarquhar expands his conspiracy theory into more recent events claiming that Putin "has invested heavily in a program of 'weaponized' information, using a variety of means to sow doubt and division. ...
"The fundamental purpose of dezinformatsiya, or Russian disinformation, experts said, is to undermine the official version of events -- even the very idea that there is a true version of events -- and foster a kind of policy paralysis."
The MH-17 Case
As an example, MacFarquhar cites the case of the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, claiming "Russia pumped out a dizzying array of theories." The Times correspondent then asserts as flat fact that "The cloud of stories helped veil the simple truth that poorly trained insurgents had accidentally downed the plane with a missile supplied by Russia."
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