Comments by "LRRPFco52" (@LRRPFco52) on "The Baltics Ditch Russia for European Integration || Peter Zeihan" video.

Sweden, like many other remnants of the bygone empires, had some small firms that adapted to new developments pioneered in England, Germany, and the US, but its modernized infrastructure came much later, namely after WWII. Sweden was a major naval power in Europe up until the early 1800s, having spent centuries dominating the Nordics and Northwestern Russia, with bouts of competition with Polish-Lithuanian Empire as well. There is a delusional sense of romanticism among Swedes that they are still some type of super power, without even being a middle power anymore. They definitely contributed to the development of some new artillery technology and high quality steel barrel manufacturing even in the late 1800s, after the Prussians really took high-strength steel artillery to the forefront in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, but the 1800s-forward Swedish population has never been large enough to support modern industrial sectors. Take gas turbines, for example.
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Rail Baltica is basically converting the Baltics to European standard rail gauge instead of leaving them on the old Russian tracks. That will help with economic integration of the baltics.
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@Munin497 When we look at the various stages of industrial revolution, there are many technologies and production capacities that simply don't exist in most countries, including Sweden. You need a much bigger population to support aerospace manufacturing, for example. Sweden is an assembler in this space with some limited electronics integration, but jet engines, semiconductors, and missiles are made elsewhere, then purchased by SAAB and its subcontractors to assemble. Those critical technologies are not made in Sweden.
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By the 1950s, Sweden was assembling jet fighters made with critical systems built in the US and England. The internal propaganda to Swedes was to make them believe Sweden had the capability to manufacture all of the systems in its jet fighters, starting with the most critical system of all: the engine. Sweden never could build a fighter engine and still can't. It has always imported jet engines from Rolls Royce, Pratt & Whitney, or General Electric. The UK and US engines were then rebranded under Volvo Flygmotor and given Volvo designations starting with "RM". Examples: SAAB Draken had the Rolls Royce Avon. SAAB Viggen had the Pratt & Whitney JT8D. Gripen A/B/C/D has the GE F404. Gripen E/F has the GE F414. The same thing happened with fighter Radars and missiles. Hughes, GEC-Marconi, and Raytheon developed and sold the critical avionics and fire-control systems to Sweden, who then re-branded them. Within Sweden, the people are told SAAB, Volvo Flygmotor, and Swedish electronics firms are superior to the other countries, way ahead of their time while concealing the reality from the public. This feeds into a sense of Swedish nationalism and superiority complex, and makes the people feel a sense of pride as they look down on everyone else.
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@ordningsmannen Georgia not only produces fighters, but C-130s as well. F-16 production line was moved to Georgia. C-130 has been there for 70 years in Marietta. If you want to talk about naval shipbuilding, you're looking at Virginia, which has a smaller population than Sweden, and has put more hull displacement in the water than most nations combined. Sweden tried making its own jet engines in the 1950s and failed, not because it's a flawed nation, but lack of industrial, scientific, and test capacity. Brits and Germans made the first jet engines, but the US surpassed them long ago. It just goes to the point about the size of the US vs individual European nations. The US States are connected by the most navigable set of waterways in the world, in a temperate zone, with a common language and government, with more physical and human capital resources.
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The connection to Helsinki is by ferry. There are a bunch of ferry services between Tallinn and Helsinki already. Finland's rail system was initially built by the Russians in the mid-1800s, so Finland has the wider tracks. I've ridden multiple ferry services between Helsinki and Tallinn over the years, as well as the Tolstoy train that Lenin and Lee Harvey Oswald rode into Russia.
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When I was training with the Estonians, coming from Finland, they had older Finnish Pasi APCs, Israeli Galil rifles, and MG3s. Now they have a lot more US weapons with M142 HIMARS, new US-built LMT Carbines, Vortex Optics, and US Javelin anti-tank weapons. Sweden has sent CV90s and Carl Gustav AT weapons as well. You can look through the Estonian Army list of weapons and vehicles to see country of origin.
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