Russia invades Ukraine

[Torco]

i wonder what kind of effect this sort of thing had on the morale of the russian soldiery. is anyone else getting an east india company kind of vibe from wagner ? like, it's a dangerously powerful servant of the state, but the state needs it because it needs the gold it extracts from poor and faraway countries?

My impression is that the British government has been driven by purely profit-driven interests for a very long time. IIRC in the beginning, the East India Company toppled empires when the king expressly told them not to. Nothing came of their disobedience. Later, the British fought wars for the express purpose of getting the Chinese addicted to opium. By WWI, the government existed to ratify whatever decisions the business class wanted.

more than comparisons to napoleon, what we marxos do is to point out that that is exactly how capitalist, colonialist, imperialist etcetera governments behave: ratify and pursue the agenda of the business class. and not *just* capitalist governments either, of course, depending on who is meant by the business class: I am reminded here of the merchant republics (and the aristocracy's opinion that all republics are merchant republics, which may not be a bad notion). but, of course, that is not the only pressure they're under: even the british ended up disestablishing the company, california nationalized the booze industry, etcetera.

I honestly don't understand what makes you think my post was pro-Putin. Are you sure you want to leap to a reflexive defense of the British monarchy?

in things that raise such passions as this, it is often the case that saying anything that is not explicitly "boo putin" gets read as "yay putin".

The EIC, and the UK raj after it, were nasty pieces of work. But there's no need any more for leftists to be sentimental about Russian colonialism. It's just as nasty and way harder to eradicate.

how do you figure it's harder to erradicate ? it doesn't seem russia is some unimpregnable fortress tbh.

[zompist]

The EIC, and the UK raj after it, were nasty pieces of work. But there's no need any more for leftists to be sentimental about Russian colonialism. It's just as nasty and way harder to eradicate.

how do you figure it's harder to erradicate ? it doesn't seem russia is some unimpregnable fortress tbh.

One is history. Look at a map of the world from 1900 and from today. Which parts of the map are still colored the same? The British, French, Dutch, German, Belgian, Spanish, and Italian empires are all gone. China's is still there. Russia's is almost entirely there.

Second is the attitude of the rest of the world. Everybody hates imperialism, except for the Russian and Chinese kind, which get a big shrug. And it's not because it's any more benign, nor that it's beloved by the people involved.

[Torco]

is it really the case that "everybody fails to condemn russian imperialism" ? even accepting that imperialism is expansionism, invasions etcetera (which let's do), it seems to me that the pro-russian position is a minority in the west and in general throughout the world and that a sizeable majority of the international community is either pro-west/ukraine. as for public opinion, I think a lot of people are neutral, sure, in a way that hasn't been the case in other efforts at coalition-building by the west (which is especially worrying since this one is not a blatantly fake casus belli shrouding a brazen attempt at just invading a country, as was the case with Irak, but rather a denunciation of that very thing done by someone else, russia in this case), but still most people seem to me to be in the pro-nato/ukraine camp. in the US, for example, most people support arming ukraine: not everyone, of course, but certainly a big majority. ipsos says 56% of republicans and independents and almost 90% of democrats.

of course there are people who are neutral, indifferent towards the whole thing, pro-russia, or just pro not getting involved: not everyone is in favour of arming the ukranians at all costs, but that's not the same as "everyone's just okay with russian imperialism".

your first point is solid, tho, regarding formal borders. and yeah, we can talk about like the informal neo-colonial order of the modern world in which case the US basically inherited a lot of the british empire blabla, but the informal neocolonial world, while still relevantly imperialist in a marxist sense, is not the same as what you mean, which is direct and formal political dominance over spheres of influence a la russia/belarus. Still, yeah, the russians and the chinese have demonstrated to be remarkably hard nuts to crack, and it's likely that, in the end, the US world order might fail to absorb them. I think it might all hinge on whether the current attempt at dedolarization by russia, china etcetera will succeed or fail.

[zompist]

a sizeable majority of the international community is either pro-west/ukraine

Yes, of course, since last year. There was a pretty big shrug in 2014 when Russia grabbed Crimea, and a series of shrugs when Russia created enclaves in former USSR or Soviet Bloc countries (e.g. Moldova).

Eastern Europeans, of course, don't react that way; but the rest of the world has historically not cared about Eastern Europe either.

Besides, I'm not just talking about USSR republics, but about Russia itself. Who gets as excited about Siberian peoples as they do about Native Americans? Who worries about Chechnya (brutally ravaged by Putin) or the Tatars?

your first point is solid, tho, regarding formal borders. and yeah, we can talk about like the informal neo-colonial order of the modern world in which case the US basically inherited a lot of the british empire blabla, but the informal neocolonial world, while still relevantly imperialist in a marxist sense, is not the same as what you mean, which is direct and formal political dominance over spheres of influence a la russia/belarus.

There's neocolonialism, sure— and there's Russian and Chinese neocolonialism. Ironically, Putin has greatly weakened his part: because he's done so badly in Ukraine, Central Asians are not as intimidated by Russia.

It's probably better for the world if China offers an alternative path than the IMF etc. It means that China and the West have to compete for clients. But the underlying mechanism is not really any different: that money comes with heavy strings attached.

[Torco]

Yes, of course, since last year. There was a pretty big shrug in 2014 when Russia grabbed Crimea, and a series of shrugs when Russia created enclaves in former USSR or Soviet Bloc countries (e.g. Moldova).

true. also with the syria business... but I think that's comparable with the kinds of shrugs that happen when the us invades... anywhere, really. still i get what you mean about tatars etcetera: a similar thing happens with china, though tibet and xingjiang have gotten a looot more coverage. I think that here a thing similar to 'leftists love russia' happens: I think that a common lefto line, sedom openly acknowledged, is that while, yes, these countries may well be engaging in an assimilationist project vis a vis the native siberians, tibetans, tatars etcetera, it is very useful for the united states empire (you know, the one that controls basically the entire world) for that to be highlighted in their endeavour to subjugate every square centimeter of the planet to absolute, so if one opposes empires it's not the best place to start. this is, of course, unfair towards the uyghurs and karelian finns etcetera, but I'm not sure is, on the whole, incorrect.

It's probably better for the world if China offers an alternative path than the IMF etc. It means that China and the West have to compete for clients. But the underlying mechanism is not really any different: that money comes with heavy strings attached.

So you're for multipolarity? I wouldn't have guessed it. I think that's already what's happening, though, only in just a few select countries, not the whole world at once. the deal china offers seems to me, though I haven't looked deeply at it, a lot less onerous: sure the money comes with strings, but the strings don't entail structural reform, cutting public spending, austerity or the financing of domestic fash and/or religious fanatics: rather, mostly "pay back or we own the harbor" and "chinese companies get contracts", far as I've seen. at any rate, it seems the chinese deal is becoming more and more popular in africa.

[zompist]

Yes, of course, since last year. There was a pretty big shrug in 2014 when Russia grabbed Crimea, and a series of shrugs when Russia created enclaves in former USSR or Soviet Bloc countries (e.g. Moldova).

true. also with the syria business... but I think that's comparable with the kinds of shrugs that happen when the us invades... anywhere, really. still i get what you mean about tatars etcetera: a similar thing happens with china, though tibet and xingjiang have gotten a looot more coverage. I think that here a thing similar to 'leftists love russia' happens: I think that a common lefto line, sedom openly acknowledged, is that while, yes, these countries may well be engaging in an assimilationist project vis a vis the native siberians, tibetans, tatars etcetera, it is very useful for the united states empire (you know, the one that controls basically the entire world) for that to be highlighted in their endeavour to subjugate every square centimeter of the planet to absolute, so if one opposes empires it's not the best place to start. this is, of course, unfair towards the uyghurs and karelian finns etcetera, but I'm not sure is, on the whole, incorrect.

I don't think that strategy worked out well for the world in Cold War and it's even worse today.

I get the attractiveness of the single-villain ideology. You never have to think of who the villain is, you never have to worry about nuances, you just bask in the warm glow of your righteousness and eternal powerlessness. It's probably almost unavoidable in Latin America, where the idea that there's any enemy but the US is hard to grasp.

But, you know, there are other continents. Do the leftos just write off a billion Chinese because rewriting the Cold War script is so hard? In PPP the Chinese economy is bigger than the US, and in nominal terms they're catching up fast. When do the leftos plan to think about anything but the US? 2050? 2350?

You only have to look at history to see that when a left-wing revolution happens, all those problems that were put off— racism, sexism, environmental catastrophe, dictatorship, prison camps, empire— come back to bite you. Or rather, they don't bite the Party, they bite the people you're supposedly liberating. The idea of amassing power first, and putting everything else in the trashbin, isn't much different from fascism.

Just to clarify, I'm pretty leftist myself. But I think we have to learn things from the last hundred years, and that includes how left-wing movements go wrong.

It's probably better for the world if China offers an alternative path than the IMF etc. It means that China and the West have to compete for clients. But the underlying mechanism is not really any different: that money comes with heavy strings attached.

So you're for multipolarity? I wouldn't have guessed it.

Are you serious? Every human being in the US has exactly the same policies as Ronald Reagan? You're from Chile, so you're a Pinochetista?

mostly "pay back or we own the harbor" and "chinese companies get contracts", far as I've seen. at any rate, it seems the chinese deal is becoming more and more popular in africa.

I doubt it's that benign— if nothing else, you have to agree to fuck Taiwan. And why is Chinese super-influence over the local economy good when American or (going way back) British is bad? But yes, choices are good— it's not a coincidence that the neoliberal package got foisted on countries precisely when the Soviet empire was collapsing.

[Ares Land]

From what my Senegalese friends told me, in Senegal shady French companies basically handled everything with no competition; the results were predictable.
The Chinese corporations that moved in the last two decades aren't any more ethical; but the competition itself improved things somehow. If you want to build a road, a Chinese company will take the contract at a reasonable price, with a reasonable amount of bribes and shady dealings. Also, the road actually ends up being built. It's not much, but a huge improvement over French companies' usual dealings in Africa.
I think you get the same kind of stories in most former French colonies.

[Raphael]

Let's look at the Tankie Left's support for Putin from an economic policy perspective, shall we?

The Evil Imperialist Neoliberal countries of Western Europe, whatever other things might be wrong with them, usually have some kind of social safety nets. Not as much as they used to, because of all the fucked up developments of the last 45 years, but still to some extent.

Meanwhile, Glorious Antifascist Antiimperialist Russia has a hypercapitalist economic structure, where basically the only limitation on textbook neoliberalism is the unwritten rule that you have to be personally in good standing with the people running the show if you want to keep running your business in the shittiest and most abusive way possible.

And somehow, if Putin destroys the Evil Imperialist Neoliberal countries of Western Europe and replaces their current governing structures with handpicked successor regimes, which will presumably start doing things the way things are currently being done in Russia, that will be a glorious victory for the cause of socialism worldwide. Yeah, sure.

And that's before we get to the fact that the actual new rulers Putin will put in charge in most of Europe will be the local fascists, who, except in the countries closest to the Russian borders, are generally uniformly pro-Putin.

[Raphael]

Looks like Putin will actually blow up that nuclear power station, and there's nothing anyone can do about, and I have no idea just how catastrophic it will be for Europe, and for me personally. Fuck.

[Ares Land]

Looks like Putin will actually blow up that nuclear power station, and there's nothing anyone can do about, and I have no idea just how catastrophic it will be for Europe, and for me personally. Fuck.

If it's any consolation... I don't think he's going to blow it up. He's just stationing troops so he can keep threatening to blow it up indefinitely.

[Torco]

I get the attractiveness of the single-villain ideology. You never have to think of who the villain is, you never have to worry about nuances, you just bask in the warm glow of your righteousness and eternal powerlessness. It's probably almost unavoidable in Latin America, where the idea that there's any enemy but the US is hard to grasp.

Perhaps you misunderstand latin america. at least here, the dominant view of the US is rather positive, and we even have photocopied from the US, cato-institute style 'libertarians' becoming more an more a normal part of the political spectrum. gringos go home is an old-fashioned, pretty rare position to hold here. I rarely run across other anti-imperialists outside social sciences faculties and groups of far-from-the-overton-window leftos.

Are you serious? Every human being in the US has exactly the same policies as Ronald Reagan? You're from Chile, so you're a Pinochetista?

you know, the sad thing is chile seems to be undergoing such a strong move towards the right lately that in future this might not be a bad guess. but no, I don't mean because you're a gringo! I know you're waay left of center, and not just in the context of the united states either. my guess (or, I suppose, modal absence of a guess?) is that it seems to me that your general attitude towards china and russia is so negative, when compared to the US. multipolarity, at least in the real world, inherently means the US loses power and any or all of china, russia, iran, gain power. and like, that makes sense for me to want, who thinks that of course china, iran and russia are extremely evil, but also that the US is not very meaningfully less evil (it's nicer towards its own population, granted, but i am distinctly not a member of that group and neither is most of humanity, so that only goes so far)... and you know, at least China seems to have more of a policy of "do whatever, underling, just pay tribute" rather than the familiar "you're going to do exactly what i tell you or i'm going to coup you into 20 years of fascist dictatorship". The CPC seems uninclined to fund religious fundamentalism abroad, whereas whenever I look into some fundie movement, it seems like half the time I end up finding the CIA or DoD or that cult that invites every influential politician to their weekly breakfast to plot how to make the entire world born again christians or something. what I mean is if one does believe that the US is substantially less evil than its current geopolitical rivals then I wouldn't guess one would be for multipolarity, is all.

I doubt it's that benign— if nothing else, you have to agree to fuck Taiwan. And why is Chinese super-influence over the local economy good when American or (going way back) British is bad? But yes, choices are good— it's not a coincidence that the neoliberal package got foisted on countries precisely when the Soviet empire was collapsing.

I agree, though there's a lot of rope between those two ends. But i'm going to be predictably latin american, here:
chinese super-influence seems preferable to me than anglo superinfluence because of what i point out above: the chinese don't seem to be interested in making the world china in the way the americans seem to be in making the world america (insert that rammstein song here). Like yeah, emotionally I confess to holding the feeling of "ain't no chinese pinocheted my ass", and that's not nothing, but more broadly the US hegemony is the reason why neoliberal politics has been the politics since the fall of the soviet union, and the human cost of that seems to me to be just mind-bogglingly vast, even compared to a path of normal capitalism, not even new deal capitalism. let's not even tally how global US hegemony basically means no socialist experiment will ever be viable without such immense costs not even I would want it: see Songun and Juche, like yikes, give even me US dominance over that.

Choice is good, as you say: I prefer multipolarity over any global superhegemony because it means that hegemons need to, as you say, compete over customers. And there's also, you know, China's not going to win the contest by knockout anytime soon: at most it's going to spend the century or so as a near-peer competitor who gets whatever is too far for the US hand to properly grasp, but is still, when all is said and done, inferior. the problem of a chinese superhegemony might be one we have to face in future, but american superhegemony is both more immediate and more certain.

________________

@Raphael: I doubt the russian security system can compete with that of western europe, but they do have more vacation days, tho

[Raphael]

@Raphael: I doubt the russian security system can compete with that of western europe,

Not with Western Europe as a whole, I guess, but despite various efforts at political integration, "Western Europe", as a single entity, still doesn't really exist; it consists of a lot of individual countries. If Ukraine had worked out well for Putin, or if it still should work out well for him in the future, it's not difficult to imagine him picking those countries off one by one, until he has all of them.

[MacAnDàil]

I prefer both multipolarity and American hegemony to Chinese or Russian which is why more balance from democratic countries like Brazil, India, Germany, Mexico, Japan etc would be the better alternative.

[zompist]

it seems to me that your general attitude towards china and russia is so negative, when compared to the US.

True enough on Russia-- do you think there's any area where they are actually improving the world? Even if, well, someone thought "anything that hurts the US is great", Putin has increased US power by demonstrating that he will invade and genocide any neighbor he's allowed to.

I'm not negative toward China; I think Xi Jinping is a power-mad dictator, but that's pretty common lately. I don't think he's reckless in the way Putin is.

I agree, though there's a lot of rope between those two ends. But i'm going to be predictably latin american, here:
chinese super-influence seems preferable to me than anglo superinfluence because of what i point out above: the chinese don't seem to be interested in making the world china in the way the americans seem to be in making the world america [...]

China's not going to win the contest by knockout anytime soon: at most it's going to spend the century or so as a near-peer competitor

I understand your judgment here, from where you are. I don't think it's the 1960s anymore, but I understand not being in a rush to give the US the benefit of the doubt.

I'm not sure about your timeline there. Again, in nominal terms China's economy is 3/4 the size of ours; in PPP it's larger. For fifty years it's mostly just wanted to just grow its economy... well, you could say the same of the US in 1850. That policy isn't a guarantee of future cuddliness, and the nations actually near China are generally pretty alarmed by it.

Of course, in fifty years you and I will probably be dead and the ecosphere will be in serious trouble. (A problem China is now seriously making worse, by the way.)

[Torco]

Not with Western Europe as a whole, I guess, but despite various efforts at political integration, "Western Europe", as a single entity, still doesn't really exist; it consists of a lot of individual countries. If Ukraine had worked out well for Putin, or if it still should work out well for him in the future, it's not difficult to imagine him picking those countries off one by one, until he has all of them.

Putin could, if ukraine goes his way, in future aim at another country, but none of the viable targets qualify as western europe, surely. I don't think he has any chance at anything other than moldova, romania, hungary, slovakia, etcetera, certainly not Austria, probably not even Czechia. besides he can barely hold his own against a western armed (but not militarily backed) ukraine, he certainly can't dream of going puch-to-punch with Nato.

I prefer both multipolarity and American hegemony to Chinese or Russian which is why more balance from democratic countries like Brazil, India, Germany, Mexico, Japan etc would be the better alternative.

oh, fuck me yes. India is my big hope, there, the rest seem to me unlikely candidates.

True enough on Russia-- do you think there's any area where they are actually improving the world? (...)

I think it's too soon to say if the ukraine war ends up with a stronger or a weaker US, tbh. as to improvements that's easy: alongside China the de-dolarization project. Man it would be great if they pull that one off. That may be the most consequential dice the god of history is currently throwing.

I understand your judgment here, from where you are. I don't think it's the 1960s anymore, but I understand not being in a rush to give the US the benefit of the doubt.

thank you. I would add that it is kind of 1960 for the peruvians and bolivians (amongst others), though, they both very recently got couped (and the bolivian case was much more clearly a us-coup), and from what I hear the US is literally putting boots on the ground in peru to protect the regime of dina balearte, sooo... yeah, not in a rush to give the US the benefit of the doubt is correct. I also understand your position here, tho: the power of the US does in reality, to some degree, protect you as well as promote your prosperity: the actual lives of actual americans are better being citizens of the world hegemon than they would be being citizens of a third world country (and I think the americans know it: a lot of their dystopias boild down to 'what if we were treated like we treat foreginers' lmao). we all have a horse in the geopolitical future of the world. It's cheap for me to wish the decadence of the empire of the eagle when I stand to lose nothing from it.

in fifty years i'll be... damn, almost 90? yeah, most likely dead. my guess at that timeline? well, mostly I don't think GDP is that important: sure, China is already a near-peer in terms of the amount of units of currency exchanged per unit time, and if one focuses on the real economy it's very likely that that delta is bigger, as I don't think the chinese have so large a financial sector: their economy is probably more about the production of actual things, and less about the exchange of futures of derivatives of loans of bets on other bets on other derivatives of other futures ad infinitum. Still they're inferior in almost all measures of military capacity, especially power projection. they're inferior in high tech (though far superior in low tech), far inferior in cultural power (though they're catching up), faaaaaar inferior in diplomatic power (outside of their neighbourhood) and, crucially, inferior in economic power. like, China can't deploy sanctions, blockades, funding of internal opposition, etcetera on a country the way the US can and while the claws of the eagle are less sharp than they were, they're still the sharpest around in this sense, china can't even come close. The chinese GDP may be comparable, but not their percapita (there's, what, three times as many chinese as americans? five times? ). the us in 1850 was less an empire than it is now, but it still was, as it is now, the nation of perpetual war and nothing makes a soldier stronger than actually soldiering, and the reverse is true too: nothing makes soldiers weaker than perpetual peace, which China has had more or less for all of its existence. with love and respect to the honorable chinese analysts which may read this forum in present or future 为党争光! who has the PLA beaten? the tibetans at chamdo? the burmese? military tradition is a real thing in geopolitical contests, and china has very little of it. It seems likely that China, eventually, beats the US or at least comes to rival it, but if it happens it won't be soon.

[Ketsuban]

Bret Devereaux's blog post from yesterday seems relevant to the conversation here.

[hwhatting]

it's nicer towards its own population, granted, but i am distinctly not a member of that group and neither is most of humanity, so that only goes so far

The view from Europe is a bit different from that (ok, we're not "most of humanity", but still a not insiginificant part?). The U.S. helped liberate Europe from the Nazis, it helped rebuilding after the war; that made possible the kind of social market economy most Western Europeam states built after WW II; in most Eastern European countries they are also seen as the best protection against Russia (most of Western European politicians and public didn't see Russia as much of a threat until bang up to February last year). Although we have our share of anti-Americanism, and more in some countries than in others, I'd say the default is still to rely on America, even when making fun of it.

India is my big hope

Seeing how Modi is turning the country into the populist authoritarian democracy direction à la Orban or Erdogan based on Hindu nationalism, that requires a lot of optimism...

[Torco]

Bret Devereaux's blog post from yesterday seems relevant to the conversation here.

that was a good read. The only point where I substantially disagree with his analysis is in the -admittedly useful- abstraction that countries have monolithic interests: I -predictably- think it ignores the class aspect of it: it's not false to say that countries, overall, end up acting in their own interest: but it is more precise to say that they, overall, end up acting in the class interest of their rulers. this is almost tautological if we grant the existence of something like a distinct ruling class (which only the most naive would deny). A good example of this effect is Panama: the IMF estimates 40k GDP percapita PPP, but the panamanian national statistics office says the median salary (which is the income of workers) is 700 bucks with 20% of people in formal poverty (and latin american poverty thresholds are quite low, I assure you). Sure, those 700 bucks are not PPP, but still. Yet the decisionmakers are not those who live off salaries. Chile is similar: monthly, the GDP-PPP is 1,4k bucks or so, but only 15% of workers make that, the median being also something like 700 bucks (and tbh life isn't much cheaper than in Santiago than, say, Berlin). You wouldn't know that from walking through the posh districts of Santiago, though (and I bet the same applies to Panama), and that's the key: as long as the decisionmakers lives in a first world country, the country as a whole will decide to behave like a first world country. This also underlines the correctness of the diagnosis that the US's role as the capitain of the status quo coalition (a great name btw) is not inherent: enough time under trump or trump-like rule, for example, might well make the coalition look elsewhere: it's probably still true that being capitain of the coalition is good for the us as a whole, but the thing with neoliberalism (which is the status quo) is that it will, eventually, make this not so: in some ways it is already doing this, and in the US too: as wages lag behind inflation the standard of living of the great masses -though not of the decisionmakers- is dropping even in the imperial core, and I think a lot of the growth of populism in the US and elsewhere (and what is populism but a refusal of the status quo as a scheme which only benefits a small elite, at least at the level of sentiment) is behind that: things might get bad enough that more and more of american public ceases to perceive the status quo as benefitting them, but we're surely not there yet.

The view from Europe is a bit different from that (...)

Yeah, it's nicer towards its own population and the populations of the rest of the countries in the core. Still, this core represents something like 1 billion people (rough math from 450 EU + 330 US + 125 Japan + 50CAN-AUS-NZ) out of the world's 8. not insignificant, ofc.

and yeah, Modi makes this hope less hopeful lmao: still two evil hegemons afford more leeway than one evil hegemon, and possibly three more than two.

[Raphael]

The latest news now are that 1) the Kremlin claimed that there was a meeting between Putin, Prigozhin, and a lot of other Wagner Group leaders in the Kremlin after the mutiny, and 2) Erdogan has supposedly agreed to support Swedish NATO membership.

Item 1) makes me think "Huh? Wasn't it pretty risky for Prigozhin to just walk into the Kremlin, after what he did?"

Item 2) makes me worry what Erdogan might have gotten in return.

[hwhatting]

The latest news now are that 1) the Kremlin claimed that there was a meeting between Putin, Prigozhin, and a lot of other Wagner Group leaders in the Kremlin after the mutiny, and 2) Erdogan has supposedly agreed to support Swedish NATO membership.

Item 1) makes me think "Huh? Wasn't it pretty risky for Prigozhin to just walk into the Kremlin, after what he did?"

Item 2) makes me worry what Erdogan might have gotten in return.

At 1): Yes, and this doesn't fit the picture I had of the situation. Prigozhin must either have been reckless, or he had some kind of insurance in case he got arrested, disappeared, or killed. Question is what that insurance was.
At 2) What he got is all over the press ( quotes here from the Grauniad):

A statement issued after the three-way talks between Nato, Turkey and Sweden said that the two countries would work closely in “counter-terrorism coordination” and also boost bilateral trade ties.

“Sweden will actively support efforts to reinvigorate Turkey’s EU accession process, including modernisation of the EU-Turkey Customs Union and visa liberalisation,” the statement said.

Stockholm was also reported to have reassured Ankara that it would not support “terrorist organizations” and that a new bilateral security mechanism will be created between Ankara and Stockholm.

That agreement came after Erdogan paused his talks with Stoltenberg and Kristersson for a side meeting with EU chief Charles Michel, president of the European Council.

Michel hailed a “good meeting”, adding that they had “explored opportunities ahead to bring EU-Turkey cooperation back to the forefront and re-energise our relations”.

...

In May, Swedish lawmakers voted to tighten the country’s anti-terrorism laws, in an apparent attempt to convince Turkey that it would crack down on exiled members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, as well as Kurdish militia groups and the Fetö organisation of the exiled cleric Fethullah Gülen.

How much these promises - Sweden being tougher on people and organisations Erdogan deems terrorist, new impetus for Turkey's accession talks to the EU - will be adhered to when Sweden is safely inside NATO is hard to say - my estimate is, rather weakly -, but Erdogan at least needed some promises he can show to his base. I guess he mostly got leaned on very heavily by America behind the scenes.