For sale: Swedish Cold War fortifications
Swedish defense authorities are selling off military facilities that were the backbone of the country’s defense system during the Cold War.
Over a billion kronor worth of property has changed hands in recent years, Radio Sweden reports.
“The holdings we are are currently selling had their usefulness during the Cold War, cavern fortresses and storage facilities. At that time it was a question of defending territory and now we have shifted focus to a more mission-based defense, and that requires a different sort of facility,” says Karl-Martin Svärd, property manager of the Swedish Fortifications agency.
Dotted all along the Swedish coastline are hundreds of defense facilities – often blasted into the sides of mountains – which are no longer in use. They became superfluous in December 2004, when the parliament approved a new defense policy that in effect discarded the traditional strategy of repelling a full-scale invastion. Instead, the focus shifted to a “mission-based” defense.
