THANKS, VLAD:

The last time this famously neutral country went to war, Napoleon was on the back foot in France, and Britain was preparing to burn Washington.

But Russia's invasion of Ukraine has upended 200 years of global pacifism for the children of the Vikings.

And so it was that as President Vladimir Putin of Russia issued veiled threats late last month about unleashing nuclear war, the United States was holding military exercises with Sweden, one of NATO's most recent applicants.

While the war raged in Ukraine, hundreds of Marines joined their Swedish counterparts for maneuvers in the Baltic Sea, on and around some of Sweden's 100,000 mostly uninhabited islands. In the cold rain and under heavy fire, they scrambled up slippery rocks, landed combat boats on shores, and crawled on their bellies through forested ravines.

Tweet   @brothersjudd