Gotland, the largest island in the Baltic Sea, is roughly 56 miles off the Swedish coast and only 155 miles from Kaliningrad, a major Russian exclave in Europe with a large military base. The island's position in the south Baltic gives it immense strategic value if a conflict were to break out in the Baltic Sea. "Today's modern air missiles and anti-ship missiles can hit targets in the order of 300-400 kilometers," wrote Karlis Neretnieks, a retired Swedish major general, for the Royal Swedish Academy of War Sciences last week. "Anyone who can group such systems on Gotland will be able to make it very difficult for an opponent to operate on and in the Baltic Sea. From Bornholm in the south to the Åland Islands in the north, from the Swedish mainland in the west to the Baltic states to the east."

Russia briefly seized Gotland from Sweden in 1808 during the Napoleonic Wars, but Swedish forces expelled them one year later and have controlled it ever since. Unlike Crimea, there are no ethnic Russians on Gotland, but the island is still closely tied to Moscow's interests. Russia's Gazprom conglomerate owns Nord Stream, an $11-billion pipeline running along the Swedish island that pumps 55 billion cubic meters of natural gas each year to Western Europe. Russian President Putin vowed to defend the strategically vital pipeline with the Russian Navy in 2006, and in one March 2013 incident reminiscent of the Cold War, two Russian heavy bombers and their fighter escorts skirted Swedish airspace and simulated a bombing run against the island. NATO's Baltic air patrol responded. Sweden's did not.

The Crimean crisis has renewed the ongoing debate in Swedish political circles about the country's dilapidated military defenses. Military budget cuts by successive post-Cold War Swedish governments grew so severe that Göransson, the country's supreme commander, publicly estimated in January 2013 that Sweden could only hold out for a week if it were attacked. A Swedish military college later confirmed Göransson's analysis in a report titled "Can We Defend Ourselves For A Week?" and said that international help would be required because "the military does not have a credible ability to defend all of Sweden." (NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen later remarked that Sweden cannot count on military support from NATO unless it becomes a member state.)

In response, a Russian TV program broadcast a parody music video in which a Göransson impersonator bemoans, to the tune of ABBA's "Mamma Mia!", Sweden's military weakness. "It's very scary! Really! Let us join NATO already," the impersonator sings at one point, "Otherwise Russia will conquer us all right the next week!" (Watch the full skit below with English subtitles.)

Sweden's military isn't necessarily idle. Two hundred and seventy Swedish soldiers are currently deployed in Afghanistan alongside NATO, and the country's air force helped enforce the UN-authorized no-fly zone over Libya in 2011. Swedish soldiers have also joined UN peacekeeping missions in Mali and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But its home defenses are what causes the most concern among some Swedish officials, leading Sweden to increase its defense-cooperation efforts with non-aligned Finland shortly before the Crimean crisis erupted.