MILITIA, NATIONALISM, AND POLICY IN GERMANY, POLAND, AND SWEDEN SINCE 2014

Europe has witnessed radical change since 2014, with the Crimean annexation and immigration crisis creating fertile ground for national populists, paramilitaries, and hybrid war strategies in Germany, Poland, and Sweden. This thesis explores 100 years of paramilitary history with particular emphasis on the post-2014 time frame. The historical evidence answers two questions; how paramilitaries are endangering the state’s monopoly on violence amid changing civil-military relationships, and how policy can mitigate pathological paramilitary threats while improving local security given contemporary threats? The region is divided in outlook. One considers paramilitaries a malignant far-right extremist cadre. Another considers them extensions of the military-security apparatus under the state’s purview. Another has societal-militarization concepts that paramilitaries do not fit into, so they are left out entirely. These broad camps represent the respective approaches to paramilitarism of Germany, Poland, and Sweden. These three case studies suggest that militias and nationalism are expanding across borders as a backlash against Europe’s core political and economic arrangements—often with Russian encouragement—in various measures and degrees in each state. Still, the paramilitary phenomenon is a potential source of strength where states improve civil-military relations with prudent paramilitary directives.
Lieutenant, United States Navy
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