Czech_pivo said:
Would the Polish/German/Danish, along with the Swedish/Finnish navies not be enough to stop the Russian Baltic Fleet cold? As for the Russians coming in winter, wouldn't their supply lines be way too long for them to get quickly into southern Sweden via northern Finland? Get into southern Sweden they have to either drive down the entire length of Sweden or cross the Gulf of Bothnia from Finland and I would think that the combined navies from the countries listed above would sink the entire fleet.
I would think that it would be more likely for the Russians to take Finland (but why didn't they do it back in 1944-45 would they easily could have with no repercussions) and the Baltic states then bother with Sweden.
Positions in northern Finland would make it very easy to takeover most of northern Norway. Norway would be very hard pressed to defend that area as it would have Russians on 3 flanks.
The only real defense against a Russian invasion is generally considered to be collective defense, with the big hammer being US and NATO reinforcement. This is why the Russian strategy, in the past, tended to reply on quickly cutting off Europe from air and sea reinforcement from North America via a northern 'right hook'. At one time, for example, they had seven airborne divisions within a 2 hour flight of Narvik and Bardufoss airport. I'm not sure what the threat levels are like now, but they were more than capable of moving far and fast to get what they wanted through deploying land, air and sea forces.
The small peacetime armies of the Scandinavian countries are augmented by the home guard, I think present in every country including Denmark, who are intended to buy time while the nation mobilizes through conscription. Norway, a country of 4 million, used to claim to be able to mobilize a million people in a week. These high levels of readiness were justifiable during the Cold War, a very expensive and resource consuming posture but, since then, they've been downgraded until the recent Russian 'Argy Bargy'. Viz:
The Swedish home guard (hemvärnet) has received twice as many applications as normal since Russia took actions in Crimea, a newspaper noted on Thursday.
https://www.thelocal.se/20140313/crimea-sparks-swedish-home-guard-rush-russia-kaliningrad-ukraine
Six months after some 4,300 volunteer members of the Danish Home Guard were told to disassemble their rifles in the aftermath of the Copenhagen terror attacks, members will once again be allowed to keep functioning weapons at home.
https://www.thelocal.dk/20150826/danish-home-guard-to-rearm-following-terror-attack