The sound of gunfire echoed around the Norwegian fjords as a row of Swedish and Finnish soldiers, positioned prone behind banks of snow, trained rifles and missile launchers on nearby hills ready for an enemy attack. The drill, in March, was the first time forces from Finland and Sweden have formed a combined brigade in .
As nonmembers, Finland and Sweden don't have the protection of NATO's guarantee that an attack on one ally is an attack on all, but moves to join the alliance are growing more likely.
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BARDUFOSS, Norway (Reuters) - The sound of gunfire echoed around the Norwegian fjords as a row of Swedish and Finnish soldiers, positioned prone behind banks of snow, trained rifles and missile launchers on nearby hills ready for an enemy attack.
In the Nordic countries, widespread proficiency in English is positioned as a positive and even critical component of overall global competitiveness and competence. Indeed, maps illustrating who speaks the “best” English in Europe show a swath across the Nordic countries, and the number of people in the Nordic countries claiming proficiency in English is only a few percentage points below those in places such as the UK and Ireland. At the same time, the Nordic countries are routinely listed as the “happiest,” the most egalitarian, the most classless, least corrupt, and an epicenter for so-called “tender values.” In recent years, there has been a spate of publications highlighting how Nordic exceptionalism carries with it some unfortunate downsides, including the possibility for people to ignore or fail to acknowledge issues such as racism, sexism, and other social inequalities because of the affordance: “But our society is equal.” There is a parallel in the use of Engli