One big meatball. 5 things Sweden did accomplish in its €2.2 million imaginary submarine hunt

We called it last week and sure enough, the hunt for Red October, or some scuba divers, or sea otters (whatever they were looking for), is being officially called off by the Swedish Military.
Via ITAR TASS News Agency:

The Swedish armed forces’ nearly week-long operation launched in an attempt to identify what has been described as “foreign underwater activity” near the Stockholm Archipelago has ended inconclusively, the operation’s commander, Rear Admiral Anders Grenstad, told a news conference on Friday morning.
“The armed forces are of the opinion foreign intelligence activity did take place. The operation failed to identify the type, nationality or form of a foreign country’s operation,” he said.
“We have never pointed to a specific country,” Grenstad added.

Sure, Sweden’s military never pointed a finger at a single country, but their mass media (Svenska Dagbladet), and just about every Western media outlet sure did.
They all pointed their collective, coordinated fingers at Russia, and they all went on the offensive to drudge up more ‘Putin wants to take over the world’ nonsense, with Baltic state governments making a case for more NATO and more military spending in an effort to stop the expansionist policy of the Russian empire.
All of which is probably why the entire made up incident took place in the first place…good business for the military industrial complex.
And speaking of money…ummm well spent:

He [Rear Admiral Anders Grenstad] declared that the operation had cost an equivalent of €2.2 million. Fire-fighters spend approximately as much during one weak to deal with forest fires, Grenstad said.
A source at the Russian Defence ministry earlier told TASS in the wake of reports of an allegedly disabled submarine the search was unsuccessful because there was none.

So, what exactly did the €2.2 million spent and media hyped, boogie man panic accomplish for Sweden:

1. Not finding anything after all the circus style hype made Sweden’s military look weak and incompetent.
2. Spending all that cash to come up empty handed was a true waste of money and time.
3. Backtracking midway through the search to proclaim that they may be looking for scuba divers or sea otters was well…laughable.
4. Many people now believe the whole thing was just a made up on orders from NATO to stir up Russophobic sentiment.
5. The quick coordination of western main stream media to, once again, blame Russia showed the Kremlin, once again, that the West is dead set on regime change and aggression, not diplomacy and cooperation.

In the end, the whole story (or non-story as we like to call it), was a complete loss for Sweden and yielded nothing more that one big IKEA meatball.
References:
http://en.itar-tass.com/world/756221