What if Sweden was still a European superpower after 1721?

Perhaps Sweden gets its own little slice of Poland in the partitions?

A Swedish Gdansk and not much else would be an interesting sight.
 
Not focusing on 'how' Sweden was able to hold its empire, but what if it still was an empire in the 18th century.

Merely an Empire, or a legitimate top-tier "Superpower"/Great Power? Because the distinction between the two would have vastly different effects on Eastern Europe depending on the exact scale of Scandinavian power. Specifically, to be a Great Power they'll have to easily overshadow Muscovy, which throws off the hegemonic influences they were building up in the region and forces their attention north, much to the benefit of the Khanates, Ottomans, and Poles.
 
One of the biggest problems is that Sweden was always punching above its weight, with foreign mercenaries taking an even greater role in their army than in other countries. Sweden simply doesn't have the population to compete with countries to their south, especially Russia, over the long term. How long Charles XII and his successors can keep it up is uncertain, but Russian reforms to their military were already under way, and Swedish qualitative superiority can only count for so much.
 
One of the biggest problems is that Sweden was always punching above its weight, with foreign mercenaries taking an even greater role in their army than in other countries. Sweden simply doesn't have the population to compete with countries to their south, especially Russia, over the long term. How long Charles XII and his successors can keep it up is uncertain, but Russian reforms to their military were already under way, and Swedish qualitative superiority can only count for so much.

True this. Being massively superior to your opponents one on one doesn't matter if your enemy can quite literally send more troops than your men have ammunition.
 
For Sweden to remain a great power they must prevent the rise of not only a east Slavic power but also a German one as a suitably large east Slavic or German state with make them irrelevant
 
For Sweden to remain a great power they must prevent the rise of not only a east Slavic power but also a German one as a suitably large east Slavic or German state with make them irrelevant

The later is easy enough, since the German states as a rule generally provided checks on one another for centuries which prevented any one of them from gaining more than Austria's (Rather indirect) degree of hegemony. Prevent the rise of Brandenburg-Prussia's political ascendancy that came from its unique elevation to the respectability of "Kingship" and the Hapsburgs are unlikely to allow the status quo in the HRE to change to radically. As for the former, the Tartars states and Turks could easily do it for them in terms of dealing with the Rus; the bigger issue is preventing P-L in that case from eventually getting its house in order and organizing into a proper state rather than a "Noble Republic"; ironically due to the presence of a strong Swedish Empire putting pressure on them in the Baltic despite lacking the power base to even do more than politically (rather than materially) dominate it. Eventually, the Sejim would get its act together in its own self-interest. Is it possible to somehow get some kind of internal splintering of Poland?
 
A Sweden that was a Great Power, presumably not having lost the Great Northern War (preferably never having waged it for an extended period of time), is doable. This raises the question of its relationship to the other powers of the nort. What of Brandenburg-Prussia, Poland, Russia?
 
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