Weak courts pause the rivalry without solving it

Frederick I was selected partly because Sweden's estates expected him to be weak, but the state still needed someone capable of binding competing factions into an executive direction. He soon abandoned active rule, while Sweden's parliamentary institutions debated more effectively than they decided. Russia meanwhile cycled through Catherine I, Peter II, Anna, and Ivan VI as each new regime rewarded its own supporters. The absence of war in this interval is presented less as stable peace than as mutual political incapacity.