As for 2-down, the Scandinavian nation was Sweden, and it needed to lose some of its land. When you think of war, if a nation is losing land during that war, it usually starts from the border of the nation. So losing land was a hint to take one end of “Sweden” (either the “s” or the “n”, in this case it’s the “n”) and discard it.
Then you take “Swede” and collapse (anagram) it. This gives you the word “weeds” which is a kind of invasive species.