As the relations between NATO and Russia remain tense, there is no end in sight to the fragile situation in Ukraine. Adamant to remain independent, Kyiv is reaching out to the West in an effort to secure itself against what it sees as blatant Russian aggressions. Their outreach may include ambitions to join the U.S.-led military alliance.
Meanwhile, a debate has opened up about NATO expansion in northern Europe. Sweden and Finland, two Nordic alliance-neutral countries, have been pulled into what looks increasingly like a general stand-off between the Atlantic defense organization and Putin’s Russia.
This northern “front” of potential NATO expansion has emerged at the wrong point in time. Unlike Ukraine, neither Finland nor Sweden is experiencing any Russian threat against their territorial integrity, let alone sovereignty. This debate distracts attention from Ukraine; both Finland and Sweden would do more for peace and stability in Europe if they unequivocally said no to NATO membership and instead helped shed light on the Ukrainian situation.
Finland: thoughtful neutrality
The Nordic NATO debate is not only unhelpful to Ukraine, but also at times unnecessarily crude. Some arguments for Swedish membership, in particular, resort to primitive demagoguery, although others do take a slightly more thoughtful and measured approach. Nevertheless, the arguments for a Nordic NATO expansion appear to be a solution in search of a problem.
With that said, the debate about Finnish and Swedish membership is unlikely to die down any time soon. Therefore, it deserves some nuance, primarily in the form of a historic context. While both countries are formally neutral and have been so for a long time, Finland and Sweden approach the NATO membership question from different backgrounds.
Both countries stayed out of NATO after World War II, though it was not by choice for Finland. Their allegiance to Nazi Germany technically put them on the losing side of the war. The choice to cooperate with Hitler’s Third Reich was based on Finland’s history as a province of Czarist Russia; the Finns figured that they would have a better chance of self determination in a post-war Europe run by Berlin than by Moscow.
When the war was over, Finland was at risk of being gobbled up by the Soviet Union, either as a province like the Baltic states or, more likely, a satellite like Poland or Hungary. To avoid either and to stay west of the Iron Curtain, Helsinki signed a pact with Moscow and promised to never join an alliance hostile to the Soviets.
While tense at times, such as during the Berlin Crisis of 1961, the so-called Friendship and Stability Pact allowed Finland to slowly move closer to Western Europe without antagonizing Moscow. Finland could maintain its own constitutional form of government, a traditional European parliamentary democracy. They could join Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland in a treaty on intra-Nordic passport-free travel. They could gradually open up to free trade and free migration for Nordic citizens.
With the implosion of the Soviet Union, Finland was liberated from its Friendship and Stability Pact. However, knowing their own history and their geo-political role, they chose not to rush into a NATO membership. Today, with the question of NATO expansion being international news, Helsinki has been put on the spot and compelled to declare where it stands.
On January 3rd, Finland’s President Sauli Niinistö made it clear that his country reserves the right to ally itself in whichever way it wants. However, subsequent statements from high-ranking political insiders confirm that Finnish NATO membership is not on the agenda. In a recent interview with national radio, Swedish Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist claimed to have it on good authority that the Finns are not planning to apply for NATO membership. Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto has confirmed that this is his government’s position.
Sweden: short-sighted opportunism
Sweden approaches the NATO issue from a different, less honorable angle. While the Finns navigated the hot and cold wars of the 20th century with statesmanship and the long term in mind, Sweden has often resorted to short-sighted opportunism. Governed uninterruptedly by the Social Democrats from 1932 to 1976, the country effectively became an extension of the socialist party that held the reins of power. In a compelling documentary, accessible in English, on the Social Democrats and their party-over-country philosophy, Samtiden Dokumentär explains how the Swedish government maintained its close connections to Nazi Germany during World War II.
While officially neutral during the war, in reality Sweden cooperated closely with Nazi Germany. They sold iron ore to the Nazi regime and opened the Swedish railroad network to Nazi troop shipments to Norway. They also allowed the transit of trains hauling captured Norwegian resistance fighters to German Nazi camps.
As a result of their close wartime ties to Berlin, the Social-Democrat government in Stockholm was not on speaking terms with its Scandinavian neighbors after the war. A Swedish proposition for a Nordic defense alliance was rejected based on how Sweden, in their view, had betrayed its neighbors during the war.
Denmark and Norway joined NATO while Sweden remained officially neutral. However, just as its neutrality during the war was more for the showroom than for the workshop, Sweden gradually aligned itself with the western alliance. The choice to not join NATO stood out as illogical, looking increasingly like a matter of resistance from hardline ideologues like Prime Minister Olof Palme.
At the same time, Sweden’s neutrality was in all likelihood essential to the peace and stability that has characterized northern Europe since World War II.
Over the past two decades, the Social Democrats have lost significant support in elections. This has forced them into a transformative metamorphosis. So far, it has not changed their negative view of a NATO membership, but their opposition today looks less ideological and more pragmatic.
Rethinking NATO membership
From a geopolitical viewpoint, a Swedish NATO membership would significantly shift the power structure in northern Europe. As an immediate consequence, it would lock Russian naval resources into the Baltic Sea. Currently, the Strait of Öresund, which connects the Baltic Sea with the North Sea and the Atlantic, is shared between Sweden and current NATO member Denmark. With both countries in NATO, technically Russian forces could be denied both entry to and exit from the Baltic Sea.
Another geopolitical shift would come in the form of the Swedish island of Gotland. Located in the middle of the Baltic Sea, the airport in the Gotland city of Visby is only 355 kilometers (221 miles) from Kaliningrad and 734 kilometers (456 miles) from St. Petersburg. NATO would also have easy access to the Baltic states.
Russia would, of course, not be pleased with either the naval lock-in or the advanced positioning of NATO air power. Regardless of what one believes about Russia’s ambitions in the Nordic region, these concerns for Moscow are not to be taken lightly. If Russia is indeed expansionist and wants to place its immediate neighbors under its realm, then a NATO expansion in the Nordic region is merited. However, if Russia does not have such ambitions—and currently nothing suggests that they do—then a Swedish NATO membership would unnecessarily raise tensions in a strategically significant part of Europe. Therefore, it is important again to consider how the ongoing debate about NATO expansion in northern Europe distracts attention from the serious situation in Ukraine.
Rather than being bundled in with a debate over a non-essential Swedish and Finnish NATO expansion, Kyiv deserves full attention. Ukraine has a very different relationship with Russia. The Russian occupation of Crimea and their military presence in eastern Ukraine, both unacceptable intrusions on the country’s independence, set their experience with Moscow drastically apart even from that which Finland had after World War II.
While Finland has already declared that it is not pursuing a NATO membership, Sweden still remains open to the idea. So long as the possibility remains open in the current international political climate, it undeservedly transplants the Ukrainian struggle for independence onto the Nordic scene.
To be blunt: Ukraine has only three decades of independence under its belt, while Finland gained independence more than a century ago. Sweden has ruled itself for 500 years. But even as a general viewpoint, Ukraine and the Nordic countries are two completely different issues. If Russia has a desire to re-incorporate Ukraine, it is a non-sequitur to suggest that the same geopolitical and military threat exists for the Nordic countries.
Sweden can’t afford NATO
Beyond the geopolitical aspects, Sweden has a fiscal problem that would quickly interfere with its NATO membership plans. As of 2019, its national defense budget was equal to 1.2% of its GDP. The minimum requirement for NATO membership is 2%. In other words, Sweden would have to increase its defense spending by 67%in static terms.
This funding has become more important in recent years. President Trump successfully created a new funding formula for the alliance. During his presidency, the European NATO members and Canada increased their funding responsibilities by an average of 7.8%. As of June 2021, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg declared that ten member states had reached the 2%-of-GDP threshold for defense spending.
It is highly unlikely that Sweden could ever reach this spending level. As of 2019, defense spending equaled 1.2% of GDP and 5% of the national government’s budget. A two-thirds increase would, again in static terms, require an expansion of the defense budget equal to half the national government’s cost for health care or for education. It would equal almost the entire budget for law enforcement and criminal justice.
The current administration under Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson would have a difficult time summoning support in parliament for such a major leap in defense spending. Her own party is in minority, forcing her administration to rely on two left-wing parties to stay in office. Neither of them would accept welfare-state spending to take a step back to favor the military.
Higher taxes is not an option either. The third support pillar for the prime minister’s fragile parliamentary base is a center-right party. They would adamantly oppose tax hikes (as would the right-leaning opposition).
There is, of course, a third option: don’t worry about NATO’s 2%-of-GDP spending goal. This idea is backed by The Bulwark, an influential neoconservative publication in Washington. Since not every NATO member meets the spending threshold, The Bulwark casually suggests (while misrepresenting NATO funding data) that Sweden could essentially ignore the spending threshold.
This does not seem to be a wise attitude to take to a club you want to join. Would it not make more sense to pledge to meet the minimum standards for membership? Or is The Bulwark implying that the United States in the future would agree to again change NATO funding formulas?
While a small plurality of Swedes favor NATO membership, according to a new opinion poll, a majority of the members of the Riksdag, the Swedish parliament, are against it. They form a somewhat odd alliance, with the Left, the Greens, and the Social Democrats agreeing with the conservative Swedish Democrats (SD). On the side favoring membership are the four parties of the former center-right government coalition: the Moderates, the Christian Democrats, the Center Party, and the Liberals.
It would be wise of the Swedish parliament to explicitly reject NATO membership. Joining the alliance, especially at this time, would unnecessarily destabilize northern Europe. Furthermore, it would distract from the struggle of the Ukrainian people to remain independent from Russia. The effort now being spent on debating NATO expansion in northern Europe is far better used on finding a solution that preserves both peace and independence for Ukraine.
Swedish NATO Plans Distract from Ukraine
As the relations between NATO and Russia remain tense, there is no end in sight to the fragile situation in Ukraine. Adamant to remain independent, Kyiv is reaching out to the West in an effort to secure itself against what it sees as blatant Russian aggressions. Their outreach may include ambitions to join the U.S.-led military alliance.
Meanwhile, a debate has opened up about NATO expansion in northern Europe. Sweden and Finland, two Nordic alliance-neutral countries, have been pulled into what looks increasingly like a general stand-off between the Atlantic defense organization and Putin’s Russia.
This northern “front” of potential NATO expansion has emerged at the wrong point in time. Unlike Ukraine, neither Finland nor Sweden is experiencing any Russian threat against their territorial integrity, let alone sovereignty. This debate distracts attention from Ukraine; both Finland and Sweden would do more for peace and stability in Europe if they unequivocally said no to NATO membership and instead helped shed light on the Ukrainian situation.
Finland: thoughtful neutrality
The Nordic NATO debate is not only unhelpful to Ukraine, but also at times unnecessarily crude. Some arguments for Swedish membership, in particular, resort to primitive demagoguery, although others do take a slightly more thoughtful and measured approach. Nevertheless, the arguments for a Nordic NATO expansion appear to be a solution in search of a problem.
With that said, the debate about Finnish and Swedish membership is unlikely to die down any time soon. Therefore, it deserves some nuance, primarily in the form of a historic context. While both countries are formally neutral and have been so for a long time, Finland and Sweden approach the NATO membership question from different backgrounds.
Both countries stayed out of NATO after World War II, though it was not by choice for Finland. Their allegiance to Nazi Germany technically put them on the losing side of the war. The choice to cooperate with Hitler’s Third Reich was based on Finland’s history as a province of Czarist Russia; the Finns figured that they would have a better chance of self determination in a post-war Europe run by Berlin than by Moscow.
When the war was over, Finland was at risk of being gobbled up by the Soviet Union, either as a province like the Baltic states or, more likely, a satellite like Poland or Hungary. To avoid either and to stay west of the Iron Curtain, Helsinki signed a pact with Moscow and promised to never join an alliance hostile to the Soviets.
While tense at times, such as during the Berlin Crisis of 1961, the so-called Friendship and Stability Pact allowed Finland to slowly move closer to Western Europe without antagonizing Moscow. Finland could maintain its own constitutional form of government, a traditional European parliamentary democracy. They could join Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland in a treaty on intra-Nordic passport-free travel. They could gradually open up to free trade and free migration for Nordic citizens.
With the implosion of the Soviet Union, Finland was liberated from its Friendship and Stability Pact. However, knowing their own history and their geo-political role, they chose not to rush into a NATO membership. Today, with the question of NATO expansion being international news, Helsinki has been put on the spot and compelled to declare where it stands.
On January 3rd, Finland’s President Sauli Niinistö made it clear that his country reserves the right to ally itself in whichever way it wants. However, subsequent statements from high-ranking political insiders confirm that Finnish NATO membership is not on the agenda. In a recent interview with national radio, Swedish Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist claimed to have it on good authority that the Finns are not planning to apply for NATO membership. Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto has confirmed that this is his government’s position.
Sweden: short-sighted opportunism
Sweden approaches the NATO issue from a different, less honorable angle. While the Finns navigated the hot and cold wars of the 20th century with statesmanship and the long term in mind, Sweden has often resorted to short-sighted opportunism. Governed uninterruptedly by the Social Democrats from 1932 to 1976, the country effectively became an extension of the socialist party that held the reins of power. In a compelling documentary, accessible in English, on the Social Democrats and their party-over-country philosophy, Samtiden Dokumentär explains how the Swedish government maintained its close connections to Nazi Germany during World War II.
While officially neutral during the war, in reality Sweden cooperated closely with Nazi Germany. They sold iron ore to the Nazi regime and opened the Swedish railroad network to Nazi troop shipments to Norway. They also allowed the transit of trains hauling captured Norwegian resistance fighters to German Nazi camps.
As a result of their close wartime ties to Berlin, the Social-Democrat government in Stockholm was not on speaking terms with its Scandinavian neighbors after the war. A Swedish proposition for a Nordic defense alliance was rejected based on how Sweden, in their view, had betrayed its neighbors during the war.
Denmark and Norway joined NATO while Sweden remained officially neutral. However, just as its neutrality during the war was more for the showroom than for the workshop, Sweden gradually aligned itself with the western alliance. The choice to not join NATO stood out as illogical, looking increasingly like a matter of resistance from hardline ideologues like Prime Minister Olof Palme.
At the same time, Sweden’s neutrality was in all likelihood essential to the peace and stability that has characterized northern Europe since World War II.
Over the past two decades, the Social Democrats have lost significant support in elections. This has forced them into a transformative metamorphosis. So far, it has not changed their negative view of a NATO membership, but their opposition today looks less ideological and more pragmatic.
Rethinking NATO membership
From a geopolitical viewpoint, a Swedish NATO membership would significantly shift the power structure in northern Europe. As an immediate consequence, it would lock Russian naval resources into the Baltic Sea. Currently, the Strait of Öresund, which connects the Baltic Sea with the North Sea and the Atlantic, is shared between Sweden and current NATO member Denmark. With both countries in NATO, technically Russian forces could be denied both entry to and exit from the Baltic Sea.
Another geopolitical shift would come in the form of the Swedish island of Gotland. Located in the middle of the Baltic Sea, the airport in the Gotland city of Visby is only 355 kilometers (221 miles) from Kaliningrad and 734 kilometers (456 miles) from St. Petersburg. NATO would also have easy access to the Baltic states.
Russia would, of course, not be pleased with either the naval lock-in or the advanced positioning of NATO air power. Regardless of what one believes about Russia’s ambitions in the Nordic region, these concerns for Moscow are not to be taken lightly. If Russia is indeed expansionist and wants to place its immediate neighbors under its realm, then a NATO expansion in the Nordic region is merited. However, if Russia does not have such ambitions—and currently nothing suggests that they do—then a Swedish NATO membership would unnecessarily raise tensions in a strategically significant part of Europe. Therefore, it is important again to consider how the ongoing debate about NATO expansion in northern Europe distracts attention from the serious situation in Ukraine.
Rather than being bundled in with a debate over a non-essential Swedish and Finnish NATO expansion, Kyiv deserves full attention. Ukraine has a very different relationship with Russia. The Russian occupation of Crimea and their military presence in eastern Ukraine, both unacceptable intrusions on the country’s independence, set their experience with Moscow drastically apart even from that which Finland had after World War II.
While Finland has already declared that it is not pursuing a NATO membership, Sweden still remains open to the idea. So long as the possibility remains open in the current international political climate, it undeservedly transplants the Ukrainian struggle for independence onto the Nordic scene.
To be blunt: Ukraine has only three decades of independence under its belt, while Finland gained independence more than a century ago. Sweden has ruled itself for 500 years. But even as a general viewpoint, Ukraine and the Nordic countries are two completely different issues. If Russia has a desire to re-incorporate Ukraine, it is a non-sequitur to suggest that the same geopolitical and military threat exists for the Nordic countries.
Sweden can’t afford NATO
Beyond the geopolitical aspects, Sweden has a fiscal problem that would quickly interfere with its NATO membership plans. As of 2019, its national defense budget was equal to 1.2% of its GDP. The minimum requirement for NATO membership is 2%. In other words, Sweden would have to increase its defense spending by 67%in static terms.
This funding has become more important in recent years. President Trump successfully created a new funding formula for the alliance. During his presidency, the European NATO members and Canada increased their funding responsibilities by an average of 7.8%. As of June 2021, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg declared that ten member states had reached the 2%-of-GDP threshold for defense spending.
It is highly unlikely that Sweden could ever reach this spending level. As of 2019, defense spending equaled 1.2% of GDP and 5% of the national government’s budget. A two-thirds increase would, again in static terms, require an expansion of the defense budget equal to half the national government’s cost for health care or for education. It would equal almost the entire budget for law enforcement and criminal justice.
The current administration under Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson would have a difficult time summoning support in parliament for such a major leap in defense spending. Her own party is in minority, forcing her administration to rely on two left-wing parties to stay in office. Neither of them would accept welfare-state spending to take a step back to favor the military.
Higher taxes is not an option either. The third support pillar for the prime minister’s fragile parliamentary base is a center-right party. They would adamantly oppose tax hikes (as would the right-leaning opposition).
There is, of course, a third option: don’t worry about NATO’s 2%-of-GDP spending goal. This idea is backed by The Bulwark, an influential neoconservative publication in Washington. Since not every NATO member meets the spending threshold, The Bulwark casually suggests (while misrepresenting NATO funding data) that Sweden could essentially ignore the spending threshold.
This does not seem to be a wise attitude to take to a club you want to join. Would it not make more sense to pledge to meet the minimum standards for membership? Or is The Bulwark implying that the United States in the future would agree to again change NATO funding formulas?
While a small plurality of Swedes favor NATO membership, according to a new opinion poll, a majority of the members of the Riksdag, the Swedish parliament, are against it. They form a somewhat odd alliance, with the Left, the Greens, and the Social Democrats agreeing with the conservative Swedish Democrats (SD). On the side favoring membership are the four parties of the former center-right government coalition: the Moderates, the Christian Democrats, the Center Party, and the Liberals.
It would be wise of the Swedish parliament to explicitly reject NATO membership. Joining the alliance, especially at this time, would unnecessarily destabilize northern Europe. Furthermore, it would distract from the struggle of the Ukrainian people to remain independent from Russia. The effort now being spent on debating NATO expansion in northern Europe is far better used on finding a solution that preserves both peace and independence for Ukraine.
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