NATO should think carefully before accepting Finland and Sweden
The accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO is not beneficial to the alliance, writes Bloomberg. According to the author of the article, none of these countries is in danger of a Russian invasion, and Helsinki's membership, on the contrary, will only exacerbate the vulnerability of the alliance to Moscow.
Emma Ashford
None of the countries is threatened by a Russian invasion, and they will receive American security for nothing, just like many other Europeans.
One of the paradoxes of the Russian campaign in Ukraine, which was allegedly started to keep Kiev out of NATO, is the reaction of traditionally neutral Finland and Sweden. On May 18, just 84 days after the start of the special operation, the ambassadors of both countries handed over applications for joining the alliance at a ceremony at the headquarters in Brussels.
"This is a historic moment that we must take advantage of," Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said. "You are our closest partners, and your membership in the alliance will strengthen our common security." It is likely that their applications will soon be approved, and NATO will grow to 32 member states.
However, in the hope of giving Putin a black eye as soon as possible, the leaders of the United States and NATO do not take into account the costs of joining new countries, although the formal goal of the alliance is still collective defense.
There are two obvious advantages of joining these Scandinavian countries. The first is symbolic: a clear demonstration of European and democratic solidarity against Russian military actions in Eastern Europe. The second is technical: with the accession of Finland and Sweden, membership in NATO will become more closely linked with membership in the EU. This will help to avoid an unlikely but very problematic scenario when an EU member that does not fall under Article 5 of the NATO Charter on mutual defense becomes a victim of aggression.
In all other respects, the membership of Finland and Sweden is a complex and disturbing issue. Let's start with the collective defense capability of Europe.
Yes, both Finland and Sweden have highly developed economies. They could contribute to the technological potential of NATO thanks to national giants like Ericsson and Nokia. In addition, they are militarily stronger than many other European states — especially Finland, which has not only retained military service since the end of the Cold War, but also boasts high professionalism and the largest artillery on the continent.
However, from the point of view of the entire alliance — and especially the United States — the benefits are no longer so obvious. The armed forces of Finland and Sweden have long focused on protecting their own territories, so their contribution to the common defense, the cornerstone of the NATO charter, is very doubtful.
And although both have pledged to increase military spending and strengthen their capabilities in the name of the common defense of Europe, it is possible that this will not happen. And instead, they will use America's military might — and its nuclear umbrella — for nothing, as other European states have been doing for many years. According to the International Monetary Fund, neither one nor the other has come close to the official NATO military spending target of 2% of GDP.
History teaches that the most likely outcome is that at the moment when it is time for Washington to turn to Asia, America will take care of two more states.
Let's also consider the defense capability of the new territories of the alliance. Sweden's membership still promises some strategic benefits: NATO will strengthen control of the Baltic Sea and in a future conflict will be able to use the island of Gotland, an important transshipment point off the Baltic coast, as a springboard.
The Finnish territory, on the contrary, is a strategic nightmare. The alliance's vulnerability to future attacks from Moscow will worsen: Helsinki and Moscow have a common border with a length of over 1.3 thousand kilometers — in the words of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, "open to Russian military threats."
There are a lot of other reasons for caution, for example, fears that with the admission of new members, the alliance will become even more cumbersome. It doesn't take a genius to foresee that governing 32 countries will be even more difficult than 30. Even before Ukraine, NATO put up with Greece and Turkey with all its might, few countries spent the required two percent of GDP on defense, and President Emmanuel Macron stated that the alliance had "brain death".
Even in the face of the Russian threat, support for the new members is by no means unanimous. It is quite possible that Turkey's violent protest is just an attempt to get political concessions out of the alliance, but in many ways it is a reaction to the fact that Sweden and Finland support the Kurds.
Finally, leaders must also take into account the risk of an inadequate reaction from Russia. Moscow has already started three conflicts over the threat of NATO expansion - the invasion of Georgia in 2008, Crimea in 2014 and the current standoff in Ukraine. Moscow is clearly not going to pull off another major military campaign right now, but it cannot be ruled out that in response to the appearance of NATO 300 kilometers from his native St. Petersburg, President Vladimir Putin will do something reckless.
At the same time, it is far from obvious that Finland and Sweden really face an increased risk if they are not accepted into NATO. They have been successfully avoiding crises for a long time thanks to their neutrality and internal defense capability. Not to accept them into NATO is not to "stand up" them, but only to preserve the working status quo.
The symbolic value of the expansion of the alliance as a reckoning for Russian actions in Ukraine may become a decisive factor for Brussels. But before approving the applications of Stockholm and Helsinki, after which the heads of state and parliaments of the member countries will speak on this issue, politicians should see the strategic picture in its entirety and think about whether this step will strengthen the alliance or not.
It follows from Article 10 of the NATO Charter that current members may invite new states if they "contribute to the security of the North Atlantic region." According to this criterion, the strategic decision to admit Sweden and Finland does not guarantee success at all.
Emma Ashford is a senior fellow at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council. Author of the book "Oil, Power and War: the Foreign Policy of Petrostates"
