Key Points
- Sweden and Finland have maintained military neutrality for decades, but Russia's invasion of Ukraine has forced a radical rethink.
- Turkey has now dropped its challenge against Sweden and Finland bidding for NATO membership.
Sweden and Finland have maintained military neutrality for decades, but Russia's invasion of Ukraine has forced a radical rethink.
On 18 May, the two Nordic countries submitted their official applications to NATO in a move that stands to significantly redraw Europe's security map and double the alliance's border with Russia.
Standing at the headquarters in Brussels of the world's largest military alliance, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg smiled as he held Sweden and Finland's applications in his hand, each in a white folder embossed with their national flag.
"I warmly welcome the requests by Finland and Sweden to join NATO. You are our closest partners," he told the two countries’ ambassadors, hailing the occasion as "a historic step" and “a good day at a critical time for our safety", and adding that the alliance would seek to accelerate their applications to membership.
Any NATO enlargement must be supported by all 30 members, and 29 countries supported the bids except Turkey, sparking a gruelling negotiation process between it and the Nordic countries to see the application come to fruition.
On 28 June, Turkey announced it was dropping its objections and signed a memorandum that would effectively allow Sweden and Finland to become NATO members.
So why did Turkey relinquish its veto, how swift will Sweden and Finland's entry into NATO be, and how does this impact the organisation, Russia and Europe's security?
Why haven't Sweden and Finland tried to join NATO before?
While Sweden has valued its non-alignment for more than two centuries - withholding its involvement in both world wars and the Cold War - Finland's non-alignment is more pragmatic. After being invaded by the Soviet Union in 1939, it signed an agreement pledging neutrality, understanding that Russia may see a formal alliance with NATO as provocative.
Despite this, both countries have enjoyed long-standing security cooperation with the military alliance through its Partnership for Peace program. This was launched in 1994 to create trust between member states and Europe's traditional neutral countries in order to enhance security. Both Sweden and Finland have participated alongside NATO forces in conflicts in Libya, Kosovo and Afghanistan.
John Blaxland, Professor of International Security and Intelligence Studies at the Australian National University, says Finland and Sweden's broad alignment with the West has been clear.
"While they haven't been formally allied with NATO, they have for a long time sought to be as compatible and as interoperable as possible," he told SBS News.
Why do they suddenly want to join now?
Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine has shown Sweden and Finland that non-alignment doesn't actually stand for much, Prof Blaxland said.
"What Putin has done is demonstrate that rational discussion about interests and balance and deterrence just doesn't seem to cut it. And they're looking to avoid being in a position that Ukraine was in, which was Western-sympathetic, Western-engaged, but not Western-allied," he said.
"So there's a degree to which this is about self-preservation, but there is also a degree to which it is actually sending a castigatory message to Vladimir Putin."
Dr Bryce Wakefield, national executive director of Australian Institute of International Affairs, said Russia's invasion of Ukraine has "basically wiped away a lot of resistance".
"Formal non-alignment in the case of Ukraine did not protect it, and so they see it won't protect them anyway," he told SBS News.
Public support for joining NATO in both Sweden and Finland has soared.
Support in Finland hovered for years at around 20 to 25 per cent. But since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, it has risen to a record high of 76 per cent, according to a .
In Sweden, a poll by Demoskop and commissioned by the Aftonbladet newspaper, showed 57 per cent of Swedes now favour NATO membership, up from 51 per cent in March.
Why did Turkey initially block Sweden and Finland?
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said talks with Finland and Sweden about their joining NATO were not at the "expected level" and Ankara cannot say yes to "terrorism-supporting" countries.
Turkey initially challenged the bids from Sweden and Finland on the grounds that the countries harbour people linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group and others it deems terrorists, and because they halted arms exports to Ankara in 2019 over Turkey's military operations in Syria.
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrives for a ceremony in Ankara. Turkey's president has caused a stir by throwing a wrench in Sweden and Finland's historic bid to join the NATO alliance. Source: AP / Burhan Ozbilici
"One country's terrorist is another country's freedom fighter," Prof Blaxland said. "You now have a significant body of Kurdish minorities in Sweden who have a degree of freedom of action to express their political views, to source funding and to recruit that Erdogan categorises as terrorism."
Dr Wakefield said the issue "stems from Sweden's very liberal refugee and immigration policy".
"Sweden's argument to a certain extent is that these people may well deserve recognition by the Swedish government as refugees and even perhaps a voice in the debate on regional security," he said.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, centre, at a media conference with Finland's Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto, (left) and Sweden's Foreign Minister Ann Linde, (right) at NATO headquarters in Brussels. Source: AP / Olivier Matthys
"I think Turkey is also hedging its bets on the outcome of the war in Ukraine. While it's obviously keen not to enable Russia to win hands down by opening up the Bosphorus Strait and by ensuring the Ukrainians have access to aerial vehicles, it's also, I think, playing a delicate balancing act of not provoking Russia beyond that," he said.
How was the deal worked out?
On Tuesday, just before the NATO summit started in Madrid, Turkey changed its stance after leaders met for four hours to reach an agreement.
Finally it was announced that Finland and Sweden could proceed with their application to join the nuclear-armed NATO alliance after Mr Erdogan announced that Turkey "got what it wanted".
That meant "full cooperation with Turkey in the fight against the PKK and its affiliates", according to a Turkish presidency statement.
The statement also said Sweden and Finland were "demonstrating solidarity with Turkey in the fight against terrorism in all its forms and manifestations."
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg confirmed Sweden and Finland would lift their restrictions on selling weapons to Turkey.
"The door is open - the joining of Finland and Sweden into NATO will take place," Mr Stoltenberg said.
But experts suggest Mr Erdogan was simply in bargaining mode and, with successful negotiations in place, he very well could have got what he was after.
"Erdogan is a master craftsman," Prof Blaxland added. "He's quite conniving and likely will be looking to extract the maximum concessions he can, knowing that he has for a number of years now, been the outlier of NATO, the one that's been the most on the nose with the Europeans for its approach to its minorities."
If - and when - Sweden and Finland join NATO, could that provoke Russia?
Russia has threatened a "reaction in response" to a NATO expansion, but experts believe Mr Putin is extremely unlikely to attack another NATO country at this stage.
"Russia is now so distracted by its war in Ukraine it would be absolutely ludicrous for it to attack a NATO country or a country that is in the process of negotiating to join NATO," Prof Blaxland said.
Russia would also be unwise to take on the military might of these Nordic nations, he added.
"While being neutral, both these countries are probably the most robustly armed, equipped and protected of all the NATO countries. They have seriously invested in their own defence infrastructure in resistance to the prospect of nuclear attacks and the prospect of an invasion. These are hard targets," Prof Blaxland said.
"This is something Vladimir Putin appreciates. He also knows that were he to act against them, he would be incurring the wrath of the whole of NATO."
Instead, when Sweden and Finland do join NATO, Prof Blaxland believes Mr Putin would simply use it as propaganda.
"He'll point to the ascension of Finland and Sweden and say that he was right, that the purpose of NATO is to surround his country as an anti-Russian formulation."
But even with a formal invitation granted, NATO's 30 allied parliaments must ratify the decision by leaders - a process that could take up to a year.
Have we seen NATO grow in importance?
NATO's success in past conflicts has been patchy.
In 2003, it took the lead of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, with the aim of ensuring the Afghans could provide effective security to fight off terrorism. The ISAF was disbanded in 2014 and Afghan forces assumed full security responsibility for their country. Afghanistan came once again under Taliban rule in August 2021, with the NATO mission considered a failure.
Then in 2011, a multi-state NATO-led coalition started military action in Libya, imposing no-fly zones over the country. This again overstepped the mark of what the UN Security Council had agreed and is widely believed to have led to the overthrow of leader Muammar Gaddafi and contributed to the ongoing troubles in Libya.
These events acted as proof to Mr Putin of NATO's "inability to act in unison, cohesively and strategically", Mr Blaxland said.
But the united response of the world's largest military alliance to support Ukraine has taken the Russian president by surprise.
It has also proved the value of NATO.
"What Putin didn't realise was that Afghanistan was just that one step further removed. It was also, I think, considered more peripheral to European interests," Mr Blaxland said.
Dr Wakefield agrees the Ukraine war has renewed the focus on NATO.
"Russia's invasion of Ukraine has led people to value NATO, but has also led generally to a unification of the West, which many have found surprising," he said.
The ascension of Sweden and Finland to NATO would be an extension of this unification that Mr Putin would not have anticipated, Mr Blaxland said.
"There's no question that Finland and Sweden joining NATO points to the invasion of Ukraine as a massive strategic blunder on the part of Russia," he said.
With AAP.
