Finland joins NATO
Formerly neutral Finland has now officially joined NATO.
France 241 reports:
Finland was able to get into NATO so quickly because it and Sweden were already de facto members in that they met NATO standards for preparedness already and were coordinating closely with NATO for years. Both countries are also EU members, and the EU treaty has a mutual-defense clause.
“Finland becomes safer by belonging to … an alliance where we guarantee the security of all allies,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters. “By becoming a full-fledged member we are removing the room for miscalculation in Moscow about NATO’s readiness to protect Finland and that makes Finland safer and NATO stronger.”
Finland’s addition will bring NATO more than 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) of border with Russia, doubling its eastern flank, and a nation that’s already prepared to defend itself in case of an all-out war. For the Finnish military, membership is a culmination of years of ever-closer cooperation, with gear used by the defense forces already compatible with that of the alliance. [my emphasis]2
There will likely be threats on both sides to boost troop presence. But it‘s hard to imagine Russia would actually attack Finland while the war in Ukraine is still happening.
The Finnish entry is set to enable the bloc to further secure the area around the Baltic Sea in defense of its members Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania [all three formerly part of Soviet Union], which are often seen as potential targets of Russian aggression. It also brings another Arctic nation into the fold of the alliance, one whose military is trained for cold weather — an important asset at a time when the High North is gaining in strategic importance in light of the increased presence of Russia and China. [my emphasis]
There will probably be threats on both sides to boost troop presence. But it‘s hard to imagine Russia would actually attack Finland while the war in Ukraine is still happening.
Sweden’s application for NATO membership is still pending. Any NATO member country can veto the entrance of a new member. And Türkiye is currently blocking Sweden’s accession.
The image of Turkey standing in the way of Sweden and Finland’s historic decision to join the alliance, against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine and related geopolitical paradigm shifts, is not good. It feeds the perception of Turkey as an unreliable and disruptive actor at a time when Euro-Atlantic security is being reshaped.
Turkey supporters point out that Greece blocked North Macedonia’s NATO bid for years, until a negotiated solution to the country’s name was agreed by Athens and Skopje. But the context is very different today, and the toll on Turkey’s image is infinitely larger.
Turkey’s consent to initiate Sweden and Finland’s accession process to NATO had been conditional to start with. It arrived through a last-minute deal brokered on the sidelines of the NATO Summit in Madrid in June, after Sweden and Finland committed to addressing Turkey’s security concerns regarding the activities of certain groups, including the [Kurdish opposition group] PKK, which it—along with Sweden, the United States, and a number of other countries—considers a terrorist organization. It also wanted the two countries to stop official obstructions to defense industry cooperation.3 [my emphasis]
Ukraine’s prospects for NATO membership are another story.
Even if the war in Ukraine ended tomorrow and Russia said, oh, forget it, we don‘t care if Ukraine joins NATO, it would take years, maybe decades, for them to meet NATO requirements. And the longer the war goes on, the more wrecked it will be. It would be the largest European county in NATO with long borders to Russia and Belarus.
Depending on what the peace agreement is, the NATO Treaty could theoretically be changed to allow UKR to join even when they don‘t control all their territory. Having West Germany in NATO could be some kind of model.
But Russia leaving the naval facilities in Crimea is a whole other thing. Russian military bases aren‘t currently allowed in NATO counties.
EU membership for Ukraine will also be a long haul. We’re currently seeing some of the implications for current EU membership of adding an agricultural powerhouse like Ukraine to the EU’s single market with its Four Freedoms (not those advocated by Franklin Roosevelt in the US!): free movement of goods, free movement of capital, freedom to establish and provide services, and free movement of people.
Polish farmers are threatening to derail a visit to Warsaw by Volodymyr Zelenskiy over claims that Ukrainian grain is flooding their market, in a move that would provide Russia with valuable evidence of a crack in western solidarity. ...
As part of an EU initiative, all tariffs and quotas have been lifted on Ukrainian grain exports into the bloc’s 27 member states in order to facilitate the product’s transit around the world, including to Africa, where a Russian blockade on Ukrainian exports has been particularly painful. ...
Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, had said he would ask the European Commission and member states to reimpose barriers to Ukrainian grain exports but Polish farmers claim nothing has been done.4
Finland joins NATO: How important a step is this for Finland and for NATO? FRANCE 24 English YouTube channel. (Accessed: 2023-04-04).
Pohjanpalo, Kati & Drozdiak, Natalia (2023): 04/04/2023. <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-04/finland-to-join-nato-as-alliance-expands-northwards?srnd=premium-europe> (Accessed: 2023-04-04).
Coşkun, Alper (2023): Sweden’s NATO Problem Is Also Turkey’s NATO Problem. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 02/01/2023. <https://carnegieendowment.org/2023/02/01/sweden-s-nato-problem-is-also-turkey-s-nato-problem-pub-88929> (Accessed: 2023-04-04).
Boffey, Daniel (2023): Polish farmers threaten to ‘ruin’ Zelenskiy visit amid grain dispute. Guardian 04/04/2023. <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/04/polish-farmers-threaten-to-ruin-zelenskiy-visit-amid-grain-dispute> (Accessed: 2023-04-04).