From neutrality to NATO

After several decades of neutrality, Finland and Sweden seemed poised to join NATO, an American-led military alliance formed in 1949 during the heydays of East-West Cold War.

Discarding their long-standing policy of “neutrality”, avoiding getting entangled in great power military competition, on May 4, 2022, Finland and Sweden sent their joint application to NATO headquarters in Brussels for membership in the multilateral military alliance, using Moscow’s ongoing war against Ukraine as the threat that required this shift.

Finland has a 1300-kilometre-long border with Moscow; despite internal and external pressures, it had refused to compromise on its policy of neutrality by advocating, détente, peaceful coexistence and disarmament as tools of policy but it now stands ready to embrace NATO.

Sweden, which has a much longer history of “neutrality” going back to almost two-hundred years, has sought NATO’s membership to protect itself against the perceived threat emanating from Putin’s territorial grab of neighbouring Ukraine.

Moscow has warned both Helsinki and Stockholm that their bid to join NATO would have far-reaching consequences. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that there is no intrinsic threat to Moscow from Sweden and Finland joining NATO, but warned that the Kremlin will be forced to respond if the alliance installs military bases or equipment in either country.

As a first step, Moscow has decided to stop the supply of gas to Finland. To assure Moscow, Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson has categorically stated that her country “does not want permanent NATO bases or nuclear weapons on its territory.”

Similar statements have been made by Prime Minister Sanna Marin of Finland who said that “such moves were not part of Helsinki’s membership negotiations” as they were “national decisions.”

One reason why Moscow is soft-pedalling the issue of membership of Finland and Sweden is because it feels confident since both countries have been historically sensitive to Moscow’s security concerns and their leadership is rational enough to resist pressures from other NATO countries, especially the United Sates, to assume an aggressive military posture towards Moscow.

A related concern of Moscow is how to win its ongoing war against Ukraine that would require strategic patience and use of diplomacy. In these trying circumstances, Moscow would be least interested in opening another diplomatic front until it is able to consolidate its war objective in Ukraine. One must remember that the Russian Army has already been given a bloody nose and a black eye by Ukrainian armed resistance backed up by Washington and its European allies.

So far Washington has supplied armed drones, artillery and anti-tank weapons to Ukrainian armed resistance that has resulted in slowing down the advance of Russian forces to gain complete control of the Donbas and Luhansk region. However, the fall of Mariupol is a strategic gain for the Russian military. The decision of the US Congress to provide $40 billion in security assistance to Ukraine is a good illustration of the ongoing American effort to “bleed Moscow” in Ukraine.

One of the critical factors that have pushed Helsinki and Stockholm towards joining NATO is the role of the public opinion. Finland’s pro-NATO opinion seems to have grown from 19% in 2017 to 53% in February and 76% in May 2022, according to Wall Street Journal. Ukraine seems to have played its role in nurturing this pro-NATO sentiment in Finland and Sweden.

Another reason for this shift is the reappearance and winning of the “discourse” of war over peace. Peace has come to be identified with weapons, deterrence and defence not with disarmament, prevention of war and dialogue.

The political creativity that was needed to run an independent policy of neutrality, non-alignment and global disarmament, coupled with a strong belief in international law, vanished years ago. In this distressingly polarized intellectual and policy environment, it is easier to follow the flock than your instinct for self-preservation.

Another fundamental reason is the role of media. Media, from left to right, have unified around a pro-Western, non-neutral policy. The present pro-NATO propaganda is pervasive and people are being repeatedly told that their salvation lies in joining NATO. Critical voices are marginalized and downplayed. Sweden is able to have televised panel discussions where de facto all the participants are more or less pro-NATO, thus leaving out a large part of public opinion.

In this onslaught of pro-NATO propaganda campaign, few have pointed out the fact that “there simply exists no credible, realistic scenario that would lead to an isolated, out-of-the-blue Russian attack on either Sweden or Finland if both countries remained non-aligned as they’ve been for decades.”

As noted by the associate professor in audio technology at Luleå University of Technology, Sweden, Dr Jan Berg: “One can only regret that Sweden and Finland lack the intellectual power to see the larger picture in time and space. NATO has had the time since 1949 to prove that it can make peace. We know now that it can’t. Joining it, therefore, is one big gift to militarism and future warfare.”

Should accession of Finland and Sweden come about (the only hurdle seems to be Turkey which has raised objections on account of their support to PKK) what would be the ramifications of this watershed move?

·   One, the Swedes and the Finns will become less secure because there will be harder confrontation and polarization instead of soft borders and mediating attitudes. Additionally, at some point in the future, the two countries will be asked to host US bases – like Norway and Denmark – and such bases would become Russia’s first-order targets in a war situation.

·   Two, it will mark the virtual death of no-confidence and conflict resolution mechanism in Europe.

·   Three, under Article 5 obligations, Sweden and Finland will be expected to participate in wars that are not about their defence and security.

·   Four, as NATO members, Finland and Sweden will have to share the responsibility for nuclear weapons – the deterrence and possible use of them by NATO.

·   Five, NATO is human history’s most militaristic organization. Its leader, the United States, has been at war for 225 out of 243 years since 1777. By joining this most militarized organization, Finland and Sweden run the risk of being on the wrong side of international law and UN Charter especially when Washington decides to wage wars against other countries in clear violation of UN principles as happened during the Iraq war.

·   Six, both Finland and Sweden will have to allocate funds away from contributing to solving humanity’s most urgent challenges such as climate change, pandemics, water, and energy. Instead, they will be trying hard to meet their NATO contribution of 2% of their GDP. The main justification for this diversion of course will be Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Finally, Arctic has emerged as the new site of great power competition and in this context, the US/NATO access to Sweden and Finland would be a clear advantage in the future confrontation with Russia and China there.

In the emerging conflict scenario, containing China is America’s priority number one.

By enlarging NATO, United States is trying to hem in the rise of China through military means. NATO is the primary military instrument through which Washington would carry out this containment in future. Because of their strategic geography and traditional influence as “neutral countries”, getting both Finland and Sweden into NATO’s embrace is a win-win scenario for Washington, but would it make them more secure and safe as well? Only the future will tell.

The writer is a political scientist and defence analyst