The news made the Kremlin jump. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) could soon welcome two new members, Finland and Sweden, which are in the process of announcing their candidature. “Being a member of NATO would strengthen Finland’s security”said Thursday the Finnish executive, who had assured the day before that this candidacy “wouldn’t be against anyone”. Despite this, Russia has renewed its warnings, describing this possible NATO membership as a threat “insured”.
>> Find the latest developments in the war in Ukraine in our live
After decades of neutrality, how to interpret these announcements from Finland and Sweden? Franceinfo asked the question to Amélie Zima, associate researcher at the Institute for Strategic Research of the Military School (Irsem), NATO specialist.
Franceinfo: Is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine the trigger for these plans to join NATO?
Amelie Zima: It should be remembered that Finland and Sweden are already partners of NATO, with whom they greatly strengthened their cooperation after the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014. We can therefore speak of a rapprochement in the long time, which has increased recently. This can be found in the military equipment procurement policy, for example. Finland has positioned itself to buy American F-35 fighter planes, all with the aim of making its armies compatible with those of other NATO countries.
However, the perception of a threat posed by Russia is not the same in the two countries. Sweden has no border with Russia while Finland does, out of about 1,300 km. Which explains somewhere why Finland says it is ready to be a candidate, while in Sweden, the debates continue.
These two countries have long remained far from NATO, has there been a change in national opinions on this subject?
Both countries are indeed neutral, but they have a different conception of neutrality. On the Swedish side, it’s a political choice, an ideological choice, and has been for almost 200 years. Whereas for Finland, it was a choice that was imposed at the start of the Cold War, in a context of the partition of Europe between the Soviet bloc and the Western bloc. The Finns, for example, had been forced to refuse the American assistance plan, the Marshall Plan, after the Second World War.
We have seen, during the last debates in the Finnish Parliament, a majority of parties say they are in favor of the country joining NATO. And as far as the populations are concerned, the polls in Finland rose, between January and March, from 20% to more than 60% of favorable opinions on this subject. This is also a trend that we find in Sweden, in a more measured way, with a largely cyclical explanation: the invasion of Ukraine, the worst conflict in Europe since the beginning of the 21st century.
What would Finland and Sweden gain from joining NATO?
In the event of accession, these two countries would be covered by a common security guarantee, provided for in Article 5 of the Treaty. The latter specifies that any attack against a member can be considered as an attack against all the member countries. In such a scenario, they could then request assistance from NATO member countries. In practice, Finland and Sweden would benefit from a nuclear umbrella, because there are three nuclear powers in NATO: the United States, the United Kingdom and France.
Finland shares a long border with Russia, does this represent a risk factor for NATO?
The whole question would be whether we would position troops from NATO countries in Finland, as has been done in the Baltic States. But also how Vladimir Putin would react to the entry of these two countries into NATO. We have already seen many threats, but these threats are counter-productive (for Russia) because they make NATO ever more attractive for these two neutral countries. Moreover, Finland can show great resilience in the event of an attack from Russia. It certainly has a modest army, of around 20,000 soldiers, but there are 900,000 reservists, for a population of 5.5 million inhabitants, who could bring a significant defense force to NATO.
Above all, I think we have to look at the situation at the regional level. The accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO would make the Baltic Sea a kind of “Nato lake”, because it would be bordered only by member countries, with the exception of Russia. This would be a major turning point for these two countries, but also for the organization, which would become better able to defend the Baltic countries, for example. This is why the membership of a single country does not make sense for Finland and Sweden. They believe that membership has to happen in concert to be strategically and politically interesting.