Finland & Sweden's Path to NATO Membership is Not So Easy

By IndraStra Global Editorial Team

Cover Image Attribute: A warning sign about the border zone between Finland and Russia, in Savukoski, northern Lapland, Finland. The text reads "Frontier zone - no entry without special permit" in Finnish, Swedish, German, English, and Russian, respectively /Source: Wikimedia Commons 

By IndraStra Global Editorial Team

On the new year address, Finland's President Sauli Niinisto remarked that Finland could join NATO in defiance of Russia's warning that the alliance should not be allowed to expand any further to the east. Putin was speaking about Ukraine, which seems to have prompted Niinisto's remark as a reminder to the Russian strongman not to threaten his neighbors. And, before that, on December 24 Maria Zakharova, the Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, stated that if Sweden and Finland were to become NATO members, “this would have serious military and political consequences”.

Finland shares quite a long land border with Russia, and two countries fought a short but bloody "Winter War" over it between 1939 to 1940 that saw Finland inflict heavy losses on Soviet forces. It began with a Soviet invasion of Finland on November 30, 1939, three months after the outbreak of World War II, and ended three and a half months later with the Moscow Peace Treaty on 13 March 1940. 

The remark from Niinisto may also entice Swedes to seek the safety of formal NATO membership and the alliance’s Article 5 mutual defense clause. But, for the moment, that seems unlikely. In September 2021, a Finnish government defense report was published that talked about keeping an option for applying for NATO membership open. It is a relatively quick and easy way to enhance security almost overnight in the Baltic Sea region. But in reality, Finland’s domestic politics is divided and its public shows "no great enthusiasm for full NATO membership". 

If we look at the east, Russia maintains significant conventional warfighting capabilities in Finland’s neighboring areas and has increased its military capacity, in particular, in its western region, during the past few years. It has continued the modernization of its armed forces and has developed its operating procedures by incorporating combat experiences from recent operations.

In the past, Putin had claimed that his country's annexation of Crimea in March 2014 was partly in response to NATO enlargement. But, on the other hand, NATO leaders counter that eastern enlargement is not a cause of the Ukraine crisis, and they argue that enlargement does not threaten Russia, but rather it creates stability for all of Europe. 

But Russia, as a military power, can make rapid and coordinated decisions, and its armed forces' experiences in asymmetrical warfare in Georgia, Crimea, and Eastern Ukraine have shown the world its capabilities to carry out rapid and unexpected military operations by initiating quick insertion, prolonging conflicts, and achieve desired tactical goals. As of now, the partnership cooperation within the Enhanced Opportunities Programme (EOP) is only one of several instruments utilized by non-aligned Finland and Sweden to respond to aggressive Russian behavior. But, in the future, a full-fledged Swedish and Finnish membership in NATO would block any attempts by Russia to use their territory in an A2/AD move to stop the Alliance from entering the Baltic Sea to provide assistance to its Baltic and Nordic allies. 

Together these two countries, occupying a substantial part of the territory of the region and the shoreline bordering on the sea. And, for a long time, both have remained outside of NATO as nonaligned partners is a complicating factor that adds an element of uncertainty to joint Western efforts to meet Russian aggression. There is no doubt, that the positive impact of Swedish and Finnish NATO membership would be substantial for the entire Nordic and Baltic region. But, the path to achieving it is not so easy. 

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