These are hardly halcyon days for Vladimir Putin.
His military offensive in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region increasingly shows signs of sputtering. Britain’s latest round of sanctions targeted the Russian leader’s ex-wife, a former Olympic gymnast long believed to be his girlfriend, and three of his cousins. Chicago-based McDonald’s has joined a caravan of Western corporations leaving Russia for good, and the country’s GDP is expected to shrink 12% this year, its worst economic contraction in 30 years.
But arguably the worst news for Putin came with both Finland’s and Sweden’s recent decision to join NATO, the Western military alliance that the Russian president regards as his country’s primary nemesis. Even worse for Putin — NATO leaders have said they plan to fast-track membership for the two Nordic nations.
One of the ways Putin had justified the war in Ukraine to fellow Russians was that it was necessary to fend off NATO’s expansion up to Russia’s borders. Now, because of the invasion and the barbarism his soldiers have displayed in once-besieged Ukrainian towns like Bucha, NATO is poised to establish itself along Russia’s northwest flank, which shares a roughly 800-mile border with Finland.
Putin has only himself to blame. Though Sweden and Finland have maintained 200 years of strategic neutrality in Europe, the populations of both countries now see Russia as an existential threat, and feel safer within the fold of NATO. “The Russian invasion of Ukraine has deteriorated the security situation for Sweden and Europe as a whole,” Ann Linde, Sweden’s foreign minister, recently tweeted. She put the issue succinctly.
Pursuing membership in NATO, particularly during this fraught moment in European history, doesn’t come without risk. Even with the NATO leaders’ pledge to move fast, it might take a year or so before the accession of Sweden and Finland is finalized. That sets up a tenuous period in which both countries could be vulnerable to retaliatory attacks from Russia while they await final approval.
Nevertheless, leaders in both Sweden and Finland appear willing to accept the risk, largely because Putin’s actions in Ukraine make it clear neutrality will no longer immunize their nations from Kremlin aggression. Russia’s decimation of Ukrainian cities and callous disregard for civilian lives could one day come to Helsinki or Stockholm, or the Swedish and Finnish countrysides. The protection of NATO’s “attack one, attack all” Article 5 provision carries a good deal of weight now that Putin has made the battle lines in Europe so stark.
Acceptance of new countries into NATO requires a unanimous vote from member nations. The leaders of two NATO nations, Viktor Orban in Hungary and Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, historically have had friendly ties with Putin and could try to put up roadblocks to Sweden and Finland’s membership.
Turkey has been especially uncooperative, insisting that Sweden and Finland would have to end support for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a militant organization that Ankara regards as a terrorist group. The PKK has been fighting Turkey for decades, and has been designated by the U.S. and the EU as a terrorist organization.
It will be up to the Biden administration and other NATO leaders to allay Ankara’s concerns, and ultimately persuade Orban and Erdogan that Swedish and Finnish accession to NATO strengthens the Western military alliance, and therefore strengthens the defense capabilities of Hungary and Turkey.
Indeed, the move would make NATO stronger, giving it much better strategic control over the Baltic Sea to counter any future Russian naval aggression in northern Europe. Both countries anticipate being able to meet or exceed, in coming years, NATO’s requirement of member nations spending at least 2% of their gross domestic product on defense.
But perhaps the most potent message from Sweden’s and Finland’s future membership lies in the Western acknowledgment of a new, post-Cold War reality.
As long as Putin rules the Kremlin, Russia represents a hostile enemy with little if any regard for the rule of law, and for that matter, the sanctity of human life. For far too long the West has trusted Putin, fed his economy and military with hundreds of billions in energy dollars, only to have that trust betrayed. In Ukraine, the betrayal has manifested itself in war crimes, destroyed streetscapes and an ever-present pall of fear.
A stronger, more robust NATO is the best defense against the ominous threat a Putin-led Russia poses.
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