Insight 1998
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Finland should prepare to join NATO on its own by Helmi Pillai, 16 February 2023 Last month, Turkey threatened to block Sweden’s NATO membership, while indicating its support for Finland’s accession to the alliance. If Turkey continues to block Swedish membership, Finland should join NATO alone. Finland and Sweden announced their joint bids for NATO membership last May, in response to Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine. The decision to join the alliance was a major shift for both countries due to their long-standing policies of military non-alignment. For Finland, non-alignment was only ever a pragmatic choice. With its 1340-kilometre-long shared border with Russia, Finland’s independence during the Cold War depended on remaining neutral and not provoking the Soviet Union, which made NATO membership impossible. After the Cold War, Russia posed less of a threat to Finland, so although Helsinki had more freedom of manoeuvre in its foreign policy, there did not seem to be any pressing need to join the alliance. After February 2022, however, the threat from Russia once again felt real enough for Helsinki to turn to NATO for protection. For Sweden, by contrast, non-alignment was less motivated by pragmatism. With its 200-year-long history of neutrality, the policy was seen “as morally and ideologically superior to an allied stance”. For this reason, NATO accession was a more complex decision for Sweden. It has been widely reported that Helsinki had to push Stockholm to take the leap. Turkey and Hungary are the only NATO allies yet to ratify Finland and Sweden’s membership. Hungary has not made any particular demands on the two countries but has continuously delayed the ratification process. Turkey is clearly the more significant barrier for Finland and Sweden’s accession into the alliance. After Helsinki and Stockholm announced their NATO bids, Ankara stated that it would block their applications unless the two Nordic states stopped supporting alleged terrorists and lifted their export bans on weapons sales to Turkey. The Turkish leadership claims that Sweden, in particular, harbours and assists extreme pro-Kurdish groups affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) – which is on the EU’s list of terrorist organisations – and supporters of the exiled cleric Fethullah Gülen, whom it views as a threat to its national security. CER INSIGHT: Finland should prepare to join NATO alone 16 February 2023
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