The News
Sweden officially joined NATO on Thursday, ending an almost two-year long process delayed by internal divisions within the alliance, in a move that shores up the bloc’s military power in the Baltic region.
“Good things come to those that wait,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a press conference welcoming Sweden into the alliance.
“Today is a truly historic day for Sweden,” Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said. “It is a major step, but at the same time a very natural step.”
Sweden had maintained a policy of neutrality since the early 19th century, but after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the country quickly changed tack. In 2023 Swedish lawmakers overwhelmingly voted to join the alliance, signing off on the country’s application in a 269-37 vote.
While Sweden initially hoped to join the alliance rapidly alongside Finland, this timetable was derailed by Turkey and Hungary, who dragged the process out until the Hungarian Parliament finally ratified Sweden’s bid at the end of February.
Sweden entering NATO “is going to substantially increase the bang for buck in defence and deterrence in northern Europe,” the former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt told the Financial Times.
SIGNALS
Swedish membership boosts NATO’s Baltic presence
Sweden’s membership will be especially important for bolstering NATO’s presence in the Baltic region, which has long been a weakness for the alliance. According to one analysis by the RAND think tank in 2016, Russia could overrun Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania within 36 hours. Sweden brings with it a strong naval force designed to operate in the shallows of the Baltic Sea and one of the largest air forces in Europe. Especially important is the Swedish island of Gotland, which one Swedish soldier called an “unsinkable aircraft carrier in the middle of the Baltic,” the Financial Times reported. “Without access to Swedish territory, it is difficult to meet NATO’s defense plan for the Baltics and impossible to meet the defense plan for Finland,” a Swedish defense expert told Dagens Nyheter, a Stockholm-based newspaper.
Stockholm has been preparing to join the alliance
Despite the drawn-out accession process, Sweden has made the most of its time in the cold. The country has begun to link its communication systems with the NATO standard command-and-control system, Foreign Policy reported, and a flagpole has long stood ready for Sweden’s blue and yellow standard at NATO’s military headquarters in Belgium. Even before applying for membership, Sweden already had a high degree of cooperation with NATO, which has prepared the country for “almost instant operational readiness” within the alliance, Minna Ålander of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs wrote for the Italian Institute for International Political Studies.
A legacy of neutrality may cause teething problems within the alliance
Sweden’s government has vowed to boost its defense spending by almost 30%, but some Swedes have said that the country remains fredsskadad (“peace-damaged”) — naive about its own security after two centuries of peace. Strong anti-nuclear sentiments and calls for dialogue with Russia could lead to tensions with other NATO states in the years to come, the Danish security expert Sten Rynning wrote in Carnegie Europe. On the military front, Sweden’s preference for domestically-produced Gripen fighter planes may hamper plans for a joint Nordic air defense, as the rest of NATO’s Nordic members use U.S.-made F-35 planes, Rynning added.