Finland joins NATO, Sweden waits for permission: lessons of a nuclear alliance
Tom Unterrainer
On Tuesday 4 April, 2023, Finland officially joined the nuclear-armed NATO alliance. In so doing, Finland formally repudiated decades of independence and non-alignment. The formal proceedings accompanying Finland’s accession to NATO gave no sense of the drastic turn of events:
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg
Secretary Blinken, Minister Haavisto, it is a pleasure to welcome you both here today, because this is an historic day. Soon we will be welcoming Finland as the 31st member of our Alliance, and we will raise the Finnish flag outside of this building. But before we do that, there are some formalities that we have to ensure are done in the right and proper way, so Secretary Blinken please hold the floor.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken
Well, Secretary General, Mr. Minister, I am delighted to report that - just a few moments ago - that Turkiye deposited with me, on behalf of the United States, Turkiye’s ratification of the instrument of acceding to the protocol for Finland’s accession to NATO. And with the receipt and submission of that protocol, I can say that the protocol is now in force.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg
Thank you so much. This is great news, Secretary Blinken. And with that, I can actually then hand over to you, Minister Haavisto, the formal invitation on behalf of all Allies, for the Republic of Finland to accede to the North Atlantic Treaty. So, please.
Finnish Minister of Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto
Thank you.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg
And then at the same time I also invite you to deposit your documents of accession to the US Government, here represented by Secretary Blinken.
Finnish Minister of Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto
Thank you, Mr. Secretary General, thank you Secretary Blinken. Now that I’ve got this invitation, it is my great pleasure to deposit with the Secretary of State of the United States of America Finland’s instrument of accession to the North Atlantic Treaty. Please, Secretary Blinken.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken
Thank you very much. Well, with receipt of this instrument of accession, we can now declare that Finland is the 31st member of the North Atlantic Treaty.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg
Congratulations!
Finnish Minister of Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto
And since we are now a member of NATO we have a very important task, and the task is actually to give to you for the deposit also our ratification for Swedish membership. This is our first act as member state.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken
I am delighted, delighted to receive this on behalf of Finland. Thank you.
Finnish Minister of Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto
Thank you.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg
And then we welcome Finland to the Alliance, and we also appreciate that you have agreed also to invite Sweden. So, this ends this moment and then we will continue outside the building in just a moment. So, thank you so much.
The ceremony over, NATO’s land border with Russia doubled in an instant. It will not have escaped the notice of Russia, the primary target of the vast majority of US nuclear weapons and the target of US bombs stationed in Europe under NATO ‘nuclear sharing’ arrangements, that it was US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken who declared “Finland as the 31st member” of NATO. NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg was on hand to offer his congratulations. All of which makes clear two things: the central - determining - role of the United States in NATO and the very real dangers presented by Finland’s accession to the nuclear-armed alliance.
Such a move would be escalatory at the ‘best of times’. All must know that these are not the ‘best of times’. Nuclear tensions are at their greatest in decades, war rages in Europe. NATO is not just expanding its geographic boot-print in Europe but is extending it across the globe, with a particular focus against China. This is what Finland has rejected independence and non-alignment for: to go to war for the United States and its priorities. What are these priorities? Certainly not peace and security in Europe. The priority is to bolster and if possible enhance US power in the face of emerging alternative powers.
What of Sweden? Why did this country not join at the same time as Finland? After all, they too rejected independence and a wonderful record of seeking peace, disarmament and diplomacy to declare themselves for the nuclear-armed, US dominated alliance. Finland’s first act as a NATO member was to “deposit also our ratification for Swedish membership.”
On March 22 2023, the Swedish parliament voted 269-37 to approve accession to NATO. As of the end of March 2023, both Turkiye and Hungary have declined to ratify Sweden’s membership. Sweden is being made to wait to be allowed to join NATO, which presents itself as the defender of ‘democracy’ and an ‘international rules based order’ by two countries with, at best, tenuous claims to ‘democracy’ and ‘rules’ of any kind. This makes them a natural fit for NATO and as an ally of the United States but it does not make for a good fit for Sweden, which has a much better record on such questions. So whilst the Hungarian President continues with racist and anti-democratic methods at home and the Turkish President continues his war against the Kurds (to name just one ‘issue’), it is Sweden that is excluded from the nuclear-armed alliance.
Of course, the original members of NATO included fascist Portugal and ‘colonial’ Britain and France which continued to perpetuate outrages across their colonies.
So much for ‘democracy’ and ‘rules’. But who can speak of such things in the context of an organisation committed to the prospect of global nuclear annihilation, megadeath and genocide? Finland has sadly joined the club of hypocrites.