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NATO is planning a ceremony on Monday to raise the Swedish flag at its Brussels headquarters, as well as at NATO commands across Europe and North America.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said “Sweden will now take its rightful place at NATO’s table, with an equal say in shaping NATO policies and decisions. After over 200 years of nonalignment Sweden now enjoys the protection granted under Article 5, the ultimate guarantee of allies’ freedom and security.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin did not want the expansion of NATO, and opposes Ukraine joining it as well.Credit: AP
He said the accession “makes NATO stronger, Sweden safer and the whole alliance more secure”.
The Russian government has said that it will now take undefined measures to enhance its own defence against the newly enlarged NATO, which now has a much longer land border with Russia than before.
“Sweden brings predictability, removing any uncertainty about how we would act in a crisis or a war,” said Robert Dalsjo, director of studies at the Swedish Defence Research Agency. Given Sweden’s geography, including Gotland, the island that helps control the entrance to the Baltic Sea, membership “will make defence and deterrence much easier to accomplish,” he said.
CEO of flag manufacturer Flagghuset Stig Kvarnryd watches as new NATO flags are printed in Akersberga, outside Stockholm, Sweden, on Thursday.Credit: TT/AP
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After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago, Finland, with its long border with Russia, saw the most imminent danger. The Swedes did, too, but were also convinced, especially on the political left, by a sense of moral outrage that Russia, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, would seek to destroy a peaceful, sovereign neighbour.
“Overall, the feeling is that we’ll be safer,” said Anna Wieslander, a Swede who is director for northern Europe for the Atlantic Council.
Now it will be much easier to bottle up the Russian surface navy in the Baltic Sea and to monitor the High North. Russia still has up to two-thirds of its second-strike nuclear weapons there, based on the Kola Peninsula.
Sweden, with its own advanced high-tech defence industry, makes its own excellent fighter planes, naval corvettes and submarines, designed to operate in the difficult environment of the Baltic Sea. It has already begun to develop and build a new class of modern submarines and larger corvettes for coastal and air defence.
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It will also now be easier now to coordinate with Finland and Denmark, which also have key islands in the Baltic, and with Norway.
Sweden may also join NATO’s multinational forward brigade in Latvia, intended to put allied troops in all the alliance countries bordering Russia.
Sweden’s main tasks, Wieslander said, would be to help guard the Baltic and the airspace over Kaliningrad; to ensure the security of Gothenburg, which is key for resupply and reinforcements; and to serve as a staging area for American and NATO troops, with agreements for the advance positioning of equipment, ammunition, supplies and field hospitals.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.