The accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO represents a significant development in the military alliance's expansion and has created a sense of cohesion among many current members.
With the exception of Turkey, the United States and the majority of the other members of NATO, which has not grown to this extent since the 1990s, have warmly welcomed these two Nordic nations to Europe's top security organization.Finland has traditionally coordinated with NATO while preserving its customary coexistence with its neighboring Russia, despite being nominally "neutral" for decades.
The decision has some dangers for Finland, but the Helsinki administration and the majority of the populace think the advantages will exceed them.
Due to Helsinki's historical neutrality towards its neighbor, Moscow and Helsinki have generally had cordial relations.
Finland did not consider Moscow to be a serious danger before to November 2021 when Russia began massing soldiers along the Ukrainian border.However, as allegations of Kremlin-driven disinformation operations, airspace violations, and cyberattacks escalated, Finland and other Baltic nations started to reevaluate their geopolitical stances.
Moscow pushed for "security assurances" and demanded an end to NATO enlargement between November 2021 and February 24, the day Russia invaded Ukraine, upsetting Finnish officials.
According to Edward Hunter Christie, a senior research fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, "the realistic fear was that Russia was inventing and enforcing a new norm, a new rule, for Europe as Russia looked more and more inclined to attack Ukraine."
Governments in Europe are aware of Moscow's special interest in Belarus and Ukraine, but none is certain of just how radical Moscow has become. The Baltic republics and maybe Finland could be "on the menu,"The government of Finland and the majority of the populace then expressed a desire to join NATO as a reaction of Russia's overt invasion of Ukraine.
Eldar Mamedov, a foreign policy adviser in the European Parliament, spoke to Al Jazeera in his personal capacity and said, "The [Russian] invasion of Ukraine has reinforced the notion that Putin's Russia was an aggressive revisionist power, and therefore the Cold War model of neutrality no longer applied.""Although Finland and Sweden already had strong ties to NATO and high levels of military interoperability, joining NATO entails taking advantage of the Washington Treaty's Article 5 as the ultimate security guarantee. The majority of the populace and the Finnish political elite concurred that now is the time to close the remaining gap.
The shock of the war in Ukraine has severely affected Finland.
According to a Kantar TNS opinion survey for the Helsingin Sanomat daily, popular support for Finland's NATO membership was at 28% in January 2022. That was a record high at the time. But by the end of March, that number had risen to 61 percent.
In response, the Social Democrat Party-led government of Prime Minister Sanna Marin, which has never had a particularly pro-Atlantic attitude, changed its security and defense strategies in favor of NATO membership.
The Baltic Sea will become a "NATO lake" as a result of Finland's ascension, adding 835 miles (1,345 km) to the NATO-Russia boundary and practically ensuring that relations with Moscow will increase.
According to Hanna Ojanen of the University of Tampere, "it is likely that there will be a protracted period of very limited relations and an overall change of Russian attitude toward Finland."How Helsinki views Helsinki's membership in the Transatlantic Alliance will probably depend on whether it permits NATO to set up military bases on Finnish soil.
In the event that Russia decides to strike a NATO nation, Christie said, "The biggest risk [for Finland as a member of NATO] is to be targeted militarily." "For instance, if Russia were to invade Estonia or Poland, the entire alliance would join Finland in going to war with Russia. That is the danger that comes with joining NATO. However, it is offset by the peace of mind that Finland would get support from the entire NATO, including the United States, if Russia decided to attack it.
Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, has responded thus far in a calm manner, asserting that Finland's choice to join NATO was its right.
Given how deeply Russia is entangled in Ukraine at the moment, Putin's statement must be interpreted in the context of Moscow's desire to prevent a crisis with Helsinki.
A Finnish public broadcaster revealed that Russia had removed approximately 100 military vehicles from its military base in Alakurtti, which is about 31 miles (50 km) from Finland, since May and is likely to send these vehicles into Ukraine, shortly after Finland and Sweden finished accession negotiations with NATO officials.
It may be argued that the continuing Ukraine war has prohibited Russia from maintaining a military presence near Finnish territory, much less amassing its forces there, as Alakurtti is the sole Russian military base close to the Finnish border.However, Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the Kremlin, has voiced hazy cautions over the admission of the Nordic countries to NATO.
Such solutions are being developed at the Ministry of Defense, not in the Kremlin. There are pertinent plans there, as we have already stated numerous times, and effort is being done to secure our security, he added last week.
Later on, Russia is anticipated to take action in the Baltic Sea against Finland and other NATO nations.
In addition to continuing to militarize Kaliningrad, Mamedov expects that Russia would "further absorb Belarus in its security sphere and participate in lower level resolve-testing provocations against NATO, like violating its members' airspace, cyberattacks, [and more]".
In a sign of Helsinki's readiness for Russian threats, the Finnish parliament approved legislation on July 7 to replace portions of the light wooden fences along the border with Russia with a "sturdy fence with a true barrier effect."
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