A hidden but important international story this week is the potential accession of Sweden to NATO. Two NATO members – Turkey and Hungary – had withheld approval of Sweden’s application to join the alliance, but this week Turkey’s autocratic President Recep Erdoğan announced his country’s support for this move. The Hungarian parliament, which meets in the middle of February, may follow suit; Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban invited Sweden’s Prime Minister to Hungary this week to negotiate Sweden’s accession. A unanimous vote of member nations is required to allow new countries to join the alliance, so this is not yet a done deal.
Russia’s March 2022 invasion of Ukraine shook the existing world order, as the moribund autocracy led by Vladimir Putin is desperate to remain relevant in a world where its prosperity is outstripped by dozens of other nations, as this map shows.
Right after this invasion, both Sweden and Finland applied to join the alliance. They had both been militarily unaligned for years, but this display of Russian aggression forced them into the NATO camp. After opposing the admission of Finland for over a year, both Hungary and Turkey changed course and approved the country’s accession.
Turkey opposed the accession of Sweden primarily because it believes that Sweden has supported Kurdish separatists who have migrated to Sweden. Turkey initially opposed efforts to fast-track Finland and Sweden’s application, saying their membership would make the alliance “a place where representatives of terrorist organizations are concentrated.” The most serious accusations were lodged against Sweden, with Finland included through a kind of guilt by association.
Turkey and Hungary are also asking that NATO (and by that they mean the United States) sell them certain high-tech weapons systems in exchange for their approval of Sweden’s membership in NATO. That’s part of the ongoing negotiation process.
The situation in Europe as the war in Ukraine enters its second winter is still precarious. Russia was not able to pull off the quick victory it had anticipated, and the ongoing direct expenses of the war, along with economic sanctions imposed on Russia, have further weakened the Russian economy.
This situation is further complicated by Russia’s assertion that it attacked Ukraine primarily because of the threat of NATO expansion into parts of Europe that had been formally a part of the Russian sphere of influence – either as republics of the former Soviet Union (Ukraine) or former members of the Warsaw Pact (the NATO counterpart established in 1955). Since 2008, NATO has included Ukraine in the list of countries that could eventually become part of NATO, and in 2021 NATO reconfirmed this status. Russia invaded Ukraine a few months later. European and American support for Ukraine through the NATO structure has only exacerbated Putin’s sense that Ukraine will be brought under the NATO collective defense umbrella, and the various NATO member states have consistently expressed their support for Ukraine’s inclusion in the alliance.
We should all recall the anti-NATO strategy of the previous President of the United States. He consistently opposed funding for American defense activities in support of NATO, regularly condemning NATO nations for failing to “pay their bills.” It’s clear that #P01135809 does not understand how the alliance is funded (big shock), but here’s what this is all about.
Member nations commit to provide financial support to NATO by pledging a percentage of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to go for their own national defense. This means that the most prosperous nations pay a large dollar value; the United States, with the largest economy among the member nations, pays the most. This makes sense. In 2006, NATO Defense Ministers agreed to commit a minimum of 2% of their GDP to defense by 2024 (this year). It’s important to recognize that this is the target percentage of each country’s total defense budget, only a portion of which goes to NATO. Only nine member nations are expected to reach that goal this year, but this doesn’t mean anyone owes the United States anything.
By contrast, the US spends about 3.3% of its budget on defense – but that does not mean that all of this goes to NATO. U.S. global defense needs vastly surpass those of most of its European allies.
The cost is part of what has led #P01135809 and his allies to talk about withdrawing from NATO. This proposal is included in his Project 2025, the conservative playbook to dismantle the federal government and replace it with new policies. For years, #P01135809 has been disdainful of the alliance, saying at one point “I don’t give a shit about NATO,” and saying at another point “Their conflicts are not worth American lives. Pulling back from Europe would save this country millions of dollars annually.” In 2020, he told the president of the European Commission that “the US would never come help if Europe was attacked” and also said that “NATO is dead.”
In a recent interview, Sir Richard Dearlove (former chief of MI6, the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service), said that [the reelection of #P01135809] would be problematic due to the former president’s issues with NATO. He said “We put all our eggs, in defense terms, in the NATO basket. If [#P01135809] really is serious about, as it were, changing the balance — I mean, the American nuclear umbrella for Europe is, in my view, essential to Europe’s security and defense.”
The history of this is important. In exchange for the guarantee of this nuclear umbrella, in the 1960s the UK scaled back its earlier nuclear program and ceded control over nuclear operations within the alliance to the United States. France, the only other alliance member that has nuclear capability, maintains only a minor independent nuclear capability. No other NATO country has nuclear weapons; if the US promise of help in the event of a Russian attack were to become unreliable, these nations would be forced to figure out other ways of protecting themselves. This would mean a proliferation of nuclear weapons and increased global instability.
Vivek Ramaswamy, the most recent victim of the #P01135809 juggernaut, said on Tuesday night that the results of the New Hampshire primary represent “American first defeating America last.” This laughably simplistic formulation appeals only to the MAGA voter base and will not produce a victory for #P01135809 in November.
I used to explore the “America First” slogan when I was teaching my high school students about the 20th-century global wars. Throughout the first 150 years of American history, the nation’s geographic position permitted an isolationist foreign policy. However, the evolving communication and transportation capability that emerged during the 20th century rendered isolationism no longer an effective strategy. The United States recognized this in 1917 (hence the song), and the onset of the Second World War only two decades later highlighted the need for a different defense strategy for the United States.
I used the 1917 George M Cohan song “Over There” to illustrate America’s strategic goal at the beginning of the 20th century – to ensure that global conflicts happened “Over There” rather than on United States soil. Take a listen.
After World War II, the cooperative structures that emerged (NATO, the United Nations, and the World Bank) assumed American commitment to global stability and security. The “Over There” mentality supported the American tripwire strategy – which meant placing United States soldiers as close to the border between East and West in Europe as possible so that any Soviet incursion into NATO territory would kill Americans right from the beginning, generating a military reaction from the NATO (meaning the United States). There was no other reason for US military bases in Europe. I know that some of my readers are from military families that may have been stationed in Europe while they were growing up. You may not have known that your fathers (and the rest of your family) were there so that Americans would be the first victims of a Russian invasion.
But NATO member states can’t trust the American voters right now, and I don’t blame them. #P01135809 and his lackeys are doing generational damage to global security and the international order.
Couldn't agree with you more. The European countries had several alliances that went very wrong and look where they put the world in the early 20C. NATO is a different kind of alliance and one I support. Glad to have Sweden. When I think of Turkey, I understand why they want to be part of NATO, and geographically, I understand why we would want them as members, but I would like to have a conditional membership--sort of--for those countries that have anti-democracy forms of government. I don't really want to give autocratic countries US support. I'm sure there's something I'm not understanding about world.
Anyone who thinks that getting out of NATO is a good idea should vote for Doe 174.