Garvan Walshe: Finland’s and Sweden’s NATO application shows how much Russia has already lost
Garvan Walshe is a former national and international security policy adviser to the Conservative Party.
The fact that Finland and Sweden are applying to join NATO is further proof that Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has been a monstrous mistake. Moscow has had an effective veto against Swedish and Finnish membership since the Cold War. Now, with Russian troops stuck in the Donbas, Helsinki and Stockholm can join while Russia is too busy to do much about it.
It also complicates Putin’s tactical situation. NATO forces could soon be positioned to open a second front north of St. Petersburg, limiting Russia’s ability to intimidate the Baltic states, and to widen the directions from which Murmansk on the Arctic coast could be counterattacked.
Instead of Finland defending an 830-mile border with Russia, Russia must now defend another 830-mile border with NATO. The island of Gotland, from which the Baltic Sea can be controlled, will be a NATO, not just a Swedish, island.
But the main difference is geopolitical. Look at the globe from the top and list the countries of Poland from Russia: USA (through Alaska), Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Great Britain, Norway, Sweden and Finland. This arch sweeps down through the Baltic states, Poland and the other countries that escaped Soviet domination in 1989, to Ukraine. Everyone except Ukraine is a member of NATO – and Ukraine is inflicting the biggest defeat on Russia since the Japanese in 1905.
In addition to the United States and Canada, which must also pay attention to Chinese ambitions in the Pacific, all of these states see resisting Russian aggression as their main defense policy task.
This will remain the case until the Russian state understands that its purpose should be to improve the lives of the Russian people, and that this is prevented, not helped, by paranoid militarism. Yet that process will not even begin until Putin leaves office, and it may well be reversed, even if he is followed by a liberalizing successor. The openings of both Tsar Alexander II and Boris Yeltsin were overturned.
These first-line states, of which Britain, Poland and Ukraine are the main military powers, can expect to retain decades of containment of Moscow. In addition to strengthening their own cooperation, they need to keep the rest of the Western alliance involved.
Even setting aside the risk of a second Trump administration, a United States returning to isolationism, or simply focusing on China, could not help build a defense against Russian aggression in the way it has done this time. Continental European powers such as France and Germany, under less immediate threat to Russia, must be convinced of who their true friends are.
The German government is divided. While Annalena Baerbock, its Foreign Minister, has been steadfast in her support for Ukraine, Olaf Scholz seems to lack the courage in his convictions and needs constant pressure to live up to Time consuming he announced immediately after the Russian invasion.
And as Emmanuel Macron’s speech on Monday showed, France is still struggling to pull off its reflex to somehow try to involve Russia in contributing to security in Europe. This thinking has long been obsolete: a democratic Germany within the EU has long made a Russian balance to Prussia unnecessary, and Poland’s integration into the West has made it unsustainable.
But winning the political battles in France and Germany (and maintaining Mario Draghi’s new pro-Ukrainian consensus in Italy) will require more concerted diplomatic efforts. It has been entertaining to see the friendly rivalry between former European schoolmates as they compete for visits to Kyiv and videotaped addresses of Volodomyr Zelensky. Whether it is Anglo-Swedish NLAWs (tank defense weapons), American spears, German panzerfausters or French CAESAR howitzers, they all contribute to Ukraine’s struggle for freedom. This is not a race, but a collective effort in which all democracies should participate.
Finland’s and Sweden’s accession to NATO, accompanied by British security guarantees for both countries until the NATO accession process is completed, is one such initiative. That Denmark joins the EU’s defense policy (it currently has an opt-out: a referendum is to be held on June 1 and “join” has a lead of 20 points) is another. The demand is not necessarily unity of institutions, but unity in action, which must be pursued through NATO, EU initiatives and the British-led Joint Expeditionary Force.
Next winter, when inflation and high energy prices will bite together, will prove critical. Russia will spend every ounce of its political manipulation effort on splitting Germany, France and Italy from the frontline states. It is in Britain’s essential interest that these efforts fail.
Lasting peace in Europe comes only when Russia, like Germany, abandons imperialist ambitions, reforms its militaristic culture and withdraws from all territory in other states it has occupied. Putin’s defeat will not be enough to trigger the introspection and reconstruction that Russia needs. But it is a necessary step, and his inability to enforce Moscow’s ban on Finnish and Swedish NATO membership is proof that he is beginning to lose.