How the addition of Finland and Sweden would change NATO
So what does this mean? How will the probable addition of Finland – and the likely subsequent addition of Sweden – reshape the balance of power between Russia and NATO? It is likely that the alliance itself will not change much, but tensions between NATO and its geopolitical opponents may.
The most important issue is the border between Finland and Russia. NATO’s expansion over time has gone to the western edge of Russia, when the collapse of the Soviet Union 30 years ago prompted a number of former Soviet states and Warsaw Pact countries to seek and gain membership in the alliance. On the map below (illustrated as if looking down at the North Pole) you can see how NATO expanded towards Russia. You can also see why Ukraine examined NATO membership for so long.
Part of Russia’s defense of its invasion of Ukraine suggests that the country was concerned about having NATO at its border; a careless defense given that Russia already shared borders both with the former Soviet states of Estonia and Latvia and with a remote part of Norway. However, the addition of Finland would increase the shared border between NATO and Russia from about 440 km to more than 1,200.
This in itself does not make war more likely, but Finland’s transition to the West is the kind of change that Russia has hoped to prevent. In a statement, the Russian government promised to “take retaliation, both of a military and other nature, to stop the threats to its national security that arise in this regard.”
What NATO offers Finland is clear: security from its aggressive eastern neighbor. Curious about what the addition of Finland and Sweden brings to NATO, I drew data to see.
NATO is not cohesive, so land area is not a particularly useful measure, but aggregating the size of NATO countries in relation to Russia is instructive. Russia is huge. With Finland and Sweden, the size of the NATO countries is only 1.4 times as large as Russia as a whole.
But large parts of Russia are uninhabited. NATO countries have about six and a half times as many inhabitants as Russia. However, the addition of Finland and Sweden would not change much.
Where it quickly becomes distorted is the economy. The current NATO members had a gross domestic product in 2020 equivalent to 27 times that of Russia – largely a function of the United States. Adding Finland and Sweden increases it to 27.6 times Russia’s GDP.
And then there are military expenditures. One of the requirements for NATO membership is that nations spend a certain percentage of GDP on their military. (This was the measure that former President Donald Trump focused on his criticism of NATO.) The current members of NATO spend about 24.5 times as much on their military as Russia. (Iceland is an exception, it has no military but is a NATO member given its strategic location.)
Much of this spending is on materials and technology. When considering the size of the standing military for each country, the ratio is smaller. NATO has about 3.2 times as many members of its collective military as Russia – or as Russia did before its tumultuous invasion of Ukraine.
Include military reserves and the margin decreases further: NATO has 1.7 times the military as Russia. But if we include Finland and Sweden here, the scale doubles. Finland, it turns out, has a huge military reserve.
Why? Largely because it shares that vast border with Russia. After Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and began engaging in military conflict in eastern Ukraine, Finland sent out renewed instructions to its great strength of reservists. Once again, Finland has a history of suffering from aggression from the East.
Now, when it is seen that the aggression is being deployed nearby, Finland is seeking reinforcements from the West.