What Sweden Brings to NATO

W ith the news that Hungary’s parliament has at long last voted to approve Sweden’s NATO membership application, many, not least in Sweden, have breathed a sigh of relief. More than 18 months after the application was first submitted, the process, which was initially expected to take only a few months, is finally over. Not everyone is relieved, however, with some Americans expressing concern that Sweden’s commitment to NATO is uncertain, and that it will prove to be yet another free-rider that will benefit from U.S. military protection while contributing little or nothing of value. This is often paired with concerns over Sweden’s accession needlessly provoking Russia. These fears are, fortunately, overblown.

First, there are many reasons why Sweden’s accession will actually strengthen NATO. Unlike many existing members, Sweden is already spending the required 2 percent of GDP on defense. In fact, even before the invasion of Ukraine, defense spending in Sweden was surging, having more than doubled since 2017. In stark contrast to the U.S. and many other NATO members that are struggling with military recruitment, the number of soldiers completing basic training in Sweden has increased by over 30 percent in just one year.

That being said, Sweden is first and foremost not contributing quantity, but quality: Even years before its rearmament began, Sweden’s coastal rangers were beating U.S. Navy SEALs, while Sweden’s navy defeated the American equivalent in war games. Next to NATO members such as Germany, whose military is infamously poorly equipped and trained, the contrast could not be starker.

All of this may be surprising to those without in-depth knowledge of Swedish foreign policy. Sweden’s 200-year policy of neutrality has often been misunderstood by foreign observers as being an expression of pacifism, when in reality it was always based on a cold, realpolitik-style calculation. Prior to Sweden’s policy of neutrality, it either invaded or was invaded on average about once every ten years . . . for three centuries. Being in a state of near-permanent war paralyzed the Swedish economy and society, and in the end, after losing Finland to Russia, Sweden did not so much embrace neutrality as it merely abandoned all efforts to expand its territory once it concluded that the imperialist game was one it could not win.

Once Sweden abandoned its imperial ambitions, not being part of any military alliance — so as to avoid being dragged into another country’s war, which could mean losing even more territory — made a lot of sense. Unlike countries such as Switzerland, however, it did maintain a sizeable military. Most importantly for NATO today, Sweden during the Cold War built an impressive defense industry that remains one of the largest in the world.

Before long, Sweden had the capacity to manufacture far more weapons and munitions than it could ever stockpile, and soon began to sell the surplus to other countries. To this day, on a per capita basis, Sweden is one of the ten largest arms exporters in the world. Most notably, Sweden manufactures the JAS 39 Gripen, a lightweight fighter jet specifically designed to be able to operate out of remote air bases and conduct hit-and-run, guerilla-style attacks against an overwhelming force. It is, in short, the perfect aircraft for Ukraine, or any other small nation that falls victim to Russian aggression. Now, with Sweden inside NATO, the Swedish defense industry is also NATO’s defense industry. Having spent 200 years preparing to fight off a Russian invasion, Sweden is a truly invaluable ally at a time when Russia has proven to be, to paraphrase Mitt Romney, the greatest geopolitical threat of our time.

Geography is yet another reason why Sweden’s accession benefits the alliance as a whole. Sweden controls several islands in the Baltic Sea, the most important among them being the island of Gotland. For years, international military analysts have pointed out the incredible strategic importance Gotland plays for NATO’s ability to defend the Baltic states: If Russia were to successfully occupy Gotland, it would be able to cut off most NATO reinforcements from reaching the Baltics in time to stop those countries, all much smaller than Ukraine, from being steamrolled. Fortunately, with Sweden as a member, NATO can now build a permanent base on Gotland, something that arguably should be a top priority.

Is there a risk that Sweden’s membership might provoke Russia, perhaps even triggering a full-scale war between it and NATO? There are two possible responses to this, the first being that NATO cannot let Russia’s feelings dictate whom it can and cannot ally with. Allowing Russia to keep a “sphere of influence” after World War II did not work out well for the people in that sphere of influence (who lined up to join NATO after regaining independence), nor for the U.S., whom Russia — despite all the concessions it had been granted after the war — still viewed as an enemy. Because of the newly conquered territories that the Western allies had effectively ceded to it, Russia became a much more formidable foe to the United States than it otherwise would have been.

The second response is more pragmatic: Finland already joined NATO almost a year ago, with no response beyond the usual whining from Moscow. This is significant, because unlike Sweden, Finland was Russian territory until separatists used the chaos in the aftermath of the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 to declare independence. The Bolsheviks proceeded to fund allies in Finland who went on to wage a civil war, but ultimately the anti-communist Whites prevailed. Then, during World War II, the Soviet Union famously attempted and failed to take back Finland, though the story actually had a less-than-happy ending.

First, Finland had to concede almost a tenth of its territory, and for the entirety of the Cold War, Finland was reduced to little more than a client state of the Soviet Union in all foreign-policy matters. This kind of domination became known as Finlandization: In exchange for independence in domestic matters, Finland agreed never to criticize the Soviet Union on the world stage, and to return any Soviet citizens who fled to Finland to escape Soviet oppression. The Finnish government even had to ban the printing and distribution of anti-Soviet books and movies. Finland was also not allowed to receive any aid from the Marshall Plan, leaving the country impoverished after more than five years of total war, though Sweden did its best to help its brethren people in the East.

Given that the accession of Finland, a country Russia genuinely views as one that should be in its sphere of influence, was not enough to provoke a nuclear war, it is highly unlikely that Sweden’s accession will.

Finally, to those who doubt Sweden’s long-term commitment to the alliance, I would ask you to consider the great lengths to which Sweden had to go in order to secure its membership, especially by appeasing Turkey and Hungary. Countless high-ranking politicians on both sides of the political spectrum have staked their reputations on Swedish membership’s turning out to be a good idea. While I am certainly not a fan of the Swedish Social Democrats, I applaud them for their persistent and successful efforts to convince left-wing voters that Sweden needed to join NATO after the invasion of Ukraine made clear the threat that Russia poses to its neighbors. (Among right-wing voters, a supermajority has supported NATO membership for years.)

Sweden’s application to join NATO and its aggressive push to rearm are not pet projects of the right-wing government elected in 2022, but stem rather from a broad political consensus. That consensus should reassure the skeptics that Sweden will do its part to keep the alliance strong.