The Senate on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a resolution to ratify Sweden and Finland’s admission into NATO, a bipartisan move designed to bolster the strategic alliance against Russia as the country wages its war in Ukraine.
The lawmakers voted 95-1, with only Republican Senator Josh Hawley opposing and Republican Senator Rand Paul abstaining. It needed two-thirds approval from the chamber to prevail.
At the end of June, the Sweden and Finland’s invitations to NATO were confirmed, sending the treaty to the 30 member states’ parliaments and legislatures for final ratification. Twenty-two countries, including the United States, have already accepted the new members.
While former president Trump was a vehement critic of NATO, claiming that the bloc imposed disproportionate defense expense burden on the U.S., the vast majority of Republicans joined their Democratic colleagues on Wednesday behind the measure.
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell said that he expected the vote to be “as decisive as it is bipartisan,” noting that expanding the alliance is a “slam dunk for national security that deserves unanimous bipartisan support.” Sweden and Finland had been eyeing NATO membership since Russian aggression reached a new level with President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
By Article 5 of the NATO agreement, signatories are obliged to treat an attack on one member nation as an attack on all and mobilize appropriately for their mutual protection, an appealing provision for prospective applicants.
Hawley, however, argued that Russia’s conflict with Ukraine is a distraction from the real rising foe: China, who the U.S. should dedicate more resources and energy to standing athwart.
In a piece in The National Interest, Hawley wrote,”Finland and Sweden want to join the Atlantic Alliance to head off further Russian aggression in Europe. That is entirely understandable given their location and security needs.”
“But America’s greatest foreign adversary doesn’t loom over Europe. It looms in Asia. I am talking of course about the People’s Republic of China. And when it comes to Chinese imperialism, the American people should know the truth: the United States is not ready to resist it. Expanding American security commitments in Europe now would only make that problem worse — and America, less safe,” he added.
Paul, previously opposed to Sweden and Finland’s entrance into NATO, said he slightly changed his calculus after Russia attacked Ukraine.
“As for Sweden and Finland, we still need serious, rational, objective debate on the costs and benefits of admitting two historically neutral nations who have such strategic geographic position in relation to Russia,” he wrote in the American Conservative. “Before the Russian invasion, I would have said no. But given Russian actions, I have shifted from being against their admittance to NATO to neutral on the question, and will as a consequence vote ‘present.'”