Sweden is in NATO and the Baltic has become an alliance sea with one Russian shore

On Thursday 7 March Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson handed Sweden's instrument of accession to the North Atlantic Treaty to Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington. Sweden became the thirty-second member of NATO at that moment[1]. Jens Stoltenberg said the same day that "Sweden's accession makes NATO stronger, Sweden safer and the whole alliance more secure"[2]. The Swedish flag is raised at NATO headquarters in Brussels today, 11 March, and at the alliance's command headquarters[3]. Finland completed the same procedure on 4 April 2023, when it deposited its instrument with the United States and became the thirty-first member[4].

The two accessions close a question that our generation inherited and never expected to see answered. Sweden avoided military alliances for more than two hundred years. Its defence minister rejected NATO membership as recently as 2021[1]. Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 changed that position within three months. Sweden applied in May 2022, and the application then waited for almost two years on the decisions of two capitals[1].

How the delay ended

Türkiye went first. Its parliament voted on 23 January 2024, with 287 members in favour, 55 against and 4 abstentions, and President Erdoğan published the law in the official gazette two days later. Ankara had held the ratification back to press Washington on the sale of F-16 fighter aircraft[5]. Hungary went last. Kristersson visited Budapest on 23 February and the two governments confirmed the sale of four more Gripen fighter aircraft to Hungary and an extension of their maintenance agreement. On 26 February the Hungarian parliament ratified Sweden's accession by 188 votes to 6[6]. Hungary's president signed the bill the day before the deposit in Washington[7].

The sequence deserves to be recorded without decoration. Two allies used the unanimity rule of the Treaty's accession procedure to extract a bilateral price, one from the United States and one from Sweden. Both prices were paid. The alliance grew, and the lesson that a veto has a market value was learned by every member that watched. Blinken's remark that "good things come to those who wait" was gracious[1]. It was also a description of a method that worked.

What changes in the Baltic

The strategic change is geographical. With Sweden inside, all the Nordic countries are members, and the Baltic becomes what The Guardian calls an entirely "Nato sea"[8]. Russia keeps the shoreline around St Petersburg and the exclave of Kaliningrad. Every other coastal state is an ally. The sea lanes that supply Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania now run between allied coasts from the Danish straits to the Gulf of Finland.

Sweden brings more than a coastline. Kristersson said in Washington that Sweden has "unique capabilities to contribute on land, in the air, at sea". The government is doubling its defence budget and from this year it meets the alliance's target of 2 per cent of GDP for defence. It plans to raise the number of conscripts, to strengthen civil defence and to reintroduce civilian service[3]. Sweden has signed an agreement giving the United States access to seventeen of its military bases, has announced that it will send forces to Latvia and is taking part in the Nordic Response exercise with more than 20,000 soldiers from Sweden, Finland and other allies[8]. Stoltenberg said that Sweden now has the protection of Article 5 and an equal say in the alliance's decisions[7].

Moscow has threatened unspecified "political and military-technical counter-measures"[1]. We take the threat as a statement of intent. The Russian bomber flights near Gotland in 2013, when Sweden needed NATO aircraft to push them out of its airspace, and the submarine reported in the Stockholm archipelago in 2014 are the record that persuaded Swedish voters[1]. The accession does not create a confrontation in the Baltic. It changes who answers when the next one comes.

For the Union the accession has a quieter consequence. Sweden and Finland are Member States. The mutual assistance clause of Article 42(7) of the Treaty on European Union and Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty now cover the same Nordic territory. The Union's own clause has been invoked once, by France in 2015, and its content has never been tested at sea. Of the twenty-seven Member States, twenty-three are now NATO members. The overlap is almost complete, and the Union has not yet said what it will do with it.

What we ask of the Union and of the Nordic allies

We make four proposals that follow from the new map.

The Council should adopt, before the June European Council, a short statement on the Baltic that reads Article 42(7) TEU together with Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty for the eight Member States that border the sea. The two clauses now cover the same shores. A text that says so would cost nothing and would remove an ambiguity that Moscow can exploit.

The Commission should fund, under the Connecting Europe Facility, the dual-use port and rail links that Sweden's deployment to Latvia will need[8]. The Baltic is the place where the Union's military mobility money should be spent first.

The Nordic and Baltic Member States should propose a joint maritime surveillance arrangement for the sea's critical infrastructure, including cables and pipelines, under the EU Maritime Security Strategy. The sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines in September 2022 happened in these waters. An alliance sea with one Russian shore is still a sea where things can be cut.

The Swedish government should keep its promise on conscription and civil defence and report on it publicly[3]. The ratification saga showed that promises made to allies are watched. A membership that began with two years of waiting should not begin with a defence budget that slips.