NATO membership for Sweden and Finland

[Albany Rifles]

Wikipedia does a decent job laying out their capabilities. Bottomline...they are not to be trifled with. Plus it would absolutely blow to try to attack through that terrain...makes The Ardennes look like a dog track in comparison.

[Officer of Engineers]

A damned good army and a better hockey team (grumble, grumble). The Swedes and Finns knocked out the Northern Flank option. While neutral, there was always the scenario that the Swedes or the Finns individually could not hold back a Soviet thrust against our Northern Flank if either one of the two sides with the Soviets. Finland joining NATO effectively knocked out that option even if Russia somehow regain Soviet might. We can provide munitions and re-enforcement before the Finns can go bingo on either one. Adding in Sweden and we've just added offensive airpower might into Russia.

[Red Team]

A question for our military and defense professional Wabbits, what are your opinions on Finland in terms of the capabilities and strategic value it brings to NATO?

[TopHatter]

Finland is officially the latest member of the alliance.

Putin the Genius succeeds again.

[Red Team]

Finland is officially the latest member of the alliance.

[Amled]

Turkey ok’s Finland’s application to join NATO”! As for the Swedes…still forced to wait and dance to the tune of Turkey’s pipe!
Now that Finland is joining NATO, the alliance will be joined; and have its Northern flank strengthened, by what is reputed to be one of the best military in Europe!
There’s a bit of irony in this, in that in a poll conducted about 6 years ago that asked for the public sentiment regarding Finland joining NATO. Only about 18% of Finns at that time was for it!
A poll taken; at the same time that their Parliament ratified the application by over 90%, showed that over 86% now supported joining NATO!
Second little bit of irony is that Putin started his War, as he said to “prevent NATO encroachment” You have to wonder how he’ll react to NATO with Finland’s and Norway’s over 1,500km. border, now sealing Norther Europe of from his encroachment plans!
https://warontherocks.com/2023/03/ru...den-join-nato/

[TopHatter]

Turkey’s president says he will back Finland’s NATO bid
ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday that his government would move forward with ratifying Finland’s NATO application, paving the way for the country to join the military bloc ahead of Sweden.

The breakthrough came as Finnish President Sauli Niinisto was in Ankara to meet with Erdogan. Both Finland and Sweden applied to become NATO members 10 months ago in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, abandoning decades of nonalignmen t.

NATO requires the unanimous approval of its 30 existing members to expand, and Turkey and Hungary are the only countries that have not yet ratified the Nordic nations’ bids. The Turkish government accused both Sweden and Finland of being too soft on groups that it deems to be terror organizations, but expressed more reservations about Sweden.

“When it comes to fulfilling its pledges in the trilateral memorandum of understanding, we have seen that Finland has taken authentic and concrete steps,” Erdogan told a news conference in Ankara following his meeting with Niinisto.

“This sensitivity for our country’s security and, based on the progress that has been made in the protocol for Finland’s accession to NATO, we have decided to initiate the ratification process in our parliament,“ the president added.

With Erdogan’s agreement, Finland’s application can now go to the Turkish parliament, where the president’s party and its allies hold a majority. Ratification is expected before Turkey holds its presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for May 14.

Commenting on Turkey’s willingness to consider ratifying Sweden’s accession to NATO, Erdogan said it would “depend on the solid steps Sweden will take.”

Explaining the difference between the Nordic countries from Ankara’s viewpoint, Erdogan claimed that Sweden had “embraced terrorism,” and cited demonstrations by supporters of Kurdish militants on the streets of Stockholm. “Such demonstrations do not take place in Finland,” he said. “For that reason we had to consider (Finland) separately from Sweden.”

Niinisto welcomed Turkey’s willingness to move on his country’s bid but also expressed solidarity with its neighbor. “I have a feeling that Finnish NATO membership is not complete without Sweden,” he said.

Referring to a NATO summit scheduled for July in Lithuania’s capital, Niinisto added: “I would like to see in Vilnius that we will meet the alliance of 32 members.”

Turkey, Finland and Sweden signed a memorandum of understanding in June of last year to resolve differences over the Nordic states’ membership.

The document included clauses addressing Ankara’s claims that Stockholm and Helsinki did not take seriously enough its concerns with those it considers terrorists, particularly supporters of Kurdish militants who have waged a 39-year insurgency in Turkey and people Ankara associates with a 2016 coup attempt.

A series of separate demonstrations in Stockholm, including a protest by an anti-Islam activist who burned the Quran outside the Turkish Embassy, also angered Turkish officials.

In Stockholm, Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said separate ratification of Finland and Sweden’s bids by Ankara was “a development that we didn’t want but it’s something that we’re prepared for. We comply and will continue to comply with the memorandum established between our three countries.”

Billstrom stressed that “it’s about when Sweden becomes a member, not about our security. We are even more secure now than we were before we applied for membership in NATO.”

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and lawmakers have promised to ratify the two country’s NATO membership applications. But the country’s parliament has repeatedly postponed a ratification vote.

The parliamentary head of Orban’s Fidesz party said Friday that a vote on Finnish accession would be held on March 27. Mate Kocsis said in a Facebook post that lawmakers for Fidesz, which holds a two-thirds majority in parliament, would “vote unanimously in favor.”

Niinisto arrived in Turkey on Thursday and toured areas affected by a magnitude 7.8 earthquake that killed more than 52,000 people in Turkey and Syria last month.

“I have known Erdogan for a long time. I am sure he has important messages,” Niinisto said Thursday while visiting Kahramanmaras, one of the provinces worst-hit by the magnitude 7.6 earthquake on Feb. 6 that killed more than 52,000 people in Turkey and Syria.

Prior to Friday’s announcement, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said Sweden hoped for “a rapid ratification process” after Turkey’s elections.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the decision would strengthen the security of NATO, Finland and Sweden. “The most important thing is that both Finland and Sweden become full members of NATO quickly, not whether they join at exactly the same time,” he said.

Turkey’s parliament is set to go into a pre-election recess in three weeks but an “accelerated process” to endorse Finland’s NATO membership was expected, Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, director of the German Marshall Fund in Ankara, said.

He predicted a tougher path for Sweden after the elections, regardless of whether Erdogan is returned to office after 20 years in power or the opposition takes charge.

“While there is now a president who commands a majority in parliament, the next president, whoever is elected, will likely not have a majority in parliament,” Unluhisarcikli said.

Three political alliances made up of more than a dozen parties are taking part in the elections, including a left-wing alliance of politicians who tend to be ideologically opposed to NATO.

“Now it’s enough to persuade to President Erdogan, but several parties will need to be persuaded after the election,” Unluhisarcikli said.

———

[TopHatter]

Hungary ruling party seeks new delay in Nordic NATO ratifications

BUDAPEST (Reuters) -Hungary's ruling party lawmakers want to postpone next week's parliament session, which means a further delay in its ratification of Finland and Sweden's NATO admission.

An opposition party lawmaker, Agnes Vadai, of the leftist Democratic Coalition, said in a Facebook post on Tuesday she had received a letter from Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjen informing her that the ruling Fidesz and the Christian Democrats want to postpone the session which would have started on Monday.

The ruling Fidesz party confirmed to Reuters that parliament would not hold a session next week, which they said was due to a "delay in negotiations with Brussels." Hungary is mired in a dispute with the European Commission over the release of EU funds.

"The (Fidesz) parliamentary group will decide about the Finnish and Swedish NATO accession after a delegation of lawmakers (who visited the two countries) give an account of that visit," Fidesz's press office said.

Sweden and Finland applied last year for membership of the transatlantic military alliance after Russian forces invaded Ukraine. All 30 NATO members must ratify the applications, and Hungary and Turkey have held back their approvals.

Parliament's press office declined comment. Parliament could convene again only on March 27.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban's Fidesz party has said it intends to back the ratification, but last week a Fidesz lawmaker Csaba Hende said he would still need to work more to address concerns some of his fellow parliamentarians have.

Hungary's ratification process has been stranded in parliament since July, and in February Orban accused Finland and Sweden of spreading "outright lies" about democracy and rule of law in Hungary.
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[TopHatter]

Likelihood Finland joins NATO before Sweden has increased, Swedish PM says
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said on Tuesday that the likelihood that Finland joins the NATO military alliance before Sweden had increased, though Swedish membership was only a matter of time.

Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO last year but have faced objections from Turkey, which says the two countries harbour members of what it considers terrorist groups. The countries resumed talks on the process in Brussels last week.

Ankara has been clear it has greater objections to Sweden's accession than Finland's, and Kristersson said Turkey's position in that regard still remained, meaning the two Nordic countries might not join together as they prefer.

"What we have encountered in recent weeks is that the probability of this happening at different times has increased," Kristersson told a news conference in Stockholm before leaving on a visit to Germany.

"At the end of the day, it is not a matter of whether Sweden becomes a member of NATO, but when."

At the meeting in Brussels last week, Turkey acknowledged that Sweden and Finland have taken concrete steps to meet Ankara's concerns and the three countries agreed to hold further meetings as part of the NATO process.

In January, Turkey suspended talks set up as part of a deal agreed in Madrid last year aimed at smoothing Finland and Sweden's accession process after a far-right politician burned a copy of the Muslim holy book, the Koran, in Stockholm.

Sweden has said it has fulfilled its part of the Madrid memorandum. As part of its efforts to reassure Turkey it is taking its fears over militants seriously, the Swedish parliament is due to pass new anti-terrorism legislation.

Turkey and Hungary are the only NATO countries that have yet to ratify the Nordic countries' accession and Kristersson said other alliance members were putting pressure on Ankara to speed up ratification.
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[Albany Rifles]

What many believed for decades would never happen is almost upon us.

Finland’s MPs approve legislation paving way for country to join Nato | Finland | The Guardian

Finland’s MPs approve legislation paving way for country to join Nato


Vote increases chance of Finland joining alliance before its Nordic neighbour Sweden, which is facing objections from Turkey

Finland’s parliament has overwhelmingly approved legislation allowing the country to join Nato, increasing the chances of it becoming a member of the transatlantic defensive alliance before its Nordic neighbour Sweden.

Both countries last year abandoned decades of military non-alignment in a historic policy shift triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, submitting simultaneous Nato membership applications and pledging to complete the process “hand-in-hand”.

However, new entrants must be approved by all 30 existing members and while both applications still await approval from Hungary and Turkey, Sweden’s faces objections from Ankara for harbouring what it considers members of terrorist groups.

Finnish MPs voted 184 in favour of accepting the Nato treaties, with seven against and one abstaining, after earlier pushing for the legislation to be passed before general elections planned for early next month in order to avoid a political vacuum.

The vote came as work started on a fence along parts of Finland’s 1,340km (830-mile) border with Russia aimed at boosting security and tackling any attempt by Moscow to weaponise mass migration in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine.

Parliamentary approval does not mean Finland will automatically join Nato once Turkey and Hungary ratify its application, but the bill must be signed into law by the president within three months, setting a deadline on how long it can wait for Sweden.

Finland’s president, Sauli Niinistö, told reporters last week he intended to sign the law “as soon as it is approved by parliament” but added that if there were “practical reasons”, he was prepared to wait.

Hungary’s nationalist prime minister, Viktor Orbán, said last week more talks were needed before MPs vote on the membership bids and accused both countries of spreading “outright lies” about the state of democracy and the rule of law in Hungary.

A delegation from Hungary’s parliamentwill visit Finland on 9 March to discuss its Nato membership application, the Finnish foreign minister, Pekka Haavisto, said on Tuesday.

At the start of a long-delayed ratification debate in parliament on Wednesday, however, foreign affairs secretary Péter Sztáray echoed Hungary’s president, Katalin Novák, in calling on MPs to back Finland’s and Sweden’s entry “as soon as possible”.

A vote in Budapest is likely before the end of March. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, meanwhile, has said his country is prepared to approve Finland’s application, but still has strong reservations about Sweden.

Turkey announced on Monday that negotiations with Finland and Sweden would resume on 9 March after talks with Sweden were dropped over a row about protests held in Stockholm, including a burning of the Qur’an in front of Turkey’s embassy.

Foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said this week Sweden had still not fulfilled its obligations under a memorandum signed last year. “Unfortunately, we have not seen satisfactory steps from Sweden,” he said. “It is not possible for us to say yes to Sweden’s Nato bid before we see these steps.”

Stockholm plans to formally decide on 9 March on a long-planned proposal to make it illegal to be part of or endorse a terrorist organisation, and aims for the bill to be law by 1 June. Nato has said it hopes both Nordic countries will be members in time for a summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, scheduled for 11 July.
A guard walks along the boundary between Finland and Russia near the border crossing of Pelkola, in Imatra, Finland in November. Photograph: Alessandro Rampazzo/AFP/Getty Images
The 3km pilot fence on Finland’s south-eastern border crossing in Imatra is expected to be completed by the end of June, the country’s border guard said, with a further 70km (43 miles), mainly in south-eastern Finland, scheduled to be erected before 2025.

In all, Finland plans to build 200km of fencing – three metres (10ft) tall with barbed wire at the top, with particularly sensitive areas equipped with night vision cameras, lights and loudspeakers – along its border with Russia, at a cost of around €380m.

[Bigfella]

Golly gosh! How fortuitous and completely unpredictable. I wonder how long until membership is confirmed.

[Albany Rifles]

Von Rochau come to life...realpolitik 2023, NATO addition.

[Amled]

https://www.euractiv.com/section/pol...er-us-meeting/

Turkey is now willing to talk with Sweden and Finland regarding their desire to join NATO.
US Secretary of State Blinken in a statement earlier this week reiterated the US's desire to see Finland and Sweden as members of the alliance.
Blinken and Turkeys Foreign minister, was having a meeting regarding Turkeys desire to buy F.16's and modernization kits for their existing aircraft.
Now it was pointed out that the one thing had "absolutely" nothing to doe with the other!!!! (Nod, nod, wink, wink, Bob's your're Uncle!!!)

[Albany Rifles]

"OK you've had your fun, now quit f--king around, approve Finland and Sweden's entry into NATO and focus on what's really important right now: Rebuilding your nation!"

Yup...a one way conversation. And Joe Biden is enough of a Catholic boy you just know he can add the appropriate expletives as needed.

[TopHatter]

And he is going to need funding to help in the recovery and rebuild process for his country post-earthquake. Want to bet there are conditions tied to that funding?

"OK you've had your fun, now quit f--king around, approve Finland and Sweden's entry into NATO and focus on what's really important right now: Rebuilding your nation!"