Sweden finally joined NATO on Thursday, meaning the Western defense alliance has nearly surrounded the entire Baltic Sea, a major oil trade route for Russia and home to one of its fleets.
“The Baltic Sea becomes a NATO lake,” said Krišjānis Kariņš, Foreign Minister of Latvia and self-proclaimed candidate for the leadership of NATO.
Formally becoming the 32nd member of the US-led alliance at a ceremony in Washington, Sweden brings with it the central Baltic island of Gotland – dubbed a “giant aircraft carrier” – making it easier for the three small Baltic states to defend themselves .
The membership of Sweden and Finland in NATO was almost unthinkable three years ago. But when Russian tanks began advancing towards Kiev in February 2022, the two Nordic countries realized what Moscow could do to its neighbors who were not members of the military alliance. Finland’s accession was completed last year, while Stockholm’s bid was blocked by Turkey and Hungary.
Former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt said his country’s NATO membership would “substantially increase value for money in terms of defense and deterrence in northern Europe”.
“For many years we have been divided. Now we have to think in more unified terms,” Bildt added.
Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, has announced plans to reorganize the Russian military and strengthen forces in the region to “neutralize threats” that he says arise from Sweden and Finland joining NATO.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said last week that “all the long decades of good neighborliness have gone to dust” because the US military “has the right to do whatever it wants in Sweden: visit any site and create its own ”.
Russia’s response would include “additional systems that will be adapted to threats that may appear on the territory of Finland and Sweden,” he said.
Russia’s interests in the Baltic Sea are both economic and military.
St. Petersburg, which has major oil refineries, ships its exports through the Gulf of Finland via the Baltic Sea. The Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, wedged between Poland and Lithuania, is home to Russia’s Baltic Fleet and nuclear-capable Iskander ballistic missiles. Russia has threatened to change the region’s “non-nuclear” status in the past, but has not said whether or not the weapons carry nuclear warheads.
In the event of conflict, until now Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania would have relied almost exclusively on securing reinforcements and supplies through the Suwałki Gap, a narrow and vulnerable 100km strip separating the Baltics from Poland. By joining NATO, Sweden offers new possibilities by sea, as Gotland is less than 200 km from the Latvian coast.
“It reduces the vulnerability of the Baltics only through the Suwałki Gap. The overall security of the region is strengthened because it makes the Eastern Baltic less vulnerable,” said Kariņš.
Linas Linkevičius, Lithuania’s former foreign minister and now ambassador to Stockholm, said his country had been trying to get Sweden to join NATO “for longer than Sweden had done.”
He added: “With the opening of the Baltic Sea as a NATO sea, the Suwałki Gap becomes less vulnerable. Maybe the Russians should worry more. Kaliningrad will not survive if they dare to challenge NATO.”
The membership of Sweden and Finland also allows NATO to consider Northern Europe as one large region, without leaving holes on the map. “From Narva [in Estonia] in Nuuk [in Greenland] east-west and Kirkenes [in Norway] this is Krakow [in Poland] north-south”, as Bildt defines it.
The Baltic states could be the biggest immediate beneficiaries of Sweden’s membership, with Stockholm set to send a battalion to join the multinational presence in Latvia. But the most profound changes over time are likely in the Nordic region itself.
Cooperation between the four main countries – Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland – has long been close, but is now set to become more intense.
A glimpse was provided last year when the four Nordic air forces announced plans to use their fleet of around 230 fighter aircraft as a seamless operation, making it larger than the UK’s RAF or the German Air Force. Norwegian F-35 and Swedish Gripen fighter jets have already practiced landing on Finnish roads.
“NATO is made up of a few great powers and numerous medium and small powers. There is a lot of potential for the Nordic countries,” said Anna Wieslander, director for Northern Europe at the Atlantic Council think tank. “The airspace over the Scandinavian peninsula is important and always has been if you look at World War II or the Cold War. If you control the airspace over the Nordic countries, you really have an advantage.”
He added that there is potential for deeper cooperation between land and naval forces.
Sweden, which does not have a direct border with Russia, will likely play a different role for NATO military planners than front-line states. Officials say it would be a logistics hub in the event of a conflict, as well as a route for strengthening Finland or the Baltic states.
But it also brings with it special abilities. He has long experience with submarines and undersea capabilities, increasingly crucial in a Baltic Sea that has suffered several inexplicable incidents of sabotage in recent years, from the explosion of the Nord Stream gas pipelines to the disruption of gas and data links between Finland and Estonia from the anchor of a Chinese ship.
Both Bildt and Wieslander stressed that the Baltic Sea is open to all, including Russia, and that just because it is now surrounded by NATO states does not reduce the risk of conflict.
The problem with the term “NATO lake,” Wieslander explained, “is that it must not give the false illusion that it will not be an area of potential tension or high risk.”
“Russia is still there, but it will be more compressed.”