©Reuters. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson speaks during a news conference with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store at the Storting, Norway’s parliament, in Oslo, Norway, October 31, 2023. NTB/Javad Parsa via REUTERS/File Photo
WASHINGTON/STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Sweden joined NATO in Washington on Thursday, two years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine forced it to reconsider its national security policy and conclude that support for alliance was the best guarantee of security for the Scandinavian nation.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson handed over final documentation to the US government on Thursday, the latest step in a long process to secure support from all members to join the military alliance.
“Good things come to those who wait,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said as he received Sweden’s accession documents from Kristersson.
Blinken said “everything changed” after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, citing polls showing a massive shift in Swedish public opinion about NATO membership.
“The Swedes understood something very profound: that if Putin was willing to try to wipe a neighbor off the map, he probably wouldn’t stop there.”
For NATO, the membership of Sweden and Finland – which shares a 1,340km border with Russia – are the most significant additions in decades. This is also a serious blow for Russian President Vladimir Putin who has tried to prevent further strengthening of the alliance.
“Today is a truly historic day. Sweden is now a member of NATO,” Kristersson said. “We will defend freedom together with the countries closest to us, both in terms of geography, culture and values.”
Sweden will benefit from the alliance’s common defense guarantee under which an attack on one member is considered an attack on all.
Hakan Yucel, 54, an IT worker in the Swedish capital, said of joining: “Before we were outside and felt a bit alone… I think the threat from Russia will be much less now.”
The Nordic country would add state-of-the-art submarines and a sizable fleet of domestically produced Gripen fighter aircraft to NATO forces and form a crucial link between the Atlantic and the Baltics.
Russia threatened to take unspecified “political and military-technical countermeasures” in response to Sweden’s move.
“Joining NATO is really like buying insurance, at least as long as the United States is actually willing to act as an insurance provider,” said Barbara Kunz, a researcher at the defense think tank SIPRI.
Although Stockholm has moved ever closer to NATO over the past two decades, the membership marks a clear break with the past, when for more than 200 years Sweden eschewed military alliances and adopted a neutral wartime stance.
After World War II, he built an international reputation as a champion of human rights, and since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, successive governments have reduced military spending.
As recently as 2021, its defense minister had rejected NATO membership, only to be applied for by the then Social Democratic government, along with neighboring Finland, just a few months later.
“I presume [Sweden] We really had to take a stand and I’m happy that we did and that we were protected by NATO, because the tension with Russia has been growing for a couple of years,” said Carl Fredrik Aspegren, 28, a student in Stockholm.
While Finland joined the alliance last year, Sweden had to wait while Turkey and Hungary, which both have cordial relations with Russia, delayed ratifying Sweden’s membership.
Turkey approved Sweden’s request in January.
Hungary delayed its decision on Sweden’s accession until Kristersson made a goodwill visit to Budapest on 23 February, where the two countries agreed on a deal on fighter planes.