The Desolation of C.H.A.O.S.
On May 18th 2022 and after 75 years of neutrality, Finland and Sweden submitted their applications for entry into the North Atlantic Alliance.
For a dispassionate observer, the bid might seem irrational. Throughout the Cold War, with a totalitarian superpower as a neighbour, Stockholm and Helsinki did not dare contribute to the joint Western effort against the Soviet threat. Moscow sought to subvert every state with an active communist party, it sponsored wars in continents where Russia had no obvious interests, it directly invaded Afghanistan (not to mention Finland in the 1930s) and crushed dissent in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, it maintained totalitarian regimes in its eastern European satellites, it acted as patron of some of the worst totalitarian dystopias on Earth and it brought the old continent to the verge of nuclear catastrophe during the Chernobyl disaster. Yet, non of this ever swayed the bothnian brethren into abandoning their non-alignment.
No, the baltic brothers decided that it was in 2022 that it would be finally worth joining the Atlantic Alliance. The decision was made in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with the stated goal of increasing the security of the two neutral nordics, ostensibly against the threat of the Russian Federation.
This is a rather inconsistent position on the part of the two countries. The USSR is no longer and while Russia is an economy of global importance integrating the G20, it is hardly a superpower anymore. Furthermore, the ruling conservative regime in Moscow has shown exactly zero interest in promoting or forcing any ideological doctrine on the world. Much to the contrary, it seems focused on promoting its economic and strategic interests by partnering with as many marxist inspired regimes (Venezuela, Cuba) as conservative ones (Saudi Arabia, Hungary), democracies (India, Serbia) or autocracies (Belarus, Iran). Moreover, under Vladimir Putin himself, Russia was originally quite interested in joining NATO and never shied away from commercial agreements with the EU member-states, even subjecting itself to the jurisdiction of the Council of Europe and its ECHR on humanitarian issues.
It is true that Russia has seen itself involved in a number of conflicts during Putin’s tenure but at a closer lens, Moscow has been on the reactive side of the disputes, not on the aggressor side. In Georgia, it was Saakashvili’s government that chose to defreeze the Ossetia issue and bomb russian troops. In Syria too, it was the West that decided to endorse the revolution while the russians had always been close to the regime in Damascus and merely helped it survive. During events in Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan, Moscow acted always as a defender of the status quo and it was atlanticist forces that pushed externally for regime change. Therefore, even if one were to interpret Moscow’s 2022 intervention in Ukraine as an aggressive move, one would have to concede that it was most certainly not part of a pattern with the potential to threaten Sweden and Finland.
If the timing appears off, the strategic vision informing the policy is just as much fraught with inconsistencies.
Going by the rhetoric, swedes and finns wish to join NATO motivated by fears of political aggression, especially from an authoritarian power with reckless disregard for human rights; Democratic Peace Theory reigns supreme in the foreign policy of both the Hereditary Prince Palace and the Marine Barracks.
Let us firstly concede the obvious contention that the nordics are more likely to see themselves involved in a conflict with Russia than they are with the United States. Indeed, the elites and technocratic establishment maintain far closer relations and enjoy greater cultural proximity to the Atlantic than to Eurasia.
That being said, NATO is hardly an answer to what the nordics seek. In terms of aggressive conduct, illegal under International Law, Brussels has been far more aggressive than Moscow for the past decades and with far deadlier and more destructive consequences. It is worth reminding that the nordics’ attachment to one of the EU’s Four Freedoms (circulation) went out the window when they were forced to suspend the Schengen Area agreement, shortly after the NATO regime change intervention in Libya which caused an invasion of Europe by millions of third world illegal immigrants. Staying on the topic of illegal invasions, one must inevitably focus on Turkey since Ankara is currently occupying three different states. The human rights record is not better with the Turks currently imprisoning more journalists than Russia and Ukraine combined.
Empiricism is always useful and while Finland had to endure a soviet invasion, Sweden has not had to fight Russia since 1809. Helsinki also allied with Nazi Germany during the Second World War and fought Britain – another democracy – during the global conflict. True, the finns were ‘finlandized’ throughout the Cold War but Moscow remained true to its peace guarantees to this day. It is therefore hard to make a convincing case for an emerging threat from Russia. In addition, let us not forget that as members of NATO, Stockholm and Helsinki will be asked to contribute to the war effort, the next time Brussels and DC decide to intervene in the name of ‘peace enforcement’, ‘responsibility to protect’ or some other perversion of international norms by any other name.
Shortly after the announcement of their candidacy, Sweden and Finland were caught off guard by the stance of the Turkish government, warning of a veto on principle, to the entry of the two countries.
Here we enter into even more controversial territory given that while the northern peoples may be culturally distant from the slavic russians – as already admitted – they are arguably even more incompatible with their Mediterranean would-be-allies. The example of Turkey is not unique, for Greece too endured difficult relations with the nordics during its dictatorial times. Within NATO, Athens was heavily criticised by Denmark and Norway for its anti-democratic practices and in the Council of Europe, the two nordic kingdoms were joined by Sweden and the Netherlands in denouncing and lambasting the hellenic republic – some allies… Perhaps the most egregious example might be that of Portugal. Not only a member but actually a founding member by American and British invitation, Lisbon had to endure decades of derision from Oslo and Copenhagen. Not content with diplomatically discriminating against the portuguese, the nordics not only did not aid their ‘ally’ when it was attacked by communist forces equipped by the USSR, in South Asia and Africa, but they actually rejoiced when the iberian member lost its territories to the friends of Moscow. Tensions between the supposed allies came to a head in the 1971 NATO meeting in Lisbon with norwegians exchanging recriminations with the greeks and portuguese. As if that were not enough, the puritanical nordics went to the extreme of floating the option of either Portugal and Greece being expelled, or they themselves exiting the Alliance.
Recently, following the Great Recession, tensions arose between the EU’s fiscally sound northern states and the infamous southern PIIGS – with even Finland joining the mix, this time. This past does not bode well for the future of an alliance with the added membership of Sweden and Norway – perhaps we should start calling them the CHAOS countries: Copenhagen, Helsinki, Amsterdam, Oslo, Stockholm.
NATO insiders or not, the nordics have always insisted on humanitarian foreign policies. Their obsession with values has led to their hosting various international normative initiatives such as the Helsinki Accords, the Reykjavík Summit, the Oslo Accords or, of course, the Nobel Prize ceremonies. They have equally been at the forefront of several humanitarian minded conventions and were some of the first to impose normative conditionality in their commercial and diplomatic dealings around the world. Sweden’s success in exporting its fighter aircraft, SAAB’s JAS-39 Gripen, for instance, is widely recognised as being hampered by Stockholm’s humanitarian demands. Norway has often courted diplomatic trouble with the choice of Nobel Peace Prize winners. Generally, the nordics are usually the ones to instigate sanctions aimed at human rights violators around the world.
It is uncertain how any of this behaviour actually benefits the nordics but their external relations are their own prerogative and they cannot possibly be accused of inconsistency. That is until they request access to the hallways of international military alliances. One would imagine that Stockholm and Helsinki would be more at ease partnering with the likes of New Zealand or Bhutan for their security arrangements since such choices would make little sense strategically but at least they would be consistent with their clear conscience imperative. Approaching NATO is bizarre at best but more to the point, it raises another problem: the consequences of their actions in the past half century.
Technically, no NATO member is undemocratic at the moment but who knows what the future may hold? The West’s definition of ‘democracy’ is certainly not becoming more encompassing… The current problem that Finland and Sweden face is related to their defence of the kurdish cause in Turkey but why should, say, Hungary or Poland be willing to accept the two states into the Alliance? It is not like they have been making their life easier within the EU. Why should they wish to invite their recalcitrance into yet another vital forum?
Moralpolitik has always been rid with strategic pitfalls for strategy requires cold blooded calculations and not pink unicorn utopias conceived in politically correct academies. As is typical of idealists, the nordics are trying to reach for the best of both worlds: the moralist prestige and the realist means for their defence. It is high time that the idealists to the north learn that the two don’t go together and that their doctrine’s chickens have finally come home to roost.
The Westphalian Post 