18 maggio 2022 14:13
It is easy to imagine Vladimir Putin who, after walking into a shop with the sign “Sweden”, pretends to destroy some precious porcelain by mistake, and then mumbles: “You have a nice little shop. It would be a real shame if something happened to him ”. But Sweden is not a pottery shop, Putin is not a mafia boss, and what is happening in the Baltic is not racketeering.
The Russian president reacted convulsively to the will of Finland and Sweden, two countries with long-term neutrality (almost eighty years for Finland, over two hundred for Sweden), to join NATO: exactly the “threat” that Putin claimed he wanted to keep away from Russian borders. Finland shares a 1,300 kilometer long border with the north of Russia.
The Swedish and Finnish response to the invasion of Ukraine seems to have surprised Putin. The Russian president sees no link between the invasion of a former imperial possession, which needed to be brought back into line, and two independent countries that have no longer been in Russia’s sphere of influence for more than a century. But for Sweden and Finland, joining NATO was a logical choice.
European countries in NATO and date of their entry
A neighbor who previously considered dangerous but rational has suddenly turned out to be an aggressive and possibly irrational gambler. No fully sane and competent Russian head of state would attack Ukraine with inadequate troops and the arrogant and careless strategy employed by Putin.
Paper mache soldiers
It might have been thought that Putin’s inability was reassuring to Swedes and Finns, but that was not the case. On the contrary, it frightens them, because from a military point of view they find themselves in a situation very similar to that of Ukraine: relatively small countries (Sweden has ten million inhabitants, Finland five) with excellent military forces.
I can testify to this personally, because while making a documentary on neutrality I spent time in the Baltic Sea, with the Swedish fast attack ships off the coast of Karlskrona and with Finnish reservists during exercises between Lappeenranta and the Russian border. A little experience and a close look are enough to understand which army is really serious and which is made up of paper mache soldiers. These people know what they are doing and they do it with great efficiency. They would give a great test of their strength if their countries were ever to be invaded.
The military equipment that the two countries could deploy in a conventional war would be irrelevant if they were faced with the nuclear threat.
They may even be able to block the Russians altogether (and no one else is in a position to invade them). This is why the Swedes had chosen neutrality: they understood that they were safer this way. In the event of a war that broke out between many countries, they would have found themselves in a not very strategic position: invading them would have been a very costly undertaking. And for this reason it is likely that the main warring forces would have left them alone.
The Finns were given their neutral status ex officio directly by the Soviet Union after the Second World War. They had given up a lot of territory to the Russians, but they had held out long enough for Moscow to allow them to remain neutral, instead of reducing them to satellite status.
So why did both countries decide to join NATO? They are still strong enough to stop Russia on their own, even if Moscow decides to go to war with NATO. And why would the Russians attack just the two of them, and no one else? By remaining neutral, even under the worst possible scenario, the Russians are likely to have ignored them.
The deterrence
This reasoning remained valid until February 24, 2022, when it suddenly stopped being. Putin invaded Ukraine, probably taking those around him by surprise, and from the beginning he began to make veiled threats related to the use of nuclear weapons, if necessary. The Russian attack on Ukraine was bogged down almost immediately, as was destined to happen, unless the Ukrainian army proved completely useless. Too few Russian troops, too many lines of attack. And Moscow’s allusions to the use of nuclear weapons to avoid conventional defeat have multiplied.
This is a crazy prospect, and all the military capabilities and equipment that the two countries could deploy in conventional warfare would be irrelevant if they were faced with the nuclear threat themselves. The only effective response to such a threat is a credible promise of nuclear retaliation. Sweden and Finland do not have nuclear weapons and the only way to have a nuclear deterrent that guarantees their safety is to join NATO. And that’s what they are doing.
Swedes continue to dislike nuclear weapons and Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson stressed that Sweden will not allow the presence of foreign troops or nuclear weapons within its borders, but the deal is done. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan calls for the two countries to expel some Kurdish anti-Turkish activists as a condition not to veto their entry, but the problem will eventually be solved. It will take months to complete the legal procedures, but in practice the two countries are already covered by the NATO nuclear guarantee.
(Translation by Federico Ferrone)