Finland became the 31st member of NATO on Tuesday, concluding a process that began after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and ending the neutrality the country had chosen to maintain for a long time. From a military, but also a political, point of view, entry into NATO has various implications concerning new guarantees but also many obligations which it is not always easy to respect: joining the military alliance primarily provides military protection, but also requires respect of numerous requirements, including that of being a democracy.
The protection
NATO (acronym for North Atlantic Treaty Organization ) is a military and political alliance founded in 1949, a few years after the end of the Second World War, to counter the influence of the Soviet Union in Europe. Today, 31 countries from North America and Europe are part of it, which share some political values and which above all have agreed on some principles of common defence, the most important of which is described in article 5 of the founding treaty (which is officially called North Atlantic Treaty or Washington Treaty, because it was signed in 1949 in the American capital). The most important part of article 5 says:
The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America will be regarded as a direct attack against all Parties.
This does not mean that NATO countries are automatically forced to go to war when another country is attacked: Article 5 (together with Article 4, which deals with mutual defense anyway) provides for a whole series of steps and consultations, and does not oblige a military response in the event of a hostile attack.
– Read also: What Articles 4 and 5 of the NATO Treaty say
In any case, the protection provided by NATO and Article 5 is the main reason member countries have joined the organization in recent decades. Even the Finnish government, in the official website in which he explains to his citizens the reasons and the needs of his choice, he says quite clearly:
The most important effect of Finland’s NATO entry would be that Finland would become part of NATO’s collective defense and be covered by the security guarantees described in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. The defense of Finland would have a deterrent effect that would be considerably greater than the current one, because it is based on the military capabilities of the entire Alliance.
The requirements to have and to maintain
To join NATO, Finland and all the countries before it had to meet certain requirements not only military, but also political. I am cinque: new members must be diversity-tolerant democracies and market economies at least in the making; their armed forces must be firmly under civilian control; governments must have good relations with their neighbors and respect the sovereignty of countries outside their borders; they must also work towards compatibility with NATO forces.
Of these five requirements, the third probably deserves an explanation, the one for which the armed forces must be placed under civilian control: it is a fundamental thing in democratic systems (but not only), because it means that decisions on the use of military force do not they are left to the military commands but to the political leadership elected by the population. It is the fundamental element that divides military dictatorships from other political systems.
Another fundamental requirement for entry into NATO concerns the “compatibility” between the armed forces. Compatibility is a rather generic term which can refer to many things, but which in summary means that each country must commit itself to achieving the highest level of cooperation with the others, both in decisions and in military activity. For example, the political and military leaderships of the member countries join the North Atlantic Council, the main decision-making body of the Alliance, as well as other decision-making bodies.
Above all at the military level, achieving compatibility with the other member countries means respecting what are defined as “standards” within NATO, that is, shared procedures that allow the various armed forces to work together and coordinate without friction. NATO “standards”. there are dozensand there are offices and bodies created to keep them up to date and make sure they are respected: they concern intelligence gathering, encrypted communications, use of ammunition, aerial maneuvers, submarine maneuvers, military logistics and so on.
For countries like Finland, many of these “standardizations” (it’s the technical term when talking about the achievement of a certain standard) will be easy, because it has had a very close and collaborative relationship with NATO for decades, and it already follows a good part of its practices.
On a theoretical level, then, all countries must harmonize their military doctrines, i.e. the complex of analyses, studies and reasoning made by the people who deal with military strategy in the armed forces and in the politics of a country, and which define the posture of that country when it comes to the approach to warfare and defense. NATO has a shared military doctrine called “Strategic concept”which is updated periodically with the consent of all member countries and to which all countries must join.
The ultimate goal of all these processes should be that of “interoperability”, a technical term very popular in the military that indicates the elimination of all friction in the collaborative process. The idea is that military standards become so homogeneous that an Italian officer can command a Polish battalion even with no or very little previous training, because the procedures, equipment and strategies are the same among all member countries. It is obviously a difficult goal to achieve.
A Finnish soldier takes part in a NATO exercise in 2015 (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski, File)
The obligations
A country joining NATO also has certain duties to fulfill. From an economic point of view, it must undertake to ensure that at least 2 percent of its gross domestic product is allocated to military spending (a commitment that most member countries do not keep) and must contribute to NATO’s common budget, which maintains the civilian and military infrastructure of the Alliance. NATO’s budget for 2023 amounts to $3.27 billion to which Italy contributes 8.7 percent, in proportion to the size of its economy.
Above all, NATO membership implies the willingness of member countries to participate in military missions, “deterrence and defense” operations and joint military exercises, which are two very different things.
As far as joint military exercises are concerned, in reality, participating in them is very often considered a privilege: NATO owns some of the most efficient and qualified militaries in the world, and training according to NATO standards by participating in exercises means training to an extremely high standard. For this many non-member countries (including Finland before joining) periodically participate in the exercises of the NATO armed forces.
On military missions and “deterrence and defense” operations, the issue is complex. By “missions” NATO means a long series of military operations abroad: some are of a more purely warlike nature, such as the military operations against the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011; others are counter-terrorism or security missions, such as various anti-piracy actions in the Indian Ocean conducted in recent years.
Then there are the so-called “deterrence and defense” operations, i.e. those in which NATO uses the military forces at its disposal to defend member countries. For example, in member countries in Eastern Europe, most exposed to a potential Russian threat, since 2014 thousands of NATO soldiers have been deployed with a defense function, whose number has increased after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Once a defense mission or operation has been decided upon, the gathering of forces necessary to carry it out takes place on a voluntary basis. Each country can also impose “caveats”, ie special protective measures or rules of engagement for its forces participating in a mission. It then establishes which country or countries will each time take command of each mission. Obviously, in practice, when deciding to send forces for a mission, a whole series of factors intervene, not only military and strategic but also political: a country can hardly refuse to contribute to missions, but the scope of the own contribution from time to time.
However, entry into NATO does not involve the opening of foreign military bases or the deployment of foreign troops. Each NATO country retains full sovereignty in deciding whether or not it will allow troops, bases, armaments or equipment to be on its territory. Indeed, some countries, upon joining NATO, negotiated particular restrictions which prohibit the presence of weapons and military bases in peacetime: this is the case, for example, of Norway and Denmark.