It's easy to imagine Vladimir Putin coming into the shop marked "Sweden", breaking some fine china accidentally on purpose, and growling: "Nice little shop you've got here. It would be a pity if something happened to it." But Sweden is not a pottery shop, Mr Putin is not a Mafia capo, and what's going on in the Baltic now is not a protection racket.
The Russian president has stampeded both Finland and Sweden, two neutral countries of long-standing (almost 80 years for Finland, over 200 for Sweden), into joining the Nato alliance, the very "threat" that Mr Putin claimed he was trying to drive away from Russia's borders. Finland has a 1,300km border with northern Russia.
The Swedish and Finnish response to his invasion of Ukraine would have surprised Mr Putin. He would see no connection between his invasion of Ukraine, a former Russian imperial possession that needed to be whipped back into line, and two independent countries that have not been in Russia's sphere of influence for over a century.
