Over the last week, further details emerged of Finland and Sweden’s intention to join Nato, until on Tuesday the nations formally submitted the paperwork. Nato’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg called it “a historic moment” and it certainly marks a momentous shift away from neutrality for those two countries.
One implication of the Ukraine war is that long-time neutral European nations, who have avoided joining security alliances, have now decided this no longer offers them the protection they had previously banked on. They see their much larger neighbour’s military shadow looming large.
Currently though, Turkey is blocking Sweden and Finland’s applications to Nato. However, its president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan may be angling for concessions as part of the negotiation, Christoph Bluth, an expert in international relations and military history at Bradford University, explains.
