Do Finland and Sweden really need to join NATO?
The big news last week was that Finland has requested membership in the NATO alliance, and this week, Sweden is also taking the same step.
Military commentator Scott Taylor asks if these two countries really need NATO’s shield, arguing that Ukraine’s fighting forces, armed with Western weapons and training (including from Canada), have crippled Russia’s war-fighting capacity.
“These troops have been receiving top-notch training from NATO instructors — including Canadian soldiers — since 2014.
“During that eight-year period, Ukrainian combat units also had the opportunity to rotate in and out of the front lines in the contested breakaway eastern districts of Donesk and Luhansk.
“This provided Ukraine’s military the opportunity to gain experience with NATO-provided weaponry and to test their training under battle conditions in a low-intensity conflict. Bullets are still bullets.
“Thus, Putin’s invaders soon found themselves outmatched by the Ukrainian defenders in terms of tactical skills, logistics, weaponry, discipline and morale.”
The prospect of these two long-neutral states formally joining NATO fans the flames of conflict in Europe, and maybe risks World War III unnecessarily.
Taylor argues that it’s obvious that Ukraine has benefitted from Western support without being a member of NATO. “Finland and Sweden should take note,” he writes.
(Cover: Tampere, Finland – December 6 2021: Finnish Soldiers on Independence Day at Kalevankangas Cemetery. Via Shutterstock)
Neither Sweden, nor Finland needed to be a member of NATO since the end of WWII. That being said, they still don’t. In fact bringing them in now is simply another Provocation to Russia. Where will it all end? WWIII anyone?
With the Ukraine crisis and the unpredictable and devastating actions of Putin I d not think it is a good time for the Ukraine to join NATO. Concerning Finland and Sweden if they feel called to this and are fulfilling the qualifications required and that it would not make the European situation worse by their presence I feel that it should be it open to them like any other country that applied. Maybe at a later time if their is peace in the Ukraine they can relook at that possibility but right now they are focused on the needs of their people and how to hopefully stop further deaths and destruction that Putin’s war has caused.