Sweden finally joins NATO

[reader]

From AFP

Sweden on Thursday became the 32nd member of NATO, turning the page on two centuries of non-alignment and capping two years of tortuous diplomacy after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggered new fears.

Days after Hungary followed key holdout Turkey and became the last NATO member to sign off, Sweden ceremonially handed over accession documents to the United States, the leading force of the transatlantic alliance that promises joint security for all.

Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson late Thursday attended as a guest at the annual State of the Union address of President Joe Biden, whose rival Donald Trump has disparaged NATO as unfairly burdening the United States.

“Mr Prime Minister, welcome to NATO, the strongest military alliance the world has ever seen,” Biden said as he recognized Kristersson, who sat in the gallery next to First Lady Jill Biden.

Biden urged the House leadership of the Republican Party to move on  billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine, saying, in a dig at Trump, that “I will not bow down” to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“If anybody in this room thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine, I assure you he will not,” Biden said.
Kristersson, at an accession ceremony at the State Department, called joining NATO “a major step but, at the same time, a very natural step.”

“It’s a victory for freedom today. Sweden has made a free, democratic, sovereign and united choice to join NATO,” he said.

He later delivered a televised address to the nation from Washington, telling Swedes: “We are a small country, but we understand more than most the importance of the greater world beyond our borders.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said few would have expected Sweden as well as Finland to join NATO before Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

There is “no clearer example than today of the strategic debacle that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has become for Russia,” Blinken said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also hailed Sweden’s membership, saying: “One more country in Europe has become more protected from Russian evil.”

[unicorn]

It looks as though NATO now has firm control over the exits to the Baltic Sea as well as the Black Sea. NATO allies South Korea and Japan also control most exits to the Sea of Japan. I guess Russia still controls the Strait of Tartary if it wants to use the port at Vladivostok....