NATO’s enlargement comes with inherent and unavoidable risk.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has dug Russia into a massive geopolitical hole. The country he so desperately wants to develop as a 21st century superpower is now weaker today than it was before the invasion of Ukraine. His war of choice was supposed to be a relatively quick and painless affair, where Russian soldiers would easily strut into Kyiv, push Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into exile and be thanked by a grateful Ukrainian population with cheers and flowers. It hasn’t worked out that way. The invasion is nothing short of a hard, long slog for the Russian soldiers who are unfortunate enough to execute orders from incompetent officers. While Moscow may be making small territorial inroads in the east (according to Ukrainian security officials, Russian forces have taken about 80 percent of the Donbas), the gains are coming at a steep cost in Russian lives and equipment. Outside the battlefield, Putin’s war is diminishing Russia’s geopolitical position and threatening its economy with an 11 percent contraction. Nearly 4 million Russians have left Russia this year, including tens of thousands of high-skilled technology workers who no longer see a near-term future in their own country. Putin can now pat himself on the back for something else: convincing a Finnish political elite that was wedded to military non-alignment between NATO and Russia for plunging fully into the Western camp. This week, after weeks of intense deliberations, Finland’s President Sauli Niinistö and Prime Minister Sanna Marin released a joint statement endorsing Helsinki’s bid to join NATO. Finland’s neighbor Sweden is likely to submit its own application to NATO as soon as next week. Finland’s application for NATO membership will likely be approved rapidly. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg all but confirmed that the alliance would essentially rubber-stamp Finland’s (and Sweden’s) accession without so much as a furrowed brow.
