As the Russo-Ukrainian War brings conflict to Europe’s doorsteps, GJIA sits down with Sweden’s Ambassador to the United States Urban Ahlin to discuss Sweden’s security challenges at home and abroad, its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) accession, and its growing role within the European Union (EU) and United Nations (UN). […]
GJIA: Switching to the topic of NATO, it seems clear the Russian invasion of Ukraine played a big role in Sweden’s ascendency. However, I think there are two dimensions to that: domestic and foreign policy. How much of the decision came from concerns over domestic security, and how much did it come from denouncing Russia’s attack in Ukraine as a part of Sweden’s foreign policy?
Ambassador Ahlin: I would say there is a third option, and that is when the Russians said, “We want to change the European security architecture, and we don’t want Finland and Sweden to become members of NATO.” At that point, the Finnish and Swedish people responded that it is not up to the Russians to dictate what kind of decisions sovereign countries make. In my view, that was the tipping point. To your point, of course, we joined NATO because we wanted to be security providers and to establish that kind of defense agreement with other countries. If something happens to Finland, then naturally, Sweden will want to have defense agreements in place to support them. Still, I would say this decision was more of a reaction to the prevailing Russian stance that Sweden and Finland should not be allowed to join NATO. That gave us the incentive to tell Russia, “It’s not up to you to decide, and we can join NATO if we choose to.” To be clear, all three factors contributed to this decision, but Russia’s stance was the defining moment. Läs artikel