Photographer: Olivier Douliery / AFP / Getty Images
Photographer: Olivier Douliery / AFP / Getty Images
Sweden’s top defense official said staying out of NATO remains the best security option for the country, despite an increasingly assertive Russia.
A Swedish request for NATO membership “would affect the entire architecture of security policy in our part of Europe,” Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist said in an interview in Stockholm on Thursday. “Above all, it puts a very strong pressure on Finland, which has a long border with Russia.”
The two Nordic nations outside the alliance have increased joint exercises with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization since Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014 and supported a war on the border between the two former allies.
Although Swedish lawmakers last month supported the biggest increase in military spending in 70 years, spending as a percentage of gross domestic product still falls short of NATO’s 2% target. Still, a majority in parliament is expressing support to join the alliance.
A 40% increase in defense spending by 2025 is a response to the worsening security situation and “is not provocative for anyone,” said Hultqvist. He added that Russia has shown “that it is prepared to use military force to achieve political goals”, citing events in Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia.
Sweden’s spending movement “cannot but cause concern”, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said last October, when the plan was revealed. “These invented anti-Russian phobias are due in large part to deliberate external pressure on Stockholm, mainly from the North Atlantic alliance.”
Pressure to adhere
Swedish anti-immigration Democrats joined other opposition parties last month to support the option to join NATO quickly, if necessary, echoing a policy adopted by Finland. The minority government will respond to the announcement “in due course”, according to Hultqvist.
“What we are looking for is stability and predictability,” said Hultqvist. “This is why we believe that the fundamental tenets of security policy must not be changed. And that is why we chose to build national military capacity, based on non-alignment in cooperation with other countries. “
Sweden’s defense collaboration with the United States over the past six years has been “very fruitful” and “delivered with stability,” said Hultqvist. Sweden signed an agreement with the U.S. government in 2018 for Patriot air defense missiles.
In addition, the change in the US administration is a “stabilizing factor”, said Hultqvist, describing President-elect Joe Biden as “a friend of Sweden”.
“I see what is happening now – that the democratic institutions in the United States are working and that Biden is becoming president – as a stabilizing factor. And a stable USA is essential to continue the cooperation that we have developed so successfully over the years. “