An application should be seen as portending a major geopolitical change on the European map. Given the territorial size of Finland and Sweden, this would, in territorial terms, imply the single widest enlargement undertaken since Turkey and Greece joined in 1952. The direct border between NATO and Russia would increase by a factor of two and make the Baltic Sea, with the exception of the innermost part of the Gulf of Finland and the Kaliningrad exclave, a “NATO sea”. After all, it is already an “EU sea”. It will thus constitute a considerable change of the territorial composition of the Alliance. The comparison with Turkey and Greece goes further: Finland, Sweden, and Norway are also “flank countries”.
Finnish membership of NATO would evidently strengthen Finland’s immediate security as it would be included in the Article 5 guarantees, and strengthen the deterrence of any potential attack against the country. Membership would probably also lead to a serious crisis with Russia, for an undefined period of time. While tension would mount, open conflict would not necessarily ensue as Russia would be aware that any transgression would engage the whole Alliance.
Since joining NATO, successive Norwegian governments have attempted to combine deterrence with reassurance. Norway promised not to station nuclear weapons or foreign troops on its soil in peacetime, nor to hold military exercises in the Finnmark region. Similar unilateral self-imposed restrictions could be adopted by Finland (and/or Sweden), but presumably excluding a Finnmark-type regime for any portion of Finland’s territory. Interestingly enough, such restrictions do not seem to have been discussed when Turkey joined, even though that country had a long direct border with the Soviet Union.
If Finland chose to apply for NATO membership, it would constitute a significant political defeat for Moscow. Russian efforts to convey repeated warning signals against joining in past years would have failed. It may be considered paradoxical that Russia is trying to prevent Finnish and/or Swedish membership of the Alliance by intimidation rather than reassurance. This, however, seems to conform to past Russian and Soviet practices and political culture. Moscow’s argument is that whatever it does is in response to aggressive NATO moves.
ON THE ACCESSION PROCEDURE. It should be noted that the pace of possible accession can have effects of its own. Membership processes can be more or less prolonged depending on the state of decision-making in an applicant country and the views existing NATO countries have as to the
