: Finland and Sweden Wrestle With the Benefits—and Risks—of Joining NATO #WorldNEWS In 1961, as the Cold War was building to its peak, Finnish foreign minister and former Prime Minister Rolf Torngren

Finland and Sweden Wrestle With the Benefits—and Risks—of Joining NATO #WorldNEWS
In 1961, as the Cold War was building to its peak, Finnish foreign minister and former Prime Minister Rolf Torngren tried to explain his country’s neutrality policy to the rest of the world. “To some,” he recognized, “the existence of an independent neutral state, a Western democracy, next door to the Soviet Union, maintaining its freedom in friendship with, not in defiance of, its powerful neighbor appears in itself to be a paradox. ”
Fifty years later, Finnish neutrality is again being questioned, but this time by the Finns themselves. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has prompted an unprecedented shift in public opinion in Finland and its neighbor, fellow long-time neutral Sweden. Yet even as efforts to pursue membership gather steam, the paradox that Torngren described continues: the very process of seeking NATO’s protection may itself escalate the risk these Nordic countries face.
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“For the first time, a majority of Finland’s population is indicating that they are in favor of NATO membership,” Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto told TIME in a Mar. 12 phone interview. “And of course it has become obvious that political parties have been starting their discussions about the security situation and how it affects Finland’s position with regards to NATO. So the political process has started. ”
As a borderland between East and West, Finland’s neutrality dates back to the end of World War II. In 1948, it signed a treaty with Moscow in which it promised to join neither NATO nor the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact. Although it began in the 1970s to strengthen alliances with the West and joined the European Union in 1995, support for membership in NATO has, until very recently, remained below 30%, roughly the same as in Sweden.
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That percentage began to creep up earlier this year, as Russian threats to Ukraine, accompanied by potentially suspicious activity around the Baltic Sea (drones flying at night over sensitive sites in and around Stockholm, a Russian cargo plane that took an unexpected detour over southern Finland) increased. But what had been a steady rise turned to an outright leap with the invasion of Ukraine on Feb 24. Polls conducted by newspapers in each country just days after the outbreak of the war put support for joining at a historic 51% in Sweden and 53% in Finland.
In Finland the shift in public opinion has been accompanied by popular efforts. Two separate citizens’ initiatives—one calling for a referendum on NATO, the other urging the President and other authorities to bring a proposal for accession before Parliament— have each garnered the necessary 50,000 signatures to trigger their consideration in the legislature; debate is expected to begin next week.