Finland and Sweden apply to join NATO

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has European nations rethinking their situation.

Nato ambassadors are expected to discuss the applications on Wednesday and could give the green light to opening formal talks with the pair on their requests, but Turkey has raised objections that could delay or even derail the process.

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Finland shares an 810-mile (1,300km) border with Russia and has maintained strict policies of neutrality then non-alignment since the end of the second world war, viewing Nato membership as a provocation of Moscow. Sweden has stayed out of military alliances and has not fought a war for more than 200 years.

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All 30 Nato members need to approve the enlargement, which must then be ratified by their parliaments, taking up to a year. The alliance has said it wants to move as fast as possible given the potential Russian threat over Finland and Sweden’s heads.

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Ankara has said its objections are rooted in what it describes as Sweden and Finland’s support for members of Kurdish militant groups, and their decisions in 2019 to impose arms export embargos on Ankara over Turkey’s military operations in Syria.

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Many analysts believe the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who faces elections next year, is seeking concessions for domestic political advantage and unlikely ultimately to veto the applications.

  Guardian

Turkey and Hungary seem likely candidates for expulsion from NATO, but the organization never formally provided for such a move.

Within NATO, concerns over the behaviour of individual allies are [...] resolved primarily through diplomatic means, political pressure, and by taking a long-term view. As Jorge Benitez of the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington put it, NATO leaders tend to “wait out the misbehaving national leaders until a government consistent with alliance values eventually returns to power.”

  Just Security

Which, when a country finds itself ruled by a strongman/dictator, could be never.

The annex to the Washington Paper of September 1948, which contained the first outline of the future agreement, noted the following:

The question of including a provision for disqualification under certain circumstances of any of the signatories from enjoying the benefits of the Treaty requires further consideration.

In the eyes of the Canadian government, the circumstances that might justify the disqualification of a party had to include the “coming into power of a communist-dominated government” in that state (Commentary on the Washington Paper, Dec. 6, 1948). To deal with such an eventuality, Canada proposed a draft provision entitling the North Atlantic Council to suspend or expel a member state from the privileges of membership (Draft North Atlantic Treaty, Dec. 17, 1948).

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The general feeling among the other negotiating parties was that it would be a mistake to include any provision in the treaty that would raise questions about the voting procedure in the Council.

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The idea to incorporate some kind of suspension and expulsion mechanism into the North Atlantic Treaty was therefore dropped.

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[M]aintaining and furthering the principles on which the Alliance is based — democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law — forms part of the object and purpose of the North Atlantic Treaty. This, in turn, suggests that a failure to comply with these principles may amount to a material breach of the treaty within the meaning of Article 60 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Pursuant to Article 60, a material breach consists of:

(a) a repudiation of the treaty not sanctioned by the present Convention; or

(b) the violation of a provision essential to the accomplishment of the object or purpose of the treaty.

To constitute a material breach pursuant to sub-paragraph (a), the violation of the principles underlying the treaty would have to be so extensive in scope, so severe and so persistent as to effectively “disavow” or repudiate the treaty

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Should the conditions for the existence of a material breach be satisfied, NATO’s member states would be entitled, by unanimous agreement, to suspend the operation of the treaty in whole or in part or to terminate it either in their relations with the defaulting state or among them all (Article 60(2) of the Vienna Convention). For these purposes, a unanimous decision of the North Atlantic Council, excluding the defaulting state, would suffice.

In the meantime, countries like Turkey and Hungary, with their "soft" dictatorships, remain in the alliance and can veto any future admissions.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Turkey later blocked a vote by Nato ambassadors on opening talks immediately, suggesting the first stage of the accession process may take longer than the two weeks the alliance planned.

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President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told MPs from his AK party the alliance must respect Turkey’s reservations. “Nato expansion is only meaningful for us in proportion to the respect that will be shown to our sensitivities,” he said.

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“So you won’t give us back terrorists, but you ask us for Nato membership? Nato is an entity for security, an organisation for security. Therefore, we cannot say ‘Yes’ to this security organisation being deprived of security,” he added.

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Turkey accuses Sweden and Finland of harbouring members of Kurdish militant groups it considers terrorist organisations, and also objects to their decisions in 2019 to ban arms exports to Ankara over Turkey’s military operations in Syria.

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Other Turkish officials, including Erdoğan’s spokesperson, have been less outspoken, saying Turkey has not shut the door to Sweden and Finland joining Nato but wants negotiations and a pledge to clamp down on what it sees as terrorist activities.

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Analysts believe Erdoğan, who faces elections next year, is largely seeking concessions to score domestic political points and is ultimately unlikely to veto the two Nordic applications.

  Guardian

UPDATE 5/19:

I wasn't expecting that.