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, even with an increasingly assertive Russia.
A Swedish application for NATO membership “would affect the entire security policy architecture in our part of Europe,” Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist said in an interview in Stockholm on Thursday. “Above all, it puts a lot of pressure on Finland, which has a long border with Russia.”
The two Nordic nations outside the alliance have stepped up joint exercises with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization since Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea to Ukraine in 2014 and supported the war on the border of the two former allies.
Although last month Swedish lawmakers supported the largest increase in military spending in 70 years, spending as a percentage of gross domestic product still does not reach the 2% NATO target. However, a majority in parliament now expresses its support for joining the alliance.
A 40% increase in defense spending by 2025 is a response to the worsening security situation and “is not provocative for anyone,” Hultqvist said. He added that Russia has shown that “they are ready to use military force to achieve political goals,” citing events in Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia.
Sweden’s spending measure “can’t stop worrying,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said he said last October when the plan was unveiled. “These invented anti-Russian phobias are largely due to deliberate external pressure on Stockholm, mainly from the North Atlantic Alliance.”
Pressure to join
Sweden’s anti-immigration Democrats joined other opposition parties last month to support the option of joining NATO quickly if necessary, echoing a policy adopted by Finland. According to Hultqvist, the minority government will respond to the announcement “in due course.”
“What we’re trying to do is stability and predictability,” Hultqvist said. “That is why we believe that the fundamental doctrines of security policy must not be changed. And that is why we have chosen to build national military capability, based on non-alignment in cooperation with other countries. “
Sweden’s defensive collaboration with the United States over the past six years has been “very fruitful” and has been “delivered with stability,” Hultqvist said. Sweden signed an agreement with the US government in 2018 for Patriot anti-aircraft missiles.
In addition, the change in the U.S. administration is a “stabilizing” factor, said Hultqvist, who described President-elect Joe Biden as “a friend of Sweden.”
“I see what is happening now, that the democratic institutions of the United States are working and that Biden is becoming president, as a stabilizing factor. And a stable US is needed to continue the cooperation we have developed so successfully over the years. ”