“The Senate on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly to approve a treaty that would expand NATO to include Finland and Sweden, with Republicans and Democrats linking arms for one of the most significant expansions of the alliance in decades in the face of Russia’s continued assault on Ukraine.
The ambassadors of Finland and Sweden were on hand in the Senate gallery to watch as senators voted 95-1. Only Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, voted no. Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, voted present.
The tally far surpassed the two-thirds of the Senate necessary to approve the treaty, underscoring the bipartisan appetite for a more muscular military alliance, even amid threats from President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia that Sweden and Finland would face unspecified retaliation should they join NATO.
All 30 current members of the alliance must ratify the accession of the two countries. Twenty-two countries have already done so.
Republican support for the treaty was particularly striking, given former President Donald J. Trump’s vocal contempt for NATO. Some G.O.P. lawmakers who aligned themselves with him have adopted Mr. Trump’s ‘America first’ philosophy of eschewing alliances and the concept of shared responsibility for maintaining the global order.
But the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, has made it a mission of late to push back against the anti-interventionist strain in his party”. -Catie Edmondson, New York Times
Unlike in Ukraine, which is not a member of NATO and thus where the U.S. can fight a proxy war without U.S. troops facing off against Russian troops, a Russian attack on Finland under Article 5 — “Collective defence means that an attack against one Ally is considered as an attack against all Allies” — a Russian invasion of Finland (or Estonia) would trigger collective defense obligations.
“Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), the only other senator to have opposed the North Macedonia and Montenegro bids, voted ‘present’ Wednesday. The Senate rejected Paul’s efforts to attach an amendment to the ratification that would explicitly state the United States’ Article 5 obligations to defend member nations would not supersede Congress’s constitutional right to authorize the use of military force.
Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) said the amendment was ‘unnecessary’ to protect Congress’s constitutional role. He told his colleagues it was potentially ‘deeply damaging’ and ‘self-defeating to do anything that casts doubt on our rock-solid commitment to NATO’”. -Karoun Demirjian, Washington Post
Only neutral nations such as Spain, Switzerland, and Ireland were able to stay out of WWII, which is why it is absolutely counterproductive for formerly neutral nations such as Switzerland to impose sanctions on Russia and nonsensical for formerly neutral nations such as Finland and Sweden to choose to sign up as co-belligerents to engage in a war against Russia.