The third U.S.-Nordic summit with the leaders of Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and the United States occurred at the Finnish presidential palace in Helsinki following Finland’s recent membership into NATO.
"’The summit in Helsinki is intended to once again demonstrate the transatlantic unity of the U.S. and the Nordic countries’ Nikita Lipunov, an analyst at the Institute for International Studies, MGIMO-University, told Sputnik.
‘One of its main topics was defense cooperation: in the near future, the United States will demonstrate strength and increase its military presence in Northern Europe. Nevertheless, neither Helsinki, nor Brussels, nor Washington are interested in a direct clash with Russia’.
The readout of the U.S.-Nordic Leaders' summit, released on the White House's website, placed particular emphasis on the Ukraine conflict, pledging ‘to continue their [U.S. and Nordic] support for Ukraine for as long as it takes, including through sustained security, economic, legal, and humanitarian assistance’.
They also ‘reconfirmed the importance of [NATO] for regional and transatlantic security and stability’ referring to Sweden and Finland – previously neutral states – forthcoming accession to the alliance.
The Nordic states signaled that they ‘stand ready to deepen their security and defense cooperation with the United States, including through the Nordic Defense Cooperation framework’.
Meanwhile, it's unclear whether Finland's NATO membership is worth the pain of cutting off ties with Russia with which it shares a 1,340 km border. What interests does Helsinki pursue in NATO?
Lipunov explained that Finland receives legal security guarantees under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. Even though Russia neither poses a threat nor challenges the Nordic country, Finnish politicians believe that this would strengthen their security.
‘In addition, joining NATO for Helsinki is also a status marker of belonging to the Western community of states. By joining NATO, Finland formally confirmed the Euro-Atlantic orientation of its foreign and defense policy and for the foreseeable future abandoned good neighborly relations with its eastern neighbor’, said Lipunov.
The preceding NATO Summit in Vilnius demonstrated the bloc's readiness for further expansion and perception of Nordic countries as an invaluable asset for the alliance's strategic plans.
‘NATO expansion in Northern Europe is a strategic military-political task of the United States as part of its policy of constraining Russia’, Lipunov said. ‘After the entry of Finland and the future accession of Sweden, the border of the alliance with Russia would double, and the Baltic Sea would actually become NATO's inland sea’”. -Ekaterina Blinova, Sputnik News
It’s simply unfeasible for Nordic countries within NATO to effectively signal that they do not seek confrontation and war with Moscow when the Russian military started moving nuclear-capable missiles to Finland’s border merely a day after the country announced its bid to join the North Atlantic Alliance.
Not only does history show that being part of a military alliance oftentimes increases the likelihood of going to war, but making more Nordic nations into NATO members would involve them having to fight in an unwinnable contest against Russia and probably host American bases too.