Relevance: GS-2: Important International Institutions, agencies and fora - their Structure, Mandate; Global Groupings involving India and/or affecting India’s interests.

Key Phrases: Intergovernmental military alliance; strategic setback; geopolitical reset; Truman Doctrine; resuming dialogue and diplomacy.

Context

• Finland and Sweden have expressed their desire to become part of NATO.
• These declarations are the biggest strategic setback for Russian President Vladimir Putin whose most important foreign policy focus has been on weakening NATO.

Key Highlights

• What is NATO?
  • North Atlantic Treaty Organisation also known as Northern Atlantic Alliance is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European states, the United States, and Canada.
  • It was established in the aftermath of World War II on the insistence of the Truman administration in the US.
    • The Truman Doctrine is an American foreign policy that originated with the primary goal of containing Soviet geopolitical expansion during the Cold War
  • The organization implements the North Atlantic Treaty, which was signed on 4 April 1949.
    • 12 founding members of the Alliance: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States established NATO in 1949.
  • But over the years, NATO has expanded to 30 member states.
    • The most recent member is North Macedonia.

What are the benefits of joining NATO?

• Military benefits
  • Collective Security
    • Article 5 of the treaty states that if one ally gets attacked, then it is treated as an attack on everyone.
    • This offers a long-term collective defence of strategically developed countries
    • When the 9/11 terrorist attacks happened, all the other members contributed to counter-terrorism retaliation in Afghanistan.
  • Cyber defence capabilities
    • It helps the allies to keep boosting their defences through information sharing, education investments, and ongoing training.
    • Cyber defence experts work with organizations that can mobilize at a moment’s notice to help any country in the network to survive an attack.
  • Developing Counter-terrorism capabilities
    • A hub for allies has been established in Naples, Italy to check terrorism.
  • Cost-effective Defence
    • Every country must spend 2% of their GDP on defence ( Wales summit, 2014).
    • The interests of every member are secured and the cost to maintain an effective army is distributed amongst countries.
• Economic benefits
  • Through Free Trade agreements amongst members, goods of a member's nation enjoy a competitive advantage over that of the rest of the world.
• Political benefits
  • It doesn't interfere with the internal politics of the nations.
  • It doesn't dilute the sovereignty of its constituent members.
    • As decisions are taken unanimously, the voice of each nation is treated at par with others.

Recent proceedings in NATO

• Geopolitical reset
  • Stance of Finland
    • It has stayed neutral since the end of the Second World War.
      • It shares a 1300 km border with Russia.
      • In 1939, after Stalin's army invaded, Finland lost 10% of their territory.
      • The Finns, in an alliance with the German Nazis, attacked the Soviet troops in 1940.
      • Peace was established after the defeat of Nazi Germany and Finland has maintained non-alignment since then.
    • But last week, the Prime Minister hoped that they would apply for NATO membership without delay.
  • Stance of Sweden
    • It has stayed out of military alliances for 200 years.
    • But, recently it said that NATO membership would strengthen its national security and would bring stability to the Baltic and Nordic regions.
  • Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 apparently to stop NATO’s further expansion into its neighbourhood.
    • But the same invasion has pushed the two nations in its neighbourhood towards NATO’s embrace.

Response of NATO members and Russia

• Turkey has opposed the demand of Sweden and Finland to join NATO.
• The U.S. and the U.K. are in favour of NATO’s expansion.
• Germany and France are pursuing a more cautious line.
• Hungary, which has deep ties with Russia and has already agreed to the EU’s plan to ban Russian oil imports, has not made its views clear on NATO’s expansion.
• Russia has been threatening military retaliation in response to any further expansion of NATO.

Way Forward

• NATO members should deliberate on whether the expansion of NATO will bring further peace and stability in Europe
  • The expansion would escalate the current crisis between nuclear-armed Russia and NATO to dangerous levels.
  • The several rounds of NATO expansion and Russia’s territorial aggression have brought the world to its most dangerous moment since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.
• Russia must halt the war and all stakeholders should resume dialogue and diplomacy to end this man-made crisis.

Conclusion

• The focus must be to make Russia end the war and not on expanding NATO. Only then we can start rebuilding the post-COVID global order for the betterment of humanity and offset some of the damage done by the pandemic.

Source: The Hindu

Mains Question

Q. What is NATO? How is the call for NATO’s expansion to Sweden and Finland threatening to destabilise Europe? Suggest a suitable way forward.