FINLAND JOINS NATO - INTERNATIONAL
News: Finland
joins NATO in major blow to Russia over Ukraine war
What's in the news?
● Finland
joined the NATO military alliance on April 4, dealing a major blow to Russian
President Vladimir Putin with a historic realignment of Europe's post-Cold War
security landscape triggered by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Key takeaways:
● The Nordic country's
membership doubles Russia’s border with the world’s biggest security alliance.
Finland had adopted neutrality after its defeat by the Soviets in World War II,
but its leaders signaled they wanted to join NATO after Moscow's invasion of
Ukraine sent a shiver of fear through its neighbors.
Countries bordering Russia and their concerns:
● Alarmed
by Moscow's invasion of Ukraine last year, Finland, which shares a 1,340
kilometer (832 mile) border with Russia, applied to join in May, sought
protection under the organisation’s security umbrella.
● Neighbouring Sweden,
which has avoided military alliances for more than 200 years, has also applied.
But objections from NATO members Turkey and Hungary have delayed the process.
Tensions across Russian borders:
● The
move is a strategic and political setback
for Putin, who has long complained about NATO’s expansion toward Russia and
partly used that as a justification for the invasion.
● In
praising Finland's membership, U.S. President Joe Biden noted it came on the
74th anniversary of the signing of NATO's founding treaty on April 4, 1949.
● Russia
warned it would be forced to take “retaliatory measures” to address what it
called security threats created by Finland’s membership. It had also warned it
would bolster forces near Finland if NATO sends any additional troops or
equipment to what is its 31st member country.
● Finland
is now protected by what Mr. Stoltenberg called NATO’s “iron-clad security guarantee”, under which all member
countries vow to come to the defense of any ally that comes under attack.
Go back to basics:
NATO:
● NATO,
or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was set up in 1949 by the US, Canada, and several western European nations
to ensure their collective security against the Soviet Union.
● It
was the US’s first peacetime military alliance outside the western hemisphere.
● NATO's
first goal was to resist Russian
expansion in Europe following WWII.
● Following
the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, several of its former Eastern European
partners joined NATO.
Members:
● Thirty countries
are members of NATO currently.
● Belgium,
Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway,
Portugal, the United Kingdom, the United States, Greece, Turkey, Germany,
Spain, Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania,
Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia.
● NATO
is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium.
● The
headquarters of the Allied Command Operations is near Mons, Belgium.
NATO charter:
● NATO
is a political military alliance -
Security in our daily lives is key to our well-being. NATO’s purpose is to
guarantee the freedom and security of its members through political and
military means.
● NATO
is committed to collective defence -
NATO is committed to the principle that an attack against one or several of its
members is considered as an attack against all. The principle of collective
defence, which is enshrined in Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, has been
invoked once – in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States
in 2001.
● NATO
has the Transatlantic link - NATO is
an alliance of countries from Europe and North America. It provides a unique
link between these two continents, enabling them to consult and cooperate in
the field of defence and security, and conduct multinational crisis-management
operations together.
● Finance
- NATO countries have agreed to spend 2% of their GDP on defence.
● Democracy
- To join NATO, countries must be democracies that treat minorities equitably
and adhere to peaceful conflict resolution.