Finland has joined NATO, and it’s all Vladimir Putin’s fault
David Freddoso
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To be perfectly clear, no one was ever going to attack Russia.
This is the most important fact to keep in mind whenever you hear the arguments of Americans (or Russians) who try to justify Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine, or argue that somehow the U.S. has malign intentions there.
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They will try to argue that Putin felt pressure from NATO expansion, which practically compelled him to invade because he felt so threatened. But the truth is, not only was Ukraine far from joining NATO, but NATO members probably never would have accepted it into the treaty organization before Putin’s invasion. Only 20% of Ukrainians wanted to be NATO members as of October 2013. Several surveys show that a plurality still opposed it even after Putin seized Crimea in 2014. And now, this January, 86% of Ukrainians wanted to join NATO. What could possibly have caused that?
Well, if you had Putin as a neighbor, you would probably want to join NATO, too.
Today, before all the Trump arrest insanity begins, it is worth marking an important event: Putin has unintentionally inspired Finland, which never would have otherwise joined NATO, to do so. Finland is a NATO member as of today, and this change doubles the length of Russia’s land border with NATO countries. Putin has also inspired Sweden to abandon its modern history of neutrality, which goes all the way back to the Napoleonic Wars, and apply for NATO membership. As a consequence of Putin’s military action, Sweden is very likely to receive approval soon enough.
Finally, Putin has caused NATO countries to do two things that former President Donald Trump brusquely demanded they do. First, they have weaned themselves from Russian gas. Second, they are upping their military budgets to account for the threat that Russia poses. And Poland, one of the countries that was always doing better than the others in terms of pulling its weight militarily, is now going much further than that. It is practically attempting to make itself into a new European superpower in order to counter the Russian threat. The Poles never would have considered this previously had Putin not invaded Ukraine, demonstrating at once both his propensity for aggression and the shocking weakness of his hollow, poorly trained, undersupplied military.
One of the episodes of Servant of the People, the comedic television show that originally made Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky famous, begins with a humorous phone call from former German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The fictional president Zelensky takes the call on his mobile and receives congratulations, in English, on his nation’s acceptance into the European Union. Delighted, Zelensky begins to express his thanks and the gratitude of all Ukrainians. “Ukrainians?” Merkel replies, puzzled. She realizes that she has dialed the wrong number — she meant to call the president of Montenegro.
At the time that aired, Ukraine was no different from any other backward, corrupt, formerly communist Eastern European country, except perhaps that it was poorer than most. It hadn’t been important enough for anyone to intervene in 2014 when Russia seized Crimea and funded, armed, and partly staffed an insurgency in Eastern Ukraine. When Putin downed a civilian airliner, again it wasn’t enough for anyone else to intervene. When he attempted to create a border crisis for Poland, it wasn’t enough to force the issue. When his forces kidnapped an Estonian officer on Estonian soil, Europeans overlooked the incident. When he attempted to assassinate a British national on British soil using a dangerous chemical weapon, he was cursed and scolded but not banished from polite company.
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But Putin had to press the issue. He messed around, and now he’s finding out. Once the invasion is repelled, some future president of Ukraine will almost surely get that EU phone call for real — perhaps from a Polish prime minister instead of a German one.
It might never have happened but for Putin.