Sweden announced it will seek NATO membership abandoning its military non-alignment policy that it has maintained for the past two centuries. Cheddar News speaks with Joel Rubin, vice president for global policy and public affairs at the National Peace Corps Association, about the possible implications of the move.

Cheddar's News Wrap

How Sweden’s Decision to Join NATO Could Impact the War in Ukraine

Welcome back to cheddar News wrap a historic shift in europe is near after Sweden announced today, its joining its neighbor Finland in seeking NATO membership, this is a big deal. Lawmakers directly saying Russia's invasion of Ukraine is the reason. Take a listen. The Russian leadership thought they could bully Ukraine and deny them in other countries self determination. They thought they could scarce Sweden and Finland and drive a wedge between us and our neighbors and allies. They were wrong. Now, Sweden's move came a day after the governing Social Democratic Party endorsed a plan to join the military alliance. So joining me now is Joel Rubin, vice president for gold policy and public affairs at the National Peace Corps Association and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State. So Joel Sweden has a history of neutrality going back two centuries. So how big of a deal is this announcement, ken this is earth shattering. This is a moment where europe is staring at Russia and saying no more. We don't trust you. You have invaded a neighbor in Ukraine that was peaceful and democratic that did not threaten you. And so we could be next and basically stepping off of the sidelines. Sweden and Finland are both deciding that they can't run that risk anymore, that they need to be part of NATO which is demonstrating its strength right now. There's unity of purpose, not just in supporting Ukraine but also and frankly it's an alliance solidifying to tell Russia if you hit any of our countries and Poland has been the one spoken about most often. But if you have any of our countries, we are going to respond and respond aggressively and so Sweden and Finland, they want that support. Now it's not all rainbows and butterflies. Turkey seems to have an issue with these two countries joining NATO. What is their issue? And what can they do about it? Yeah, diplomacy is never a straight line that's for certain. And and in this case Turkey is a member in good standing of NATO. And Turkey is definitely an outlier and a lot of political issues within NATO. And and uh President Erdogan, he understands how to cut a deal. So he's gonna look for more, he's going to look for concessions most likely from NATO. He has bones to pick with many european countries and so he's going to play hardball. But as Secretary Blinken said yesterday in the in the press discussion that he's confident that they're going to get all of the countries supporting these two countries and joining Turkey has been very actively supporting Ukraine. They've been providing drones have been devastating for Russia's in attacking Russia and devastating on behalf of the Ukrainian army. So there shouldn't be any doubt that Turkey will get there, but they're going to look for some kinds of concessions in response. Alright with Turkey aside, how was Sweden's bid received by the other NATO members? Well, I thought you were going to ask about Russia. Russia. I'm gonna leave that out. Not yet. Not yet. I just didn't want to end on that. So was everybody up said tell me about it. What did other members say? No. You know the members are looking forward to this. They're they're kind of they haven't been hankering for an expansion. No, no, they are not trying to provoke or create a crisis with Russia but they are strong unified alliance and Sweden and Finland have had good relations with Western europe for years. There are mutual defense pacts with a variety of countries. These two countries have provided support to our efforts overseas and military efforts and in peacekeeping operations around the world. So they're not strangers at all. So what this is going to do is solidify europe, it's gonna double the border alongside Russia that NATO currently has through that extensive landmass of Finland and it's going to be a strengthening of the alliance. And the demonstration in real action that this alliance under Joe biden has returned is strong and is unified in purpose on global security. Alright, joe let's talk about Russia House Russia taking the news that they want to expand and what can they do about Oh well, you know, the Vladimir Putin and his Foreign minister uses the term special military operation, which is what they're using to describe their invasion of Ukraine trying to muster up some intimidating words. They're not gonna intimidate anybody in the nordic countries. Those people are tough and I think that the Russians understand that they've overplayed their hand. That doesn't mean they'll admit it. But this is a demonstration of the strategic failure of Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. He went into Ukraine trying to block a country from getting into NATO as one of his arguments, he's now seeing two significant countries joining NATO. A real loss, a real demonstration to Vladimir Putin. I completely misread the situation and now he's getting much more, much more in return than he ever bargained for now. These two countries, you know, say they want to join the cool club. What happens next? How long does this process take? What are the next steps and what happens? Because there's a NATO summit coming up in june what happens there? Yeah, well it's good that you showed your clip the opposition leader and that's because they still do need to get it if they want to a seed and it sounds obviously like they are going not sounds they are going to to ask for a session. They have to get that ratified by their parliaments to make a request and then NATO will invite them to become a member after a unanimous vote of support towards the end of june, There will be a NATO summit in Madrid. This could take up to a year. But because things are moving so fast with the war in Ukraine, it's quite possible that NATO could accelerate their timetable move very fast within months to absorb these two new countries into its alliance, Joel, This is a big deal, and I'm glad you're here to walk us through with Joel Rubin, vice president for global policy and public affairs at the National Peace Corps Association and former Deputy Assistant secretary of state.