In the rise of moments of urgency are the rapid actions toward a solution. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO, was established in 1949 with 12 founding members. It protects its partner countries’ freedom and security under its collective defense principle: an attack on one is an attack on all. This organization is the leading group in hindering Russian invasions against Democratic nations. Before last year, there were 30 members, but now there are 32 members after Sweden and Finland joined NATO. The two applied to join NATO in May of 2022, within three months after Russia invaded Ukraine in March of 2022. Finland joined in April 2023, and Sweden joined in March 2024.

NATO Membership time
Sweden and Finland joining NATO was a rapid process, considering the usual method for membership is through being invited to a membership action plan (MAP), which is a specially made requirement for a country to undergo reforms in aspects of its government and military. For example, The Republic of Macedonia joined the MAP in 1999, and they finally joined NATO in March 2020. Another example is Montenegro, which joined the MAP in December 2009 and finally joined NATO in June 2017. The process of MAP is time-consuming and does not guarantee membership, so this is why Sweden and Finland did not actually undergo this process. They are allowed to join by agreement of the NATO members.

What is special: Finland and Sweden?
To expand the power of NATO and its ability to protect, they require countries with strong military power to join them. Finland and Sweden are Democratic countries with powerful militaries. They remain close geographically to Russia. Therefore, they are buffer zones for Russian westward expansion. They strengthen NATO, because their countries can add more than 150 fighter jets to NATO, which is more than both the UK and Germany. The Swedish military industry is one of the largest in Europe, and Finland has many conscripts in training and around 900,000 citizens in reserve. They have advanced military-industrial complexes for fear of getting invaded. In Sweden, due to the attack on Ukraine by Russia, political support for joining NATO increased from 29% to 64%, and opposition to NATO fell from 29% to 14% (internationalsocialist.net). Attacks by Russia had a sense of stopping NATO from expanding by taking over land before it expanded. However, the attacks convinced countries to join NATO.

NATO goals
To join NATO is a security measure to protect the individuality of Sweden and Finland even though they were neutral or non-opposition of Russia during other periods like WW2. The shared sentiment between countries about the possibility of a threat after the Ukrainian invasion pushed for different countries to join NATO. They have the same enemy, so joining an alliance provides a feeling of safety as the powers of NATO grow. Russia was desperate to stop the two previously non-aligned countries, Sweden and Finland, from joining NATO through warnings of consequences, but it failed. The powers of NATO will continue to grow as more urgency and desire to address issues regarding an expanding Russia rises in this world.