Foreign Affairs, May 22
If Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ambition in invading Ukraine was to rein in NATO, it had precisely the opposite effect. In April 2023, Finland joined the alliance, more than doubling the length of NATO’s border with Russia, and in March 2024, Sweden became a member as well. As U.S. President Joe Biden has said of Putin: “He thought he’d get the Finlandization of NATO; instead, he got the NATO-ization of Finland—and Sweden.” Russia’s brutal war on Ukraine hastened the admissions process, but it was only a matter of time before the two Nordic nations shed their neutrality