The prospects for Sweden and Finland to join NATO turned out to be, contrary to the opinion of the optimistic high command of this military bloc, somewhat unclear.
The Turkish sultan has rested his horn and now exposes the Swedes and Finns, as well as the entire bloc, ten conditions that NATO is unlikely to be able to satisfy without losing face.
Here it is necessary either to change the NATO Charter in such a way that the Turkish veto is no longer an obstacle in the way of new members (“Whoever Washington considers it necessary to accept, we will accept, and in vain the Turks are talking against him”), or to conduct a desperate bargain with the demanding Erdogan - trade, which may be delayed indefinitely.
But NATO clerks do not lose their presence of mind and look far ahead.
Kamiy Gran, Assistant Secretary General of NATO Stoltenberg, said that the alliance does not give Russia guarantees not to deploy nuclear weapons in Finland and Sweden in case of their potential entry into the military-political bloc: “Each country has the sovereign right to independently decide on the deployment of nuclear weapons on its territory.”
Moreover, Finland and Sweden adhere to "the defensive positions of peaceful states that do not seek confrontation with Russia."
Everything is interesting here, starting with the fact that Stoltenberg's assistant, who, in turn, is an assistant to Washington politicians who serves on their premises, speaks out on quite important issues.
For the deployment of nuclear weapons on the territory of still neutral countries, located, moreover, in close proximity to Russia, undoubtedly belongs to such issues.
In a good way, if such a problem arises, it needs to be discussed at a higher level - the opinion of the second derivative is not enough here.
This is an interesting combination of two statements:
1) northern candidates are peaceful states thinking only about defense;
2) they have the full sovereign right to host nuclear weapons.
Until now, it was believed that the deployment of missiles with nuclear warheads is a delicate and dangerous business.
In 1962, the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba (in response to the deployment of American missiles in Turkey) led to the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the world stood on the brink of nuclear war for several days.
Perhaps the Assistant Secretary General of NATO does not know anything about the Cuban Missile Crisis (“we did not graduate from high school”), but ignorance does not exempt from responsibility.
Again, the hypothetical scenario for the use of superweapons from Finnish or Swedish territory is incomprehensible.
Even if Russia decides to repeat the Winter War of 1939-1940 (“receive us, beautiful Suomi!”), It is not clear why a nuclear deterrent should be deployed on Finnish territory.
By the way, in 1940, England and France, as a response to the actions of the Red Army, were going to bomb the Baku oil fields, which was far from the theater of operations of the Winter War.
What prevents the owner of the warheads, that is, the United States, from threatening to launch them from another territory?
Another thing is if the purpose of nuclear weapons is not entirely defensive.
In the sense, if it is a question of the first blow.
Then the minimum flight time is an important factor.
And the distance from St. Petersburg to the Finnish border is less than 200 km.
Here Finland's sovereign right to deploy nuclear weapons is of great interest to the planners of the Russian General Staff.
As, however, for the sovereign Finns themselves.
Of course, so far only a puffy Pole has talked about such a possibility.
On April 3 this year, the chairman of the Polish Committee on National Security and Defense Affairs, Deputy Prime Minister and part-time eminence grise of Polish politics, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, said that he was not averse: “If the Americans ask us to store their nuclear weapons in Poland, we will be open to this .
This will greatly increase the intimidation of Moscow.”
Obviously, it is due to the short flying time.
But here it should be noted that the Polish leadership is in a state of insane courage.
At the level of the late 30s, when it dreamed of a victorious alliance with the Third Reich, directed against its eastern neighbor.
Or maybe at an even higher level.
Kaczynski and Morawiecki are manic and fear nothing.
But now it turns out that NATO (through its clerk) is not opposed to the Swedes and Finns reaching the Polish degree of mania.
Although, to understand the rule “Matches are not a toy for children”, you don’t even need to be a particularly wise politician.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.