중동부유럽

Recent polls indicate that a plurality of Swedes now favor NATO membership—41 percent in favor, with 39 percent opposed. This represents a continuing shift of Swedish popular sentiment and is connected to public outrage over Russia’s aggressive behavior in Ukraine, friction resulting from Russia’s reckless infringement of Swedish airspace, and the deteriorating security situation around the Baltic Sea.

Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven, a social democrat, currently leads a minority government. The Swedish Social Democratic Party historically has opposed joining NATO, so Prime Minister Löfven has a political tightrope to walk in Sweden’s relationship to the Alliance. Washington’s approach has been nuanced and wise—it has highlighted that Sweden is a valued and privileged partner to NATO and would be seen as a constructive potential future member of NATO. But Washington has equally stressed that NATO’s Article 5 security commitments only extend to alliance members, not partners, and underscored that such a decision is entirely up to the Swedes. The United States and NATO should continue on this diplomatic path—leaving it to the Swedish public to do the math and allowing support to continue developing from within; bolder steps, such as NATO overtly encouraging Sweden to join, could impact negatively on the growing Swedish relationship with NATO and trigger face saving anti-membership reactions from the current Social Democratic leadership.