 For many years, the two Nordic nations of Sweden and Finland retained their neutral political status, despite a multitude of major events over the past few decades. That was until early 2022, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Support for the NATO alliance steadily and rapidly rose in both countries, culminating in their NATO application in May, and subsequent invitation to the alliance in July. Despite near unanimous support within the alliance for their joining, Turkey has voiced concerns about both nations, especially Sweden, for harboring Kurdish militants fighting the Turkish government. With this and other challenges present, how realistic is the idea of Sweden and Finland becoming full members of NATO? Welcome to today's episode of Max World Politics Report. To understand Sweden and Finland's relationship with NATO, we must travel back to 1949 to the alliance's inception, and possibly even earlier, the 12 founding members, the United States, Canada, and the 10 European nations shown here, wanted to create a stable block of American allied nations for collective defense against outside forces, most notably the Soviet Union. Sweden and Finland, despite being very similar to the founding members, especially Denmark and Norway, had their different reasons for not joining the alliance initially. Sweden had a policy of neutrality, stretching back all the way to the early 1800s and the Napoleonic Wars, and was not directly involved in any conflicts on the continent since. These wars led to the loss of Finland to Russia, and not having the powerful position they once possessed in the 17th and 18th centuries, Sweden's pursuit of non-intervention was the most successful strategy to maintain their sovereignty. Finland, on the other hand, would ultimately declare independence from Russia in 1917, though their relationship with their former master would remain complicated. In 1939, during the early part of World War II, Soviet Russia invaded Finland in an attempt to reclaim the country, and while some gains were made, Finland retained its independence. During the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Finland made impressive gains in Russian-occupied Karelia, expending far beyond their pre-1939 borders. Yet these gains were all lost by the end of 1944, leading to a new border being drawn. Finland was only able to retain its independence from the Soviet Union after the war by caving to certain demands from the latter. This meant that Finland often had to vote with the Soviet Union in United Nations resolutions. The Communist Party of Finland had to be reinstated, and Finland could not join any foreign alliances, especially ones like NATO, which were antithetical to the Soviet Union's existence. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Finland had the opportunity to direct its own foreign policy, though resolved to remain militarily neutral. Despite this, Finland, along with historically neutral Sweden and Austria, joined the European Union in 1995 for the first time establishing themselves in Western organizations. During this period, citizens of Sweden and Finland actually had no interest in their nations becoming part of NATO, despite the trend of support for expansion in Central and Eastern Europe. By the time North Macedonia joined the alliance in 2020, neither Sweden nor Finland had any intention of joining. Yet at the same time, attitudes were changing in both countries, especially with the rise of predatory actions by Russia, in Georgia, and Ukraine. With several reports showing the relative weakness both nations would face in an event of a Russian invasion, the prospect of NATO membership began to be taken more seriously by the mid-2010s. This change was amplified with the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Support for membership in both countries quickly rose above 50% by March, and this support was paralleled in their respective governments. In May 2022, Sweden and Finland both applied for NATO membership, and signaled an intention to be inducted into the alliance together. Receiving the green light to join the alliance in July by signing the accession protocol, the current members of NATO have voted on the two nations' future membership. Requiring all 30 members to approve their application, 28 members to date have ratified the accession of Sweden and Finland to the alliance. The two holdouts are Hungary and Turkey. Many have speculated that Hungary is taking a very long time to approve their membership as leverage against other European states upset with their alleged neutrality regarding the Russo-Ukrainian War. Despite this probably being true to a good extent, Hungary has announced its plans to ratify Sweden and Finland's accession by the end of 2022. Turkey is the true outlier in this case. This is largely due to the complicated relations it has with Sweden and Finland going back decades regarding the alleged harboring of Kurdish militants in the two countries, whom Turkey has been fighting since the late 1970s. The Kurds are a large, stateless ethnic group primarily living in southeastern Turkey, western Iran, and northern Syria and Iraq. Due to their stateless status and Turkey's policy of Turkifying its entire population, which has often led to discrimination and harassment of Kurdish people, the Kurds have taken up arms against Turkey, often taking extreme measures. Often having communist alignment, Kurdish militants fleeing the country have sought refuge in non-NATO countries. Sweden and Finland were ideal choices due to their non-alignment, foreign policy of helping refugees and stateless people, and high level of development. Though this has been a low-lying problem for some time, it really did not come to light until Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO. Turkey has voiced opposition to both nations joining throughout the process due to these issues, though has been far more critical of Sweden, which Turkey claims has done far less to rectify this issue. Despite the fact that they would likely gain Turkey's approval to join at the present, Finland's government has reiterated it will not join unless Sweden does so in tandem. We have yet to see how Sweden's new right-wing government will handle this issue. My personal intuition says that they will no longer take half measures, and will likely kick out the Kurdish militants and associated groups in the coming months. This will ultimately help their chances of joining NATO, and I predict by February of 2023, about a year after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Sweden and Finland will become full NATO members. The accession of these two nations puts NATO in a much better position in the Baltic Sea. Having nearly all of the coastline of the sea in their possession, Russian naval aggression would be easily halted in such an event. Though fears of Russia's reaction to Sweden and Finland joining NATO have been recognized by both nations and the Alliance as a whole, several factors preclude Russia's capabilities to take action against the accession. Aside from the aforementioned naval dominance NATO would have, the nations will have joined the Alliance at the perfect time, with Russia's military completely distracted in Ukraine. Russia knows its situation is precarious enough as it is, and they already realize that two front-war in northeastern Europe is one in which they would lose. Russia has always feared NATO sidelining them on the global stage through its expansion, a fear that has become somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy. NATO's expansion has led to more aggressive actions by Russia, leading to further sidelining. With the Baltic Sea completely part of NATO waters, I would be surprised to see Russia hold out for even six months in the event that they chose to go to war. Even though NATO and Europe as a whole are facing great difficulties related to internal division, population decline, and energy shortages, Russia experiences these issues to an even greater degree, which has and will continue to cripple its chances of putting up a fight against NATO. Since Russia cannot create a stable coalition of allies, as I have described in a few videos, it is in especially bad shape. So will Sweden and Finland join NATO? I think it's very likely they will within the next six months, and if not within that timeframe they certainly will within the year. This succession is shaking up European and global politics, and to my intuition is inevitable. Going forward, it will be interesting to see what direction other historically neutral nations in Europe will take. The video on Serbia, the only truly neutral nation left on the continent, is certainly warranted, so stick around this channel because you are not going to want to miss this analysis. Thank you for watching today's episode. If you like my work, please consider supporting me on Patreon to obtain access to exclusive maps and future updates. Tell me in the comments what you want to see next, and I'll see you then.