The Goals and Mains Missions of NATO

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is an international defence alliance founded in 1949, as a result of the devastating WW2. There are currently 29 countries in the alliance, including: The US, UK, Germany, France, Norway, Denmark, Canada, and many more. These countries are all committed to the two NATO missions, the first one being to promote democratic values, and enable member to consult and cooperate on security related issues, build trust and friendship, and in the long run, prevent global conflict.

The second NATO mission is for each NATO member to, if all diplomacy fails, support the each other in conflict (1). For an organization to be recognized as successful or worthy of attention, it has to have achieved something that makes a genuine difference. So what has NATO achieved? Over the last 20 years, the big focus of NATO has clearly been the war on terror. We live today in a world where military superpowers no longer fight each other, this itself is partly thanks to NATO, as all military superpowers are either allied, or not interested in conflict because of the power of the allied (Wink wink Russia). This has however as we know given Jihadi terrorist groups a chance to make themselves the new antagonists. Since 2001, after the US declared war on terror, NATO forces have been defeating and stopping Jihadi groups from commiting more attack on the western world. Some specific achievements of the NATO allied countries include: Capturing the cruel dictator Saddam Hussein, defeating Taliban, al-Qaeda and ISIS fighters in the middle east, as well as helping Afghanistan to improve on their country by bettering their economy, making education available to more people(2). NATO operations have decreased piracy off the coast of Somalia by 75% since 2011 (2). Because of NATO’s work, the capability of terrorists to conduct major attacks like 9/11 and the bombing in Paris has been reduced to such a degree, that all that terrorist have the resources to do, is to steal some unfortunate truck trivers vehicle and ram people with it. Now that's low budget. Why should we join? Because it’s easy! We are already helping NATO fight terror by contributing soldiers to Afghanistan, Iraq, Mali, and Somalia.

NATO recognizes this, and is very appreciative. Hence, why NATO themselves, are very open to welcoming us into the organization. The other day, party leader for the Moderates (Moderaterna), Ulf Kristersson expressed his opinion, as well as eventual plans for a NATO alliance that he would strive to achieve in the event that his was to get elected. From his speech, i quote. “We have a longstanding tradition of being free from military alliances, but nowadays, we are just alliance-less. A NATO - alliance would raise the threshold, and lower the risk of an armed attack on our home country.” (3). An overwhelming majority of Swedish teens have developed the understanding that just because Sweden hasn’t “been in war” for almost 100 years, war will never come our way. And that because we are neutral, no one would have an interest in starting a conflict with us. For these reasons, swedes have dismissed the importance of a solid defence as well as an alliance to go with it. A scary amount of swedes actually believe that it is better to not have armed forces at all, to promote piece (4). This is of course a very nice idea, but extremely naive. This segways us nicely along to the “elephant in the room,” Russia. It is common knowledge that Russia have acted aggressively towards Sweden, but no one is taking this seriously, as it has turned out, that goes for our government as well. This is Slite hamn, in Gotland. For 20 years , from 1996 to 2016, the port has been owned by Russia. As has now been made common knowledge, Russia has an interest in Gotland, as it is a very strategically powerful spot in the Baltic sea.

At the time Russia owned Slite hamn, our politicians were naive enough to no care about the russian activity. Later, it was discovered that they had built this very port. All Swedish build ports are designed with strategically placed pockets for explosives to be placed in in chase the ports needed to be destroyed during war-time, to prevent the enemy from using them. This russian built port, was made super- rigid, out of millions of tonnes of rock hard concrete, without those pockets. This is because, should they decide to attack Gotland, the port will be indestructible and they will be able to unload all of their tanks and soldiers on it. Spring 2014, 4 Russian mini submarines, believed to be carrying russian special forces were located in the middle of the Stockholm archipelago. I’m sure you all remember hearing about it. I myself was enraged by it. What they were trying to achieve is unknown, and Russia have taken no blame, just as they didn’t take blame for the annexation of Crimea in Ukraine….Lastly, the Russian fighters flying into Swedish airspace multiple times in one week during June 2017. This has actually occurred a couple of times a year the last 5 years or so. Russian bombers and strike fighter have on numerous occasions looped into our airspace, only retreating when intercepted by swedish fighters. This is of course a method of testing our capabilities, for future plans. I doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that this is a major threat to our security. This is something that we need to take seriously.

To conclude this rather lengthy rant, I strongly believe that the arguments to join NATO greatly outweigh the arguments to remain neutral, which for the most part is a moral, and pathos based argument that supports our long standing tradition of trying to appear pieceful. I hope that I enlightened some of you who haven't previously had an opinion or preference on this topic. The decision to join or not to join is likely to face us in the near future, and i’m happy if could maybe persuade some people, for the sake of national security, and for the sake of Sweden. Thank you!