BBC reports - Sweden is in!
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Turkey backs Sweden's Nato membership
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66160319
The Nato chief says President Erdogan will drop opposition to Sweden becoming the alliance's 32nd member.
Turkey had previously spent months blocking Sweden's application, accusing it of hosting Kurdish militants.
Man, fuck Turkey
As a swede I am on the fence on wether Sweden should join NATO in the first place, but at least we're not out for the stupidest fucking reason anymore.
What are your counter points? Other than not wanting to be a staging ground for a potential NATO/Russian war?
I think most people who have switched sides, who were originally for/split, would today argue that it's unlikely that Russia would stage another war in the coming years. Looking at how poorly they are performing in Ukraine.
So getting into NATO with the possibility that Erdogan's demands will have an actual effect on the Swedish laws has not been deemed worth it right now.
I also doubt anybody reasonable would consider some of his demands to be achievable, Turkey in EU today?
Worth noting I am partly speaking from my own assessment as well. I want us to join NATO but I don't find it to be an affair that is as urgent anymore and I'd preferably have it done without any greater effects on our justice system or other parts that Erdogan was unhappy about.
However, it's worth noting that there are still a reasonable amount of swedes who are completely against NATO.
Don't worry, there's plenty of other banned weapons NATO can use before they go nuclear: biological weapons, chemical weapons, high energy weapons...
Sweden currently would be in a perfect selfish situation.
Norway and Finland are in. So sweden cannot be attacked by russia without NATO helping them unless russia only attacks islands. But Sweden has free choice to participate or ignore NATO being attacked.
Now Sweden has to help NATO wherever they are being attacked.
With all the requirements stipulated through this agreement it feels more like blackmail than anything. Glad they're finally in, or in the process of getting in, but the whole thing just seems unreal and unfair.
Stop making international organisations you can't kick members out of!
Geez, get your stuff together Western governments.
This is an interesting topic you're talking about here. What If NATO had such a section in their treaties that allowed a country to be kicked. How would that effect the alliance?
One of the key features of an alliance is trust, if you are at risk of getting kicked out, then you might not want to join, or you take it less serious?
There is a pretty interesting video from William Spaniel about this topic here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5p_a9QiL-hA
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=5p_a9QiL-hA
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
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This focuses on the admission rules, mostly, and basically says "it made sense in the 40's" about the lack of expulsion mechanisms.
They're going to have to do NAFO eventually. Ditto for the EU.
Before I watch the video, my response is that it should still need a supermajority and only work during peacetime (by some reasonably expansive definition of it) but it should be possible. Otherwise you end up situations like the one we're in. If it's that hard to get kicked out I would feel fine about it for my own security, at least.
I wonder what had deal had to be made for him to say this. Also grain of salt till ink is dry.
I've seen speculation that Turkey will get F-16s in return.
Looking forward to seeing Orban cornered.
They've had F-16s for years, producing most of them domestically (under license). Maybe some upgrades?
Turkey's been developing their own "5th gen" fighter, and they do have a pretty decent domestic military industrial base, but they got barred from purchasing the F-35 in 2019 when they bought an S-400 system from Russia - I wonder if he wants those. It'd need some US congressional cooperation to make happen, though.
This isn't happening it's just grandstanding before the summit. Sweden said they'll put in a good word for Turkey to join the EU, Erdogan said he'll put in a good word to Turkish parliament. After the conference someone will do something trivial and they'll fake outrage and go back to Sweden not joining.
Per the NYT, here’s what Sweden and NATO would do in return:
In return, Sweden and Turkey would continue to work bilaterally against terrorism, Sweden would help reinvigorate Turkey’s application to enter the European Union, and NATO would establish a new “special coordinator for counterterrorism,” he said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/10/world/europe/erdogan-turkey-sweden-nato.html
Sweden will help them apply, but they've got to do all the prerequisite economic work themselves.
Not to mention, the governmental policy and structure work themselves. And the governmental structure and policy changes made by Erdogan are more or less what the EU wants fixed (e.g. erosion of judicial independence and rule of law; imprisonment of political opponents; strong democratic process that operates without internal interference). Sweden will abide by the letter of the agreement, as they should: they’ll help Turkey improve their EU bid. It’s just that “improve” absolutely encompasses moving that accession bid from “lol no” to “pretty goddamn unlikely but technically not impossible”.
Erdogan will probably be sore about that later, but he’s really only got himself to blame. If you wanna be in a club that has a rule where you’ve got to be a full and thriving democracy, it’s frankly stupid to be surprised when they won’t let you in because you’ve stopped being a full and thriving democracy. And the club members are under no obligation whatsoever to help you pretend that you are a full and thriving democracy when you clearly aren’t.
Basically we agreed to put in a good word for him. "Hey, let's consider letting Turkey join the EU." "Lmfao no". "Welp. We tried."
It sounds like Erdogan is saying this is conditional on the EU reopening talks about Turkiye joining. Is that even happening?
Talks weren't suspended because the EU hates Turkey (national politics and sentiment nonwithstanding Berlaymont just doesn't care about those things) but because the accession procedure went nowhere, and in some areas backslided.
As such reopening is contingent on nothing but Turkey actually taking its prospect of joining seriously. I wonder if Erdogan understands that "Sweden reinvigorating Turkey's application" pretty much means Sweden giving Turkey private lessons in how to be less of a shithole... in any case it doesn't surprise me that Sweden agreed to such language.
I'm surprised. Erdogan is not known for non-confronational decisions, especially if they benefit others. Did he suffer a sudden bout of dementia?
Nah. He is also known for instant turns, when he thinks he has bargained enough or when it happens to suit the image he wants to present.
For example say he decided "Vilnius is the moment I stop bargaining, but only at last minute. Lets see what concessions I can get out of them until then" or so on.
It is exactly on brand for Erdogan to suddenly turn his position and go "what problem, there is no problem. What I said last week there was a problem... no no no, I Erdogan The First have solved problem quickly in only few days. Yes we made a deal, I negotiated amazing deal, deal solves the problem. There is No problem anumore. It's solved."
What happened to solve the problem? Nothing, Erdogan just stopped insisting there was a problem in first place and well some flowery language on top to make it look like it was deal to end the problem and not a climb down to end the problem.
I don't care what someone thinks or feels about the Russo-Ukraine war - NATO expanding is absolutely not a good thing.
Why not?
I'm not saying Ukraine should/shouldn't be in NATO, but if Ukraine was in NATO would Russia have invaded?
Don't larger military alliance disincentivize violent conflict?
I understand if a conflict were to break out it would be much larger, but we can't know the extent of the smaller conflicts that have not happened due to the existence of NATO.
Don’t larger military alliance disincentivize violent conflict?
Not necessarily - and NATO sure doesn't seem to mind when their own members wage genocidal wars on the third world (like Turkey is doing with it's ISIS-staffed proxy-militias in northern Syria).
NATO has shown that it will happily play midwife to US neocolonialism - remember that time the US invaded Afghanistan using an even flimsier pretext than the ones Putin uses? At this point, we should be thankful that the US didn't allow Russia itself to join NATO (something Putin is still pretty sore about)... but the US sure didn't do it out of the goodness of their hearts.