Victim of US' European security trap

Sweden has become the latest country to get sucked into the United States' long-gestated proxy war against Russia, bidding farewell to its 200-year tradition of neutrality.

After Hungary gave its assent to Sweden becoming a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on Tuesday, there is no further technical obstacle to the Scandinavian country joining the transatlantic military alliance.

Public support in Sweden for NATO membership surged from 35 percent in 2021 to 64 percent in 2022 after Russia launched its "special military operation" in Ukraine, with NATO itself taking advantage of the conflict as an opportunity to solicit Sweden, along with Finland, to swell its ranks.

After Finland became the 31st member of the organization last year, once Sweden joins, the last buffer zone in Northern Europe between Russia and NATO will have been completely eliminated.

Almost at the same time as Budapest gave the green light to Sweden joining NATO, a first-of-its-kind military training exercise, involving more than 20,000 soldiers from 13 NATO member states, was launched across northern Norway, Sweden and Finland that will last until March 14.

It includes a cross-border operations exercise in the Arctic Circle. The haste with which NATO expanded the exercise that was previously to be held only in Norway to the whole Nordic region is a clear sign that the organization wants to reassure those in Sweden and Finland who are worried about the consequences of joining NATO that they are already under NATO's protection, and also to display to Russia NATO's new-found strength.

The presence of so many countries' militaries and arms on their lands, the first time since World War II, has naturally raised a question for many Swedish and Finnish people doubting the wisdom of their countries joining NATO, whether doing so makes them safer or puts them more at risk.

Neither Finland nor Sweden was previously regarded as a security threat in the eyes of their eastern neighbor due to their long-term neutrality, even at the height of the Cold War.

Although NATO claims to be a collective security mechanism, all its institutional designs and military deployments are made to aggressively get in the face of Russia. Joining NATO represents a big change in the defense policies of both Sweden and Finland, as well as their acceptance of and support for NATO principles and purposes.

It is NATO that has been trying to speculate on the Ukraine conflict to prompt the two countries to discard their neutrality and join its hostile bearing toward Russia. It is NATO that needs them for its belligerent designs more than they need NATO.

Since both countries are members of the European Union, which has been lured by Washington into a security dilemma trap, the whole atmosphere in which they have made their decisions regarding NATO membership has been devoid of calm objectivity.

It is NATO that, at the behest of the US, has broken its tacit consensus with Moscow by shrinking, then eliminating the buffer zone between itself and Russia that had existed since the end of the Cold War, destroying the foundation for Europe's peace and stability.

Sweden and Finland's discarding of their long-term neutrality is not conducive to restoring peace in Europe as it only reinforces NATO's aggressive stance. That will only push the continent further away from a lasting, balanced and workable security mechanism that all sides claim to seek to build.