Not yet. Upcoming elections will either force Eedogan to fold (if public sentiment is leaning towards allowing Sweden in—his primary opponent is for allowing), or will approve it after he wins (once he gets what he wants from all the arm twisting).

As Sweden (as well as Finland) is part of the EU’s mutual defense pact, under Article 42, the rest of Europe’s member states are beholden to come to their aid regardless, in the event of an attack. It gives the U.K., U.S., and Canada an out if they didn’t want to get involved, but there’s not much chance they’d leave anyone hanging in the event of Russian hijinks.

Sweden controls a significant portion of the Baltic Sea. (Including the island of Gotland), a sea which essentially becomes a NATO lake as soon as they join. Any Russian ships based in St. Petersburg become trapped/useless in the event of a conflict with NATO.

Granted, they weren’t getting out into the North Sea and Atlantic past Denmark and Norway anyway, but now they wouldn’t even have room to steam out to the middle of the Baltic and pretend to be a navy without being under constant threat of land-based anti-ship missiles anywhere they go.

This comment was sooo loud in my head. Well done.