HELSINKI (Washington Insider Magazine) – On Sunday, more than 7,000 marines, sailors and airmen from 16 countries, including 2 aspiring NATO members, Sweden and Finland, began a nearly 2-week U.S.-led naval drill in the Baltic Sea.
BALTOPS, an annual naval drill that began in 1972, is not performed in response to any particular threat. However, NATO claimed that by including Finland and Sweden, it is embracing the opportunity in an uncertain world to strengthen its joint force strength and resilience with two Nordic aspirational nations.
Both Sweden and Finland had a long tradition of armed non-alignment before their governments chose in May to seek to join NATO in response to Russia’s assault in Ukraine on February 24. According to ABC NEWS, Moscow has frequently cautioned Stockholm and Helsinki about joining the Western military alliance and threatened retaliation if they do so.
The top US military officer said in Sweden, the site of the BALTOPS 22 exercise, that it was especially vital for NATO to express solidarity to the governments in Stockholm and Helsinki, before the naval practice, which comprised 75 aircraft and 45 vessels.
In a meeting with Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, US General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, emphasized that the Baltic Sea is a strategically vital body of water.
From Russia’s perspective, Sweden and Finland joining NATO would be “very problematic” and put Moscow in a difficult combat position, he said, because the Baltic Sea’s coastline would be almost entirely surrounded by NATO members, with the exception of Russia’s Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad and the Russian city of St. Petersburg and its surrounding region.
Turkey, a NATO member with good ties with Russia, has expressed opposition to Sweden and Finland joining the defense bloc, citing their suspected support for a Kurdish militia that Turkey considers a terrorist organisation. The NATO chief has been attempting to mediate the conflict.
The USS Kearsarge, which cruised through small channels in the Stockholm archipelago, is the largest battleship the US has ever operated in the Swedish capital, according to Milley.
Sweden and Finland, as close NATO allies, have engaged in the naval exercise since the mid-1990s.
