March 7, 2024 (EIRNS)—Sweden is officially now a member of NATO. From a military strategic standpoint, this means, among other things, that Sweden’s Gotland Island, in the middle of the Baltic Sea, is now available as a NATO base."The Baltic Sea becomes a NATO lake,” said Krišjanis Karinš, Latvia’s foreign minister and a self-declared candidate to head the alliance, reported Financial Times.
Militarily, the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad is now surrounded and the approach to St. Petersburg via the Gulf of Finland can be blocked. “It reduces the vulnerability of the Baltics through only the Suwalki Gap. The entire security of the region is made stronger, because it makes the eastern Baltic less vulnerable,” Karinš claimed.
Linas Linkevicius, Lithuania’s former foreign minister, now its ambassador in Stockholm, said his country had been striving for Sweden to join NATO “for longer than Sweden had.” He added: “With the opening of the Baltic Sea as a Nato sea, the Suwalki Gap becomes less vulnerable. Maybe the Russians should become more worried. Kaliningrad will not survive if they dare to challenge NATO.”
