Biden makes what may be a legacy-defining push on expanding NATO

[Boats]

Biden makes what may be a legacy-defining push on expanding NATO
By: Olivier Know & Caroline Aders - The Washington Post - 7-3-23
Re: https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...xpanding-nato/

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The big idea:

Biden makes what may be a legacy-defining push on expanding NATO

President Biden this week will kick off a 10-day stretch focused on NATO and its role helping Ukraine fight Russia. At its core is the question of whether he can persuade Turkey and Hungary to drop their objections to welcoming Sweden into the world’s most potent defensive alliance.

* The push starts Wednesday when he welcomes Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson to the Oval Office, an opportunity to reaffirm America’s enthusiastic support for bringing Stockholm into NATO “as soon as possible,” the White House said Saturday.

* All 31 of the alliance’s members must approve any new adherents. The bloc’s central promise, in Article 5 of its charter, is to treat an attack on one as an attack on all.


Biden successfully pushed for NATO to welcome Finland, which shares an 800-mile border with Russia. It joined in April. Both Helsinki and Stockholm abandoned long-standing policies of neutrality and sought membership after Russia expanded its war in Ukraine in February 2022.

A very long shot at next week’s NATO summit

Biden on Sunday heads to the United Kingdom, where he’ll meet with King Charles III for the first time since his coronation (the president, in keeping with American tradition, did not attend) and with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Then he’s off to Vilnius, Lithuania, for the July 11-12 NATO summit. Finally, he’ll meet with Nordic leaders July 13 in Helsinki.

Officially, the U.S. is hopeful Ankara and Budapest will formally drop their objections to admitting Sweden. Could the Swedes join at the summit?

“The president is very optimistic that they will, and we look forward to welcoming them into the alliance,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said June 26. “The conversations between Sweden and Turkey continue. We encourage that dialogue.”

But putting a bow on this in Vilnius is highly unlikely.

[Erdogan says no!]

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said Sweden hasn’t yet done enough to crack down on groups he sees as security threats, including the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) that the U.S. and Europe have branded a terrorist organization. He also wants more done against individuals and groups he has accused of supporting a failed coup against him in 2016.

This past week, the Turkish leader seemed to connect opposition to Sweden’s accession with a Quran-burning protest in Stockholm that took place shortly after the two sides agreed to discuss their differences, denouncing the decision to allow the demonstration on free speech grounds.

“Those who allow these under the pretext of freedom of expression and turn a blind eye to this viciousness, as well as those who have committed this crime, will not reach their goals,” Erdogan said. He did not specify what “goals” would founder.

NATO, U.S. push back:

At the State Department on Thursday, spokesman Matt Miller condemned the Quran burning but supported the free-speech right to burn it and said it was time for Turkey to drop its opposition.

“Sweden has taken a number of significant and important steps to respond to concerns that Turkey has raised,” he told reporters. “We believe those steps should be sufficient to address those concerns and that it is time to move to full accession to NATO for Sweden.”

* Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, spoke by phone last week with a senior Erdogan adviser, urging him to admit Sweden “as soon as possible.”

And NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said last week he was bringing together senior officials from Turkey, Sweden and Finland for talks on Thursday in an attempt to break the impasse.

Don’t forget Hungary:

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban also stands in the way. Lawmakers in Budapest recently postponed a vote on NATO membership for Sweden to their autumn legislative session.

Orban has accused Swedish officials of “spreading blatant lies about Hungary,” apparently a reference to criticisms of democratic backsliding. But he’s also been historically close to President Vladimir Putin of Russia and dependent on its energy exports.

Ukraine -

Getting Sweden into NATO would add to Biden’s foreign policy legacy, but the summit is also about keeping the alliance together on the question of Ukraine and pushing members to keep a promise made in 2014 to get defense spending up to 2 percent of gross domestic product, a goal few members have reached.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently told Spanish reporters his country must “show results” in its counteroffensive against Russia before the summit. He blamed heavy rains and a lack of artillery for sluggish progress.

[Note:]

* Watch for the debate over whether to offer Ukraine a precise road map to NATO membership, a question on which Biden has been wary.

* And keep an eye out for fresh commitments of military aid to Ukraine, which says it needs considerably more to drive out the Russians by year’s end.
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Also;

**U.S. recommends Americans reconsider traveling to China because of arbitrary law enforcement and exit bans. **

“No specific cases were cited, but the advisory came after a 78-year-old U.S. citizen was sentenced to life in prison on spying charges in May. It also followed the passage last week of a sweeping Foreign Relations Law that threatens countermeasures against those seen as harming China’s interests,” the Associated Press reports.
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Also in the news:

A mysteriously financed group that could upend a Biden-Trump rematch

“The names involved in No Labels constitute a mostly moderate mix of Democrats and Republicans. In addition to the left-leaning [Ben Chavis], other national co-chairs include two Republican former governors and Democrat-turned-independent former Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman. Republican real-estate developer Harlan Crow, whose friendship with conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has come under scrutiny, is among No Labels’ supporters whose campaign contributions largely lean Republican,” the Wall Street Journal’s Julie Bykowicz reports.

* “The group hasn’t taken positions on major issues that divide the two leading parties, such as abortion access. It claims bipartisanship and centrism as its main values and says a more specific agenda is forthcoming this month.”
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Personal note: Big Money buy's our Leader's - of which they will then
benefit once they are in. Collusion (favors for election guarantee's).
Who says you can't buy a Leader to increase your worldly benefits
as a so called Gift! - Money rules the world - don't ever forget that!
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