Finland and Sweden seem to be thinking about joining NATO in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s overt aggression toward and threat of invasion of Ukraine.

Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin:

We retain the option of applying for NATO membership. We should uphold this freedom of choice and make sure it remains a reality….

And

Sweden’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Anne Linde also asserted that Russia does not have a veto on whatever alliance Sweden chooses to join.

It’s hard, at this date, to see why either nation—or any other—would want to join NATO.

A successful invasion and occupation of Ukraine by Russia would only demonstrate just how impotent NATO has become. NATO is toothless with Germany unarmed and timid under Angela Merkel and now Olaf Scholz and his Social Democratic Party, and the US is just timid under Biden-Harris.

That Ukraine is not presently a NATO member is a coward’s copout. Russian occupation of Ukraine would only magnify the threat to the NATO nations. In recognition of that, very few member nations—you can count them with the fingers of one hand—out of the 30 current members have even been willing to offer Ukraine economic or political support, much less arms with which to defend itself and drive Russia out of currently occupied Ukraine.

NATO would be no protection at all for Sweden and Finland.