Sweden and Finland in NATO help a great deal for dominating the Baltic Sea and defeating a Russian attempt to conquer the NATO states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. But they also help stretch Russian defenses to cover the far north.
I continue to view the Baltic front from Estonia to Poland as the key front for NATO. Like the Black Sea if NATO doesn't over-commit there, the Russian Arctic Sea positions can disproportionately draw Russian power away from the key front.
The alliance is working on integrating Finland and Sweden into defense plans:
With Sweden and Finland poised to join NATO, countries in the region are debating ways of more effectively defending the alliance’s northern flank, putting new divisions of labor on the table for connecting forces from the Baltic Sea to the North Sea. ...
Central to the new thinking is a desire to view the territories of Norway, Sweden and Finland — and to some extent the other two countries considered part of the Nordic region, Denmark and Iceland — more holistically in defense plans.
Yes, the two new states will greatly increase NATO capabilities and options in the Baltic. But there is more to their membership than that.
Finland with Sweden behind it, in addition to Norway, will force Russia to defend its northeastern bases. Pinning Russian forces around the Barents and White Seas with new NATO forces automatically aids NATO. Let the Russians worry about land threats while making it an economy-of-force front for NATO using land- and sea-based air power to deny Russia the ability to divert forces to the main fight further south.
Finland is especially useful northeast of the Baltic front.
This will also serve to protect Finland and Norway from Russian ground attacks. Even if Russia subtracts forces from the main front to contain Swedish and Finnish threats, NATO can deploy more power to assist if Russia decides to make the north a main effort.
And air and naval power will interfere with Russian efforts to project power into the Arctic Circle to defend expansive territorial claims.
Remember Western intervention in the Russian Civil War there. The Russians surely do. But now the West can disrupt the region without sending ground troops.
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