We've caught on to how this works now. I anticipate about two more iterations of tedious, drawn out flip-flopping and misinformation during the remaining steps before we are either finally let in or the whole thing fizzles out.
There is already very heavy pressure on Turkey to let Sweden in, so I don't see this having any chance to fizzle out, Turkey may be a valuable member, but there are limits to their value.
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — The Turkish Parliament’s foreign affairs committee gave its consent to Sweden’s bid to join NATO on Tuesday, drawing the previously non-aligned Nordic country closer to membership in the Western military alliance.
The Turkish parliament’s foreign affairs committee had begun discussing Sweden’s membership in NATO last month.
The meeting however, was adjourned after legislators from Erdogan’s ruling party submitted a motion for a postponement on grounds that some issues needed more clarification and that negotiations with Sweden had not “matured” enough.
Sweden and Finland abandoned their traditional positions of military nonalignment to seek protection under NATO’s security umbrella, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Finland joined the alliance in April, becoming NATO’s 31st member, after Turkey’s parliament ratified the Nordic country’s bid.
NATO requires the unanimous approval of all existing members to expand, and Turkey and Hungary are the only countries that have been holding out.
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Oh we're still on about this NATO stuff? We're halfway to another election and they've still not sorted it out.
Like I don't blame the current government for Erdogan and whatshisface in that shithole being obstinate, but at this point I'm sure we could've put all that money and energy on more useful things than trying to appease a fickle dictator.
If this hasn't been a wakeup call to NATO that their membership process is broken then I doubt we'll ever see a new member. The time, energy, unpredictability, and susceptibility to influences from bad actors is a huge deterrent already, and it'll only get worse over time.
If they can't do away with the veto system there should at least be a mechanism in place for ejecting bad actors. Maybe Turkey is too strategic to face such a risk, but backsliding countries like Hungary would at least need to stop exploiting/blocking the system without legitimate cause. Far too easy for Russia/China/etc to buy off a handful of politicians to block any future expansion.
Common to many of our institutions, international and national, are that they were designed based on an expectation of some sort of correctness and decency and respect towards the institution by members and associates.
But way to many players have thrown away the rule book, and are working the system on the borderline insane. This goes to the extreme for instance for these notable examples: Putin, Xi, Erdogan, Trump, Orbán. (Russia, China, Turkey, USA, Hungary) Draging their entire country with them. Making this insanity ancompass at least a third of the globe!
We need to guard our democracies and institutions against the outrageous even borderline insane populists, even in well established democracies and international organisations that are a huge benefit to all member states. There are examples of people who threaten to tear it apart.
We will see if Netherlands and Gert Wilders will be added to the list of declining societies, in many ways he is not unlike Orbán, and could create huge problems for EU too.