![North Atlantic Treaty Organization](NATO [One].jpg)
NATO has a clear objective, to counter threats when they become a reality
Finland and Sweden will become NATO members to counter the Putin threat
Democracy and freedom is what is at stake in Europe and across the world
President Putin's illegal invasion of the Republic of Ukraine has raised fears within Europe of the full intentions of Putin's desire to invade other European countries.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, countries that had been under the rule of Soviet communism for nearly half a century sought ways to protect themselves against any further invasion in the future.
At the first chance Baltic neighbouring countries Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia put their applications in to join NATO to bolster their defences against Russian aggression as they had witnessed and suffered during and after World War II and throughout the Cold War period.
Countries that were part of the Eastern Bloc like Poland, Czechoslovakia (now split into two independent countries Czech Republic and Slovakia), Hungary, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, Yugoslavia (though left in 1948, and now independent states Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Macedonia (now North Macedonia), and autonomous states Kosovo (now an independent nation, and Vojvodina (still retains autonomy within Serbia), Albania, Bulgaria, and East Berlin and Germany and parts of Austria due to defeating the Nazis' after the end of World War II.
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Interestingly Finland who had a war during World War II fought the Soviet Union and lost ten percent of territory in the aftermath of the end of the short conflict and neighbouring country Sweden, like Switzerland all three remained neutral during and after the Cold War.
But while neutrality has pacified successive Soviet and Russian leaders, there was always a fear of being invaded because Finland and Sweden were not members of NATO, which was founded in 1949 to counter the Soviet threat during the Cold War period, which started in 1947.
The only defence for Europe is the continuation of NATO and to include as many of the outstanding nations to protect themselves and to counter any Russian threat for the foreseeable future.
Traditionally the people of Sweden and Finland were opposed to joining NATO and treasured their neutrality and keeping the Soviet and later Russian leaders happy by not being a paranoid threat to the Soviet Union and later the Russian Federation.
![Finland and Sweden joining NATO](Sweden and Finland.jpg)
But with Putin invading a peaceful neighbouring country Ukraine, the Swedes and Finns have opted overwhelmingly to submit NATO applications and have been expedited for approval to stop Putin or any other Russian leader from attacking either by invasion or the firing of missiles to reduce their capital cities to rubble.
![Stop Putin, Stop War in Ukraine](SW.jpg)
The excitement has caused the European Union to stipulate the same terms as NATO of triggering Article 5, where it states, "An attack on one is an attack on all," which means that the other NATO countries would come to the defence of an attacked nation and counterattack to neutralise the threat.
But the European Union Member States will not come to the rescue of an attacked nation because of economic and political alliances and opportunities and for this the European Union will fail once again, like they've done with getting vaccines for Covid-19 and the illegal invasion of Ukraine and being too slow to call and implement sanctions on Russian interests and Putin and his oligarchs and not to mention stopping using Russian oil and gas, which is helping to fund the conflict in Ukraine.
The European Union President and other members of the leadership do not understand that enforcing politically motivated edicts and executive orders when what's needed is to warn with military action if there is an attack on a NATO member nation.
Forcing nations into a political and economic union does not and will never work, which is why the European Union will in the end fail and NATO will continue to succeed in defending Europe and other NATO nations outside of the continent.
Sovereignty is sacred and it's the rights of the people of every nation across the world, not to be given to an intergovernmental institution that pretends to be a country.
The right of self-determinism is what this conflict between Russia led by a dictator and Ukraine who wants to look towards the West and embrace freedom and democracy.
The only institution that needs to form part of a European alliance is the Council of Europe, which is what the late great Sir Winston Churchill was in favour of and where dialogue and troubleshooting problems within Europe could be voiced and solutions worked out, without the need of a political and economic unionisation of nations and just as important taking away the sovereign rights of the people.
What we now know is that we cannot trust Putin and has become an illegitimate leader of the Russian Federation after facilitating the genocide and mass torture and rape of peaceful Ukrainian men, women, and children.
NATO will win and tyranny, communism and dictatorships will fail, so watch out China you're next!