There is some good news for NATO, but that news also highlights a structural deficiency in the NATO alliance. As many readers know, Finland and Sweden have both applied for NATO membership. Both nations have put off such membership for decades, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has motivated both Finland and Sweden to join the NATO alliance for common defense purposes. Most nations in NATO eagerly welcomed the application for membership by Finland and Sweden, but Hungary and Turkey did not. Hungary’s opposition to their membership is hard to understand, but Turkey’s refusal to grant Sweden’s application involves matters involving relationships between Sweden and Kurdish entities, according to my understanding.

Finland and Sweden wanted to join NATO at the same time, but that evidently is not possible. It appears that Finland will be joining NATO soon, but Sweden will have to wait. The first link relates that Hungary has approved Finland’s application for NATO membership, and the second link reports Turkey’s willingness to also approve Finland’s membership application. Finland will be a very welcome and meaningful addition to NATO. It shares a very long boundary with Russia so it needs allies. Finland also has significant military strength and one of Europe’s largest artillery forces, as reported in an earlier post. However, Sweden’s membership application, if granted, would have made NATO even stronger. Sweden’s exclusion from an alliance which needs its membership has highlighted a weakness in NATO’s internal structure. Currently, any nation in NATO can “blackball” or deny any new nation’s application (as Turkey has done with Sweden’s application). This means no matter how badly all other nations want another nation to join NATO, the opposition of just one member nation can stop a new nation from joining the alliance.

Clearly, this NATO rule works to NATO’s disadvantage. Turkey, which bought a Russian air defense system designed to shoot down NATO warplanes, is greatly helping Russia by preventing Sweden from joining NATO. I also want to update readers on a matter I posted about recently. I had posted about Poland’s efforts to greatly increase its military forces and become “a tank superpower” within Europe. Poland is also a host nation which will host permanent US military bases, much as Germany hosted such bases during the Cold War. The third link details this strengthening of the military alliance between the USA and Poland including a map showing where US bases will be located.

NATO needs a new structure wherein one or two nations cannot prevent the addition of a new nation when that nation’s admission is desired by an overwhelming super-majority of the other nations. I do not believe that is possible at present, and there are already some signs that a new (and expanded) military alliance may be birthed out of the current NATO alliance. The Nordic members of NATO (Norway, Denmark and (soon) Finland) are combining their military power with Sweden in a common alliance, whether Sweden is a member of NATO or not. The fourth link, fifth link and sixth link indicate that these nations are combining their air forces into an integrated command structure so they can quickly coordinate all their warplanes’ actions in the event of a war with Russia. This will create an air command with 250-350 modern warplanes depending on how each link tallies the numbers. My tally of their respective numbers indicates a total of 304 active fighter planes at present combined with another 106 modern warplanes (mostly F-35s) on order. This total does not include transport planes, helicopters and other support planes. I think it is clear that with the air forces of these four nations joining into a combined entity, it won’t be long until their armies and navies are coordinated together as well. The fifth link calls this new alliance a “mini NATO.” and mentions that the USA and Canada may also join this new Nordic Union. The sixth link is a video presentation which is very informative, and it notes that the NATO Air Commander was at the Nordic Union’s signing ceremony. Clearly, this new Nordic Union is approved by NATO and is intended to link seamlessly with the other NATO nations, The four nations issued a joint declaration that they “have agreed to work within NATO frameworks” in the merger of their air forces.

The new Nordic Union shows that Europe’s nations are already beginning to work around Turkey’s veto of Sweden’s NATO application. NATO is beginning to create a new sub-alliance including current NATO members and Sweden. This new Nordic Union is an outgrowth of what was once called NORDEFCO, a defense cooperation entity including the four Nordic nations and Iceland. NORDEFCO was founded in 2009, and it is described in the seventh link. This link hints that Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia (NATO members all) may be invited to join the Nordic Union at some point in the future.

Turkey’s lack of cooperation within NATO may lead to a global defense alliance which will replace NATO. It would include not only Sweden, but may include Australia, which is already allied to NATO members, the USA and UK, in the recently-formed alliance called AUKUS (an acronym combining key letters of those three nations’ names). It may also include the Quad nations (Japan, India and Australia) allied to NATO member, the USA. If Australia joins such a global alliance, New Zealand will surely be included as well. Japan is taking a leadership role in strengthening ties between it and smaller Indo-Pacific nations threatened by China such as South Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, etc. The eighth link examines the recent state visit of Japan’s Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida to meet with India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi in light of having these two nations work with other Indo-Pacific nations to oppose China’s growing militarism.

NATO’s focus and its name limit it to the North Atlantic region, which was appropriate in the late 1940s. In the current reality where all Western nations and their allies are collectively threatened by Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and their allies, a global alliance of Western-oriented Democracies would be much more appropriate and efficient. Since NATO is painfully experiencing the ill effects of a single nation (Turkey) being able to blackball a new prospective member (Sweden), it would be logical to form the new alliance with a founding document that it would take two or three nations to object to a new member being added to the alliance. That would end the current problem within NATO of one nation being able to prevent an alliance from adding a new member nation to strengthen the alliance.

Such a global alliance linking NATO nations with the AUKUS and Quad nations, etc. would be entirely consistent with the biblical prophecy in Ezekiel 38-39. Ezekiel 38:8 and 16 state that this prophecy will be fulfilled in a time called “the latter days.” So, to show this prophecy applies to the modern world, we must first demonstrate that our modern times are, provably, the “latter days.” The evidence documenting that this is the case is presented in my article, Are We Living in the Latter Days? Ezekiel 38-39 identify the majority of the major modern nations, but this prophecy uses their ancient names. One must properly identify the modern nations by their ancient names in order to understand the prophecy. The prophecy actually identifies the USA, the major NATO nations, Russia, China, Iran, Japan, etc. The prophecy is a warning about a great World War III which will engulf the world and threaten life on the earth unless Divine intervention happened to stop the war. The identifications of the major nations and the meaning of this very important prophecy are detailed extensively in my research report, What Ezekiel 38-39 Reveal about a Future World War III and my article, Japan’s Role in Biblical Prophecy. Modern events will make much more sense when you understand the key prophecy of Ezekiel 38-39. In these items, you will see that biblical prophecy is “spot on” in accurately predicting the rival modern alliances that have developed. Since Ezekiel 38-39 was authored approximately 2500 years ago, only a Divine authorship for this prophecy could possibly explain its uncanny accuracy in predicting the modern alliances.

  1. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/hungary-has-approved-finland-joining-nato-but-its-delays-raise-deeper-concerns/
  2. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/turkish-parliamentary-commission-approves-finlands-nato-bid-trt-haber-2023-03-23/
  3. https://www.stripes.com/theaters/europe/2023-03-28/army-poland-base-9627391.html?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mil-ebb&SToverlay=de88742f-46f7-4f2c-819d-3b36a47d6a7e
  4. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/nordic-countries-plan-joint-air-defence-counter-russian-threat-2023-03-24/
  5. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2023/03/24/nordic-countries-move-toward-linking-their-air-forces-250-planes/
  6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1N-wumejHM
  7. https://www.nordefco.org/the-basics-about-nordefco
  8. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/21/japan-pm-kishida-announces-new-indo-pacific-plan-during-india-visit.html