Sweden Begins Aurora 23 Military Exercises
A Swedish soldier sits on a military vehicle. (Wikimedia Commons)
Troops from all branches of the Swedish armed forces and from twelve NATO countries began the Aurora 23 military exercise on April 17 in what has become Sweden’s largest military exercises in over 25 years. The Swedish Armed Forces believe this endeavor will “build security and, concurrently, reinforce the Swedish operational capability”.
More than 26,000Swedish personnel from air, sea, and land units will be involved in the large-scale operations based in southern Sweden near Gotland, a strategically important island. In addition to Sweden, the United States, United Kingdom, Finland, Poland, Norway, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Denmark, Austria, Germany, and France will all participate in the exercises. Importantly, all of those countries, besides Austria and Ukraine, are members of NATO.
Although Sweden and Finland both submitted bids to join NATO in May 2022, only Finland has joined the military alliance as Sweden’s bid continues to face opposition from Hungary and Turkey. Hungary maintains that Sweden cannot join NATO while the problems that remain between the two countries are unresolved.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated that Finland and Sweden harbors Kurdish terrorists from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which both Sweden and Turkey designated as a terrorist group. Turkey approved Finland’s bid on March 31, 2023 after months of opposition but continues to block Sweden’s bid due to the alleged harboring of terrorists.
Despite such obstacles to Sweden’s NATO membership, the Aurora 23 exercises are a significant signal that Sweden is moving away from its previous non-aligned stance. During the Cold War era, Sweden decided not to join NATO to avoid antagonizing the Soviet Union. The Scandinavian country also chose a non-aligned path because the country valued disarmament and neutrality.
Sweden’s bid to join NATO represents a massive shift that can directly be attributed to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. At a press conference on April 13, 2022, Magdalena Andersson, Sweden’s prime minister at the time, said “The security landscape has completely changed.” Shortly after the press conference, Sweden announced that it would seek to join NATO.
Russia warned Sweden that joining NATO would result in “serious military and political consequences.” Russian president Vladimir Putin sees the US-led alliance as an existential threat and sees NATO expansion as an aggressive move targeted at Russia.
The Aurora 23 drills show that Sweden is aligning itself much closer to the NATO alliance despite Turkey’s opposition. NATO officials remain hopeful that Erdogan will allow Sweden to join after Turkish elections in May. Regardless of the status of its bid to join NATO, Sweden has clearly left neutrality and non-alignment behind and is firmly on Ukraine’s side after the invasion.