Hey friends, it's me V Spear and you might be wondering what I'm doing here out from underneath the desk floating around in podcast land.

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V interesting from Lemonade Media out now. Listen Tuesdays and Fridays wherever you get your podcasts. Our 200 year long standing policy of military non alignment has served Sweden well.

But issue at hand is whether military non alignment will keep serving as well.

If you know only one thing about Sweden and Finland's position in the world, it's probably this. They believe in staying neutral. They have never been a part of NATO, the military alliance that binds many countries in Europe with the US and Canada.

But now that is about to change.

It is a historic day. Of course we have four years been very close cooperation with NATO. We are close partners to NATO, but it is a historic decision that we will join NATO.

In this surprising turnaround, Sweden and Finland are applying to join NATO. It's members promise that an attack on one is an attack on all, meaning that if any NATO country is attacked, they will come to each other's defense.

And that solidarity is something that's starting to look pretty attractive to these two countries that are really close to Russia.

I think one of the great ironies of Russia's invasion of Ukraine is that Vladimir Putin has done more to strengthen and embolden the NATO alliance than anyone ever could.

Shane Harris covers intelligence and national security for the post. He's been reporting on the war in Ukraine and how it's reshaping the geopolitical landscape.

Right before the invasion, it was a question of what was the usefulness of NATO in the modern era? What was the nature of this alliance?

Would countries really come to the mutual assistance of other countries if they were threatened? Would they make good on the pact?

I think now we'd have to say the answer is unequivocally yes.

From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports. I'm Martin Powers. It's Tuesday, May 17th.

Today, what this historic move means for the US and the world and how the war in Ukraine going badly for Russia could make Putin even more dangerous.

So Shane, in the past few days, we have seen Finland and Sweden. There's two countries that have long been neutral that they have started making moves to join NATO.

Why are these countries changing their neutral stance now and why do they want to join NATO?

Well, the short answer to that is Russia invaded Ukraine. And these countries, Sweden and Finland, now have calculated that it is better for them in the long term.

It is better for protecting themselves against a possible Russian invasion to join in NATO. So if Russia were to try to do in Finland or Sweden, what it's done in Ukraine, the other NATO members would come to those countries' defense.

I think officials in Europe, including NATO member countries, are very afraid that Russia could try and attack them or mount an invasion even like we saw in Ukraine.

Even though the invasion has not gone well, Russia is still a powerful military. It has a lot of people it could conscript. It could take some years and regroup itself.

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