Intelligence Brief: NATO’s Nordic Expansion

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Background Information – Brief Overview

Sweden and Finland have previously defined their geopolitical identity through military non-alignment. Although the two EU countries’ partnership with NATO has intensified in recent years, membership in the defensive alliance had not been considered. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, however, has forced the Nordic countries to rethink their security interests. Due to the close partnership between Sweden and Finland, both countries simultaneously submitted their applications to join NATO on May 18.

Although most NATO member countries welcome the move by Sweden and Finland, there are also difficulties in the accession process: The Turkish President Erdogan accuses both countries of harboring individuals with ties to terrorist organizations such as the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Erdogan therefore does not want to consent to the NATO expansion until Sweden and Finland change their anti-terror laws and resume previously stopped arms shipments to Turkey. Thus, the future of NATO’s Nordic expansion remains inconclusive.

Trend Analysis - Mentions of NATO

Through strategic mining of multi-media sources – including audio and text processing – it is possible to monitor and identify trends in real-time. The trend graph below shows mentions of Finland, Sweden and NATO in traditional and social media in the past month.

Trend graph generated by HENSOLDT Analytics' Media Mining tool

From May 10 to May 19, a strong increase in mentions of Finland and Sweden correlating with mentions of NATO can be observed. This can be attributed to the intentions and subsequent declarations of the two countries to join the military alliance. The increase in mentions of Turkey can be explained by Erdogan’s intention to block the NATO expansion.

Qualitative Analysis - NATO

The following tweets were shared from May 12 to May 19. The included screenshots sourced from the HENSOLDT Analytics Media Mining System were selected based on high post potential reach (i.e., number of people who may have seen the posts) generated by the system.

Data visualisations generated by the HENSOLDT Analytics Media Mining System

Relations Graph - NATO

The HENSOLDT Analytics relations widget displays the most closely associated named entities related to NATO, Finland and/or Sweden in the last month. The color of the lines connecting the entities visualizes the sentiment between different profiles.

Relations graph generated by HENSOLDT Analytics' Media Mining tool

Two characteristics are worth highlighting:

  • Most related profiles are colored red and thus of negative sentiment, as the planned NATO expansion is mentioned in relation to the Russia-Ukraine war.

  • Sweden’s connections to Germany and the UK can be explained by affirmations of the two countries regarding the NATO expansion. Due to the more positive context, the relations, unlike the rest, are marked in orange.

Globe Analysis - NATO

The HENSOLDT Analytics globe widget visualizes the search results on a geographical map, providing an overview of all countries mentioned. The maps below show mentions of NATO in May 2021 and May 2022. It can be noted that, apart from the strong decrease of mentions of the US, there has been an increase in mentions of Ukraine, Finland, Sweden and Turkey in May 2022.

Media mentions visualizations generated by HENSOLDT Analytics' Media Mining tool

Pie Chart - NATO

The HENSOLDT Analytics pie widget visualizes the percentage of named entities. The two pie charts below show the 10 most mentioned countries and persons related to NATO in the past month. Although Sweden and Finland are among the most mentioned countries, it can be observed that their leaders are much less prominent: only 3% of all media mentions in the past month refer to the Finnish president Sauli Niinistö, while the Swedish head of state is not even in the Top 10 mentions.

Pie charts generated by HENSOLDT Analytics' Media Mining tool

Heatmap – Bot Detection

The visualization below is a heatmap of social media posts from users, that have been detected as bots by the HENSOLDT Media Mining System, mentioning NATO in the past month. The map shows that most mentions by bots originate from Europe. Apart from Sweden, Finland, and Turkey, which are directly involved in the debate on NATO expansion, Italy and the UK show a particularly high number of mentions by bots.

Heatmap generated by HENSOLDT Analytics' Media Mining tool

Future prospects

The future of NATO’s Nordic expansion is unclear: with all 30 NATO allies having to unanimously approve the accession of Sweden and Finland, Turkey’s veto would suffice to block the expansion process. Nevertheless, Sweden and Finland are interested in negotiating a solution, and other NATO members are optimistic that Turkey’s objections can be overcome.

The Kremlin is likely to perceive the NATO expansion as a hostile act, which poses a threat to the security of the country. Thus, Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesman, threatened with a “corresponding symmetrical response” if NATO’s Nordic expansion were to actually take place. While military action against Sweden and Finland seems rather unlikely, other types of hybrid warfare, such as disinformation campaigns and cyber attacks, are considered more likely to occur.

HENSOLDT Analytics will continue to monitor the media landscape around this issue.

This is a brief and unbiased overview of the data collected by the HENSOLDT Analytics system and does not represent the entirety of the information gathered on the topic thus cannot be treated as singular and final analysis of the event(s).

HENSOLDT Analytics
HENSOLDT Analytics

HENSOLDT Analytics is a global leading provider of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) systems and Natural Language Processing technologies, such as Automatic Speech Recognition, which are key elements for media monitoring and analysis.