NATO unity boosted on eve of summit

Opinion editor's note: Editorials represent the opinions of the Star Tribune Editorial Board, which operates independently from the newsroom.

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Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, NATO has been more relevant than ever.

Now, it must be more united than ever. In some respects, it's already heading that way. Especially after Turkey ended its hold on Sweden's bid to join the 31-member alliance on Monday, the eve of a crucial two-day NATO Summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Sweden was supposed to join at the same time Finland did this year in a welcome development for the West but a worrying one for Moscow. But its bid had been held up by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's demands regarding the extradition of some members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, whom the Turkish government considers terrorists, as well as revulsion over Sweden allowing Qur'an burning at some protests.

Ankara's objections weren't just with Stockholm, however, but with Washington as well. A deal to buy advanced U.S. fighter jets has been held up by Congress because of Turkey's previous purchase of a Russian defense system — just one of the many manifestations of what recently has been a too-close Turkey-Russia relationship.

Reports of the accord suggest that Sweden and Turkey will work together on terrorism, that NATO will institute a new "special coordinator for counterterrorism," and that Sweden will help renew Turkey's bid to enter a separate political entity, the European Union. (Hungary, which had also balked at Sweden's ascension, is likely to drop its objections after Turkey made its move.)

"It's a good sign for NATO if, in fact, Erdogan now is trying to recalibrate or rebalance his relations with the West," Thomas Hanson, chair of the Committee on Foreign Relations Minnesota, told an editorial writer on Monday.

However, there's still a key membership question for NATO nations: Responding to Ukraine's bid to eventually join the defense alliance.

While Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy seems to understand the reluctance to allow Ukraine to join while combat is raging — lest NATO find itself at war with Russia — he's justifiably looking for a process and a timeline instead of vague promises, as happened in 2008 when the alliance gestured to Georgia and Ukraine that they'd be allowed to join, a signal that seemed to be taken more seriously in Moscow than Washington.

President Joe Biden seems reluctant, a position that might be shared with some alliance members but at odds with front-line countries in the Baltics and Eastern Europe who face Russian revanchism more directly.

Ukraine has proven to be more than a worthy Western partner, with an incredibly intrepid and motivated military and citizenry. As Ukrainians face even more sacrifices in their existential struggle against a ruthless Russian invasion, they deserve clarity on the process for eventual NATO membership.

To its credit, and to Moscow's miscalculation, the alliance rallied around Kyiv and has helped turn what the Kremlin believed would be a rout into a stalemate in the eastern portion of the country, where Ukrainian forces face slow going in their counteroffensive designed to repel Russian troops from entrenched positions.

While the counteroffensive is likely to be a military slog, the diplomatic grind to get NATO nations to reach the requisite 2% of GDP on defense is showing significant progress. NATO announced that 11 out of the 31 members have hit that target (with at least 20% of that total on equipment). While that's still an unacceptably low rate, it's much improved since 2014, when the Obama administration led an effort to get laggard capitals to increase defense spending.

"The Vilnius summit is an opportunity to build concretely on the increased unity within NATO that we've seen since the Russian invasion," Hanson said.

And with that greater unity, NATO will be even more relevant.