Five things to know about Finland and Sweden joining NATO

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STOCKHOLM: After decades of staying out of military alliances, Finland on Sunday (May 15) officially announced it would apply for NATO membership, with neighbouring Sweden expected to follow suit soon.

For a long time, Swedish policy dictated that the country needed a strong military to protect its neutrality.

Mandatory military service was scrapped in 2010, but reintroduced in 2017 as part of Sweden's rearmament following Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea. The country of 5.5 million people now has a wartime strength of 280,000 troops plus 600,000 reservists, making it significantly larger than any of its Nordic neighbours despite a population half the size of Sweden's.

 

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