I'm sure that most people posting here neither know nor care whether a long thin and relatively sparsely populated country in northern Europe should join a military defence organisation and, in so doing, ally itself closer to the USA and other member states of NATO, countries as disparate as Norway, the Baltic countries, Belgium, Albania, and Turkey. For the full list, see:

http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/nato_countries.htm

But if you live in Sweden, like I do, it is rather interesting. NATO was, of course, set up during the Cold War and Sweden, being a bit sneaky, did covert cooperation with NATO, whilst pretending to be strictly neutral. In those days NATO's enemy was clearly the Soviet Union (aka Russia).

But now Swedish politicians are beginning to think that joining NATO might be a good idea. The Centre Party, neither to the left or right, has started the ball rolling with a debate.

I wonder what will happen, because Finland, the only country between Russia and Sweden, is also not a member of NATO. So if Sweden joins, Finland may be left as a kind of piggy in the middle, between the two former colonial powers that ruled Finland by turns for hundreds of years.

There is always change in Europe.