Russian President Putin gives former Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt the stink eye | Getty Sweden and Finland’s awkward NATO tango Moscow mutters warnings as Nordic pair edges closer to the alliance.

HELSINKI — Finland and Sweden have spent decades toying with NATO membership, but now the renewed threat from Russia is forcing the pace in the two neutral countries as they weigh joining the Atlantic alliance while Moscow reacts with grim warnings.

Stockholm has now named a special ambassador to evaluate Sweden’s relationship with NATO and other international organizations, with the aim of broadening its perspective on security issues. The Finnish government has formed a committee to study NATO membership.

Russia’s Kremlin is unlikely to be happy.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told his Finnish counterpart, Sauli Niinistö, earlier this summer that Finland must not join.

Russia’s ambassador to Stockholm warned in the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter that Russia would take counter-measures if Sweden joins NATO.

“Russia will have to resort to a response of the military kind and re-orientate our troops and missiles,” said Ambassador Viktor Tatarinstev. “The country that joins NATO needs to be aware of the risks it is exposing itself to.”

“Because of our deep defense cuts since the end of the Cold War, we can’t defend ourselves anymore” — Mike Winnerstig, military analyst.

Faced with a growing danger from Russia, Sweden has shed the idea that it can run a truly independent foreign policy as it did during the Cold War. Today, Sweden is a full member of the western alliance, just without the protection that comes from belonging to NATO.

“Swedish grandiosity on the international stage has faded away since we joined the EU [in 1995],” said Mike Winnerstig, a Swedish military analyst who is writing a report about the Swedish NATO debate. “And in the past two years we’ve seen both the Ukraine conflict and increased Russian aggression in the Baltic Sea. We know that because of our deep defense cuts since the end of the Cold War, we can’t defend ourselves anymore.”

During the Cold War, Sweden occupied a rare role as a neutral country and self-proclaimed global mediator, with Olof Palme — prime minister during the 1970s and 1980s — conducting high-level peace talks between foes such as Iran and Iraq. Today Swedish foreign policy is coordinated with EU allies.

Sweden shares security concerns with eastern neighbor and ally Finland, with whom Sweden would also have to coordinate NATO accession.

“The old days are coming back,” said Alpo Rusi, a veteran Finnish diplomat now affiliated with Harvard University, of the rising threat from Moscow. “But back then, Sweden and Finland benefited from NATO without having to commit to membership in it. That’s not the case anymore.”

Although Finland has cut its defense less than Sweden and can look back on a proud World War II past of resistance against the Soviet Union, its armed forces are no match for those of Russia. Last year, Sweden was mesmerized by the hunt for a possible foreign submarine in its coastal waters, which underscored the Swedish navy’s reduced capabilities.

Vulnerable islands

Finland is particularly concerned about the demilitarized Åland Islands, worrying Russia could use the same unconventional methods of “little green men” it successfully employed to seize Crimea from Ukraine. The Russian military staged an exercise in March that included practicing the capture of Sweden’s Gotland Island.

Finland spends about 1.3 percent of its gross domestic product on defense, while the Swedish defense budget is around 1.2 percent, both figures far below the NATO requirement of 2 percent [one that only a few members meet].

And with the Baltic States in NATO and forming a buffer with Russia, Sweden and Finland can no longer count on the alliance aiding them simply because of their strategic location. But as the Kremlin has made abundantly clear, the two countries can expect grief from Russia if they do join NATO.

“We have to listen to what other countries think, but that doesn’t mean that we have to adapt our security policy to Russia’s wishes,” said Karin Enström, Sweden’s defense minister until last year’s election, which was won by a Social Democratic-Green Party coalition that is less keen on NATO membership than its predecessors. “The Russians won’t like it if we join, but they’re a whole lot tougher on Finland.”

Sergei Markov, a senior adviser to Putin, warned Helsinki last year: “Finland should think of the consequences, if it ponders joining NATO. It must ask could joining start World War III?”

Putin wants Finland to instead join an ill-defined “eastern treaty alliance” — an assertion revealed in a recent op-ed by Arto Luukkanen, a well-connected member of the nationalist Finns Party. The Russian Duma has also threatened sanctions against Finland, already hurt by the impact of existing tit-for-tat measures against Russia for its actions in Ukraine.

Finland’s center-right coalition, in office since May, has kept open the option of applying for NATO membership at any time.

"The need for alliances has increased” — Karin Enström, former defense minister.

Public opinion is still mixed. A recent survey shows Swedes for the first time supporting NATO membership, with 48 percent in favor compared to 35 percent opposed.

However, only 27 percent of Finns back membership, about the same number as last summer, according to a March survey.

“We need a proper report on the pros and cons of membership, but we have to do it together with the Swedes,” said Rusi.

Sweden has decided to allow NATO exercises on Swedish soil and will also join NATO’s cyber defense center. Both Sweden and Finland participated in a NATO’s June Baltops exercise in the Baltic Sea region that included American nuclear-capable bombers.

Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary general and a former Norwegian prime minister, has encouraged contacts between NATO and the two Nordic countries, whose militaries are already close to Alliance standards.

But NATO’s Article 5 security guarantee — an attack on one is an attack on all — does not cover almost-members. Swedish center-right politicians argue that NATO membership has become a matter of how, not if.

“As a small country, we wouldn’t be able to defeat a much larger adversary even if we doubled our defense budget,” said Enström, now deputy chair of the Parliament’s foreign affairs committee. “And in an alliance, we can do our part for the collective defense. The need for alliances has increased.”

The question is whether NATO would accept two such wavering suitors.

“Their application would be most welcome, but I don’t think the paperwork will be coming any time soon,” said a NATO ambassador from a fellow Baltic Sea country.