GOP Sen. Hawley Reveals His Thoughts About Finland, Sweden, Joining NATO

Sen. Josh Hawley has come out and stated that he believes the U.S. should not be expanding security commitments in Europe by voting to allow Finland and Sweden to become members of NATO, mostly due to the fact that he thinks we need to be focused on the more pressing threat coming out of China.

Hawley, a Republican, wrote about his opinion on this issue in an article that was published in The National Interest on Monday.

According to Newsmax, Hawley, a senator from Missouri, went on to acknowledge that it’s “entirely understandable” why “Finland and Sweden want to join the Atlantic Alliance to head off further Russian aggression in Europe … given their location and security needs,” however, he insisted “America’s greatest foreign adversary doesn’t loom over Europe. It looms in Asia.”

China has most definitely been flexing its muscle over the last few years. We’ve caught spies for the Chinese Communist Party here in the U.S. attempting to get access to information through members of Congress — yeah, I’m talking about you Eric Swalwell — along with how they have refused to condemn the actions of Russia and the current tension between their government and the island of Taiwan.

The Missouri Republican stated “when it comes to Chinese imperialism, the American people should know the truth: the United States is not ready to resist it. Expanding American security commitments in Europe now would only make that problem worse — and America, less safe.”

Hawley then went on to write in the piece that “as the 2018 and 2022 U.S. National Defense Strategies both acknowledge, the United States cannot defeat China and Russia in two major wars at the same time. And we are not where we need to be in Asia.”

The senator stated that what this means is that “in the face of this stark reality, we must choose. We must do less in Europe (and elsewhere) in order to prioritize China and Asia.”

The Missouri Republican then wrote that the United States “is currently not prepared to fend off Chinese military aggression in the Pacific … not least because we have been distracted for too long by nation-building activities in the Middle East and legacy commitments in Europe.”

It’s important to note that Hawley’s take on this issue is not one that is widely shared by his colleagues in the Senate. In fact, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell does not share this view either.

However, Hawley stated in the piece for The National Interest that both Sweden and Finland have “advanced economies, with capable militaries. But they haven’t yet made the policy commitments appropriate to their geostrategic positions.”

He also noted that the U.S. should not abandon NATO, he did say “it’s time for our European allies to do more. In particular, they must take primary responsibility for the conventional defense of Europe by investing more in their own militaries.”

The one thing we can all say for sure here is that there is a lot happening on the geopolitical stage. We have Russia being very, very aggressive and active with their invasion of [redacted].

And now we have China who is doing the same thing with Taiwan, almost daring the rest of the world to do something about it. They are obviously trying to see how much we will all allow them to get away with, but things could potentially escalate beyond that down the road.