Earlier this month, the leaders of Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland were in Washington to attend a summit at the White House. Together with President Barack Obama, the five Nordic leaders discussed tensions with Russia, security, climate change and trade. Obama didn’t hesitate to heap praise on the Nordics. “So I really do believe that the world would be more secure and more prosperous if we just had more partners like the Nordic countries,” he said. “They consistently punch above their weight.”
Obama speaking so highly of the Nordic countries is nothing new. He has lauded them for years, and as he told an interviewer, “if only everyone could be like the Scandinavians, this would all be easy.”
But can the Nordic countries translate all this into lasting influence in their own neighborhood? With the exception of Iceland—which is not a member of the European Union and, though a NATO member, has very limited defense and security forces—these countries have increasingly found themselves at the center of several important security and political debates in Europe today, especially the refugee crisis and growing tensions with Russia.*