There was no bigger shock than in Finland, with its long border and historical tension with Russia, and in Sweden, which had dismantled 90 percent of its army and 70 percent of its air force and navy in the years after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
受到冲击最大的莫过于芬兰和瑞典了，前者与俄罗斯有着漫长的边界，且两国有紧张对峙的历史；后者在苏联解体后的数年里裁减了90%的陆军、70%的空军和海军。
After the decision by Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, to try to destroy a sovereign neighbor, both Finland and Sweden rapidly decided to apply to join the NATO alliance, the only clear guarantee of collective defense against a newly aggressive and reckless Russia.
在俄罗斯总统普京决定试图摧毁一个主权邻国之后，芬兰和瑞典迅速决定申请加入北约，这是针对新近变得咄咄逼人、肆无忌惮的俄罗斯进行集体防御的唯一明确保障。
With Finland having joined last year, and the Hungarian Parliament finally approving Sweden’s application on Monday, Mr. Putin now finds himself faced with an enlarged and motivated NATO, one that is no longer dreaming of a permanent peace.
继芬兰去年加入北约后，匈牙利议会本周一终于批准了瑞典的申请，普京现在发现自己面对的是一个扩大的、积极进取的北约，一个不再梦想永久和平的北约。
As NATO countries look with some trepidation at the possibility that the unpredictable Donald J. Trump, no fan of the alliance, may become U.S. president again, its European members are taking measures to ensure their own defenses regardless.
当北约国家对不可预测、对该联盟不感兴趣的特朗普可能再次成为美国总统感到不安时，它的欧洲成员国正在采取措施，不惜一切代价确保自己的防御能力。
Critics consider their actions to be too slow and too small, but NATO is spending more money on defense, making more tanks, artillery shells, drones and jet fighters, putting more troops on Russia’s borders and approving more serious military plans for any potential war — while funneling billions of dollars into Ukraine’s efforts to blunt Russia’s ambitions.
批评人士认为他们的行动过于缓慢，规模太小，但北约正在增加国防开支，制造更多的坦克、炮弹、无人机和战斗机，在俄罗斯边境部署更多军队，批准针对任何潜在战争的更严肃的军事规划，同时向乌克兰投入数十亿美元，帮助其挫败俄罗斯的野心。
The reason is sheer deterrence. Some member states already suggest that if Mr. Putin succeeds in Ukraine, he will test NATO’s collective will in the next three to five years.
这么做的原因纯粹是出于威慑。一些成员国已经表示，如果普京顺利拿下乌克兰，他将在未来三到五年内考验北约的集体意志。
If Mr. Trump is elected and casts serious doubt on the commitment of the United States to come to the defense of NATO allies, “that might tip the scales for Putin to test NATO’s resolve,” said Robert Dalsjo, director of studies at the Swedish Defense Research Agency.
瑞典国防研究所的研究主任罗伯特·达尔舍说，如果特朗普当选，会让人对美国保卫北约盟国的承诺产生严重怀疑，“这可能会让普京更倾向于考验北约的决心。”
Even now, Mr. Dalsjo said, Mr. Trump or not, Europe must prepare for at least a generation of heightened European containment and deterrence of a Russia becoming militarized, and where Mr. Putin clearly “has considerable public support for his aggressive revanchism.”
达尔舍说，哪怕现在，无论特朗普是否当选，欧洲都必须做好准备，至少在一代人的时间里加强欧洲对军事化俄罗斯的遏制和威慑，显然普京“咄咄逼人的复仇主义有相当多的公众支持”。
Still, with Hungary finally voting for Sweden’s accession to NATO, at last the pieces are falling into place for a sharply enhanced NATO deterrent in the Baltic and North Seas, with greater protection for the frontline states of Finland, Norway and the Baltic nations, which border Russia.
然而，随着匈牙利最终投票支持瑞典加入，北约在波罗的海和北海地区的威慑力终于得以大幅增强，这给与俄罗斯接壤的前线国家——芬兰、挪威和波罗的海国家提供了更大的保护。
Once Hungary hands in a letter certifying parliamentary approval to the U.S. State Department, Sweden will become the 32nd member of NATO, and all the countries surrounding the Baltic Sea, with the exception of Russia, will be part of the alliance.
一旦匈牙利向美国国务院递交议会批准书，瑞典将成为北约的第32个成员国，除俄罗斯外，波罗的海沿岸的所有国家都加入了北约。
“Sweden brings predictability, removing any uncertainty about how we would act in a crisis or a war,” Mr. Dalsjo said. Given Sweden’s geography, including Gotland, the island that helps control the entrance to the Baltic Sea, membership “will make defense and deterrence much easier to accomplish,” he said.
“瑞典带来了可预见性，消除了我们在危机或战争中如何行动的任何不确定性，”达尔舍说。他表示，考虑到瑞典的地理位置，包括帮助控制波罗的海入口的哥得兰岛，加入北约“将使防御和威慑更容易实现”。
It was Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago that pushed Finland into deciding to join NATO, and Helsinki pulled a somewhat more reluctant Sweden into applying to join as well.
两年前，俄罗斯全面入侵乌克兰，促使芬兰决定加入北约，赫尔辛基还拉着不太情愿的瑞典一起提出了申请。
Finland, with its long border with Russia, saw the most imminent danger; the Swedes did too, but were also convinced, especially on the political left, by a sense of moral outrage that Russia, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, would seek to destroy a peaceful, sovereign neighbor.
芬兰与俄罗斯有着漫长的边境线，它看到了最迫在眉睫的危险；瑞典人也看到了这一点，但促使他们下决心的还有一种道德义愤，尤其是在政治左翼人士当中，因为俄罗斯身为联合国安理会常任理事国，居然寻求摧毁一个和平的、主权独立的邻国。
“Overall the feeling is that we’ll be safer,” said Anna Wieslander, a Swede who is director for northern Europe for the Atlantic Council.
“总的感觉是，这样我们会更安全，”大西洋理事会北欧事务负责人、瑞典人安娜·维斯兰德说。
History mattered, too, said Mr. Dalsjo. “If Finland joined we had to — we could not be a wall between Finland and its helpers in the West one more time,” as neutral Sweden had been during Finland’s brave but losing “Winter War” against the Soviet Union in 1939, when Finland had to cede some 11 percent of its territory to Moscow.
达尔舍表示，历史因素也很重要。“如果芬兰加入，我们也不得不——我们不能再成为芬兰和它在西方的援助者之间的一堵墙了，”就像中立的瑞典在1939年芬兰勇敢但失败的反苏“冬季战争”中那样，当时芬兰不得不将约11%的领土割让给莫斯科。
With Sweden and Finland together in NATO, it will be much easier to bottle up the Russian surface navy in the Baltic Sea and to monitor the High North. Russia still has up to two-thirds of its second-strike nuclear weapons there, based on the Kola Peninsula.
随着瑞典和芬兰一起加入北约，在波罗的海封锁俄罗斯的水面舰艇，以及监视北极地区的难度都将大大降低。俄罗斯在那里的科拉半岛部署了三分之二的二次打击核武器。
So the new members will help provide enhanced monitoring of a crucial part of Russia’s military, said Niklas Granholm, the deputy director of studies at the Defense Research Agency.
因此，新成员将有助于加强对俄罗斯军队的一个重要组成部分实施监控，国防研究所的研究副主任尼克拉斯·格兰霍姆说。
Russia’s fleet in Kaliningrad, on the Baltic Sea between Poland and Lithuania, is only 200 miles away, and so are its Iskander nuclear-capable missiles. NATO planners have long worried about how to support the Baltic nations if Russia seized the 40-mile “Suwalki Gap” between Kaliningrad and Belarus, but Sweden’s position straddling both the North and Baltic Seas would make it much easier to send NATO reinforcements.
俄罗斯波罗的海舰队驻扎在波兰和立陶宛之间，总部设在加里宁格勒，距离北约只有约320公里。可使用核弹头的伊斯坎德尔导弹的部署地点也差不多是这个距离。北约的军事规划者一直担心，如果俄罗斯夺取了加里宁格勒和白俄罗斯之间约64公里长的“苏瓦乌基走廊”，对波罗的海国家的支援将是一个麻烦，但瑞典横跨北海和波罗的海的位置将使北约更容易派出增援部队。
Russia will still retain its land-based missiles, of course, but its nuclear-armed submarines may find it more difficult to maneuver out into the open sea without detection.
俄罗斯当然还是掌握着陆基导弹，但它的核潜艇可能会发现，无声无息地开入公海的难度大为增加。
Sweden, with its own advanced high-tech defense industry, makes its own excellent fighter planes, naval corvettes and submarines, designed to operate in the difficult environment of the Baltic Sea. It has already begun to develop and build a new class of modern submarines and larger corvettes for coastal and air defense.
瑞典拥有先进的高科技国防工业，可制造优秀的战斗机、海军护卫舰和潜艇，它们专为波罗的海的恶劣环境设计。瑞典已经开始研制和建造新型现代化潜艇和用于海岸和防空的大型护卫舰。
With NATO membership, it will be easier now to coordinate with Finland and Denmark, which also have key islands in the Baltic Sea, and with Norway.
加入北约后，与芬兰和丹麦（它们在波罗的海也有具有重要战略意义的岛屿）以及挪威的协调将变得更加容易。
For both Finland and Sweden, membership is the end of a long 30-year process of what Mr. Dalsjo called “our long goodbye to neutrality.” First came the collapse of the Soviet Union and the decision to join the European Union, which meant dropping neutrality for what both countries called “military nonalignment.”
对芬兰和瑞典来说，加入北约意味着长达30年的漫长过程的结束，达尔舍称之为“我们对中立的漫长告别”。首先是苏联解体，然后决定加入欧盟，两国都放弃了所谓的“军事不结盟”的中立。
Sweden, which had quiet defense guarantees from the United States, gradually became more explicitly Atlanticist and integrated more and more with NATO, he said. “And now we take the final step.”
他说，瑞典私下里得到了美国的防务保证，逐渐变得更加明确地支持大西洋，并越来越多地与北约融合。“现在我们迈出了最后一步。”
Steven Erlanger是时报欧洲首席外交记者，常驻柏林。他此前曾在120个国家进行报道，包括泰国、法国、以色利、德国和前苏联。
翻译：杜然
