Tom Little/Reuters
- Sweden this week became the newest member of the NATO alliance.
- Russia's war in Ukraine pushed Sweden away from decades of neutrality.
- Sweden will provide NATO with big advantages in deterring Russian aggression.
Russia's President Vladimir Putin has long harbored an obsessive grudge against NATO expansion.
He's claimed the invasion of Ukraine was a way of preventing the growth of the alliance close to Russia's borders and threatening its security.
But in the end, the Russian president seems to have achieved the exact opposite.