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President Biden hailed Finland’s and Sweden’s decision to join NATO as a “watershed moment in European security,” saying the entry of two well-armed, robust democracies would strengthen the Western alliance at a time of acute tension with Russia.

Welcoming the Nordic nations’ leaders in the White House Rose Garden, Biden said their decision to abandon a decades-old position of military nonalignment following President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine proved that a “revived NATO” could provide a strong counterweight to autocracy and aggression.

“Standing together today, we reject the bloody creed that might makes right, and we declare a more powerful creed, all for one and one for all,” Biden said. “Because what makes NATO strong isn’t just our enormous military capacity, but our commitment to each other, to its values. NATO is an alliance of choice, not coercion.”