BPSC 70th CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 24 of 143

Correct — B, Sweden. NATO's own record of its membership states it without ambiguity: 'Sweden deposited its Instrument of Accession to the North Atlantic Treaty on 7 March 2024, becoming NATO's 32nd member country.' The stem's 'almost 200 years' refers to Sweden's tradition of military non-alignment, dated in Swedish accounts to 1814, since when the country has not fought a war — and NATO's own description says the policy was reversed 'following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022'. The accession itself is a useful worked example of how Article 10 enlargement actually proceeds. Sweden submitted its letter of application on 18 May 2022, on the same day as Finland; Allied leaders invited both at the Madrid Summit on 29 June 2022; accession talks were completed at NATO Headquarters in Brussels on 4 July; and the Accession Protocols were signed on 5 July, at which point both became official Invitees, attending NATO meetings without yet being members. Everything after that was ratification, because each existing Ally must ratify the protocol under its own national procedures, and that requirement is what consumed the remaining twenty months. It is worth noticing what did and did not change in March 2024. Sweden had already been co-operating with NATO for three decades, having joined the Partnership for Peace programme in 1994; what accession added was not co-operation but the Article 5 guarantee that an attack on one Ally is treated as an attack on all.

• (a)North Macedonia — North Macedonia — a genuine NATO member, which is what makes it worth printing, but it joined in 2020 as the alliance's thirtieth member, four years before the date in the stem. It also fails the stem's other test entirely: the country became independent only in 1991 and has no tradition of neutrality remotely approaching two centuries. What delayed its accession was a long-running dispute over its name rather than any policy of non-alignment.
• (c)Finland — Finland — by far the sharpest wrong answer, because its story runs in parallel with Sweden's at almost every step. Finland applied on the same day, 18 May 2022, was invited at the same Madrid Summit, and signed its Accession Protocol on the same day. But it deposited its Instrument of Accession on 4 April 2023, eleven months ahead of Sweden, becoming the thirty-first member rather than the thirty-second. Finland's non-alignment also dates from the post-1945 settlement, not from two centuries ago, so the stem's own clue points away from it.
• (d)Iceland — Iceland — not a new member at all, but one of the twelve founding signatories of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949. It is the alliance's genuine oddity in a different respect, since it maintains no standing armed forces of its own, and that fact may be what makes the word 'neutral' feel as though it fits. It does not: a founding member of a military alliance has been formally committed to collective defence for seventy-five years.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created on 4 April 1949 when twelve countries from Europe and North America signed the Washington Treaty, and its core is Article 5, under which an armed attack against one Ally is treated as an attack against them all. Enlargement runs through Article 10, which opens membership to any 'European State in a position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area', and every invitation is decided by consensus in the North Atlantic Council, so a single member can hold up an accession indefinitely. Twenty countries have joined since 1949 across ten rounds of enlargement — in 1952, 1955, 1982, 1999, 2004, 2009, 2017, 2020, 2023 and 2024 — bringing the alliance to thirty-two members. Between full membership and no relationship at all sits the Partnership for Peace programme, launched in 1994, which is how both Sweden and Finland worked with NATO for nearly thirty years before joining it. The strategic consequence of the last two rounds is the one examiners will reach for next: with Finland and Sweden inside, every state on the Baltic Sea except Russia is now a NATO member, and NATO's land border with Russia more than doubled.

Read the option list before reaching for the news, because three of the four countries named are NATO members and only their accession years differ. That makes this a which-year question dressed as a which-country question, and the stem supplies the tool for answering it. 'After remaining neutral for almost 200 years' fits exactly one of the four. North Macedonia has existed as an independent state only since 1991, so no two-century policy of anything is possible; Iceland has been a member since the founding in 1949, so it was never neutral in the relevant sense; and Finland's non-alignment belongs to the post-1945 world rather than to the early nineteenth century. Only Sweden's tradition reaches back that far. If the neutrality clue does not settle it, the year does: Finland acceded in April 2023 and Sweden in March 2024, so a question dated to March 2024 can only mean Sweden. The general lesson is that BPSC often plants the discriminator inside a descriptive clause that looks like decoration — here 'almost 200 years' is not colour, it is the answer.

• NATO's membership record states: 'Sweden deposited its Instrument of Accession to the North Atlantic Treaty on 7 March 2024, becoming NATO's 32nd member country.'
• Finland had deposited its own Instrument of Accession on 4 April 2023, becoming the 31st member — the same process, eleven months earlier.
• Both countries applied on 18 May 2022, were invited at the Madrid Summit on 29 June 2022, completed accession talks on 4 July and had their Accession Protocols signed on 5 July 2022; the rest of the wait was ratification by every existing Ally.
• NATO was created by 12 countries on 4 April 1949, and 20 more have joined through ten rounds of enlargement — in 1952, 1955, 1982, 1999, 2004, 2009, 2017, 2020, 2023 and 2024.
• Article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty opens membership to any 'European State in a position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area', with every invitation decided by consensus in the North Atlantic Council.
• Accession years of the four options: Iceland 1949 as a founding member, North Macedonia 2020, Finland 2023 and Sweden 2024. Sweden had been in the Partnership for Peace programme since 1994.

• Choosing Finland. It applied on the same day, was invited at the same summit and signed its protocol on the same day, but it acceded in April 2023, not March 2024.
• Ignoring the two-century clause in the stem. It is the discriminator, not decoration, and it excludes every option except Sweden.
• Assuming Iceland's lack of a standing army makes it neutral. It has been a founding member of NATO since 1949.

BPSC asks international affairs as a one-line current-affairs fact pinned to a month, and hides the discriminating detail inside a descriptive clause — here the phrase 'almost 200 years', which by itself rules out three of the four options. UPSC prefers to test the same ground as a counting or matching question: how many of six listed European countries are NATO members, or whether a stated reason for a country being in the news is correctly paired with it. Both reward carrying the membership list with accession years attached rather than remembering one headline.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which country became the 31st member of NATO, in April 2023 ?

  • (a)Sweden
  • (b)Finland
  • (c)Ukraine
  • (d)Montenegro

  Answer(b) Finland — it deposited its Instrument of Accession on 4 April 2023. Sweden followed as the 32nd member on 7 March 2024, Montenegro joined back in 2017, and Ukraine is not a member.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which Article of the North Atlantic Treaty provides that an armed attack against one member shall be considered an attack against them all ?

  • (a)Article 2
  • (b)Article 4
  • (c)Article 5
  • (d)Article 10

  Answer(c) Article 5 — the collective defence clause, which is what accession actually buys a new member. Article 10 is the separate provision that governs enlargement and admits new European states.