Sweden's NATO Membership Is Two Years Old. The Domestic Politics of Paying for It Are Just Beginning.

Sweden has met NATO's 2 percent GDP defence spending target for the first time since 1985 — but the budget required to sustain it has produced the sharpest political conflict inside the governing coalition since Sweden's accession, with welfare cuts that the Social Democrats say prove that NATO membership comes at the direct expense of the social model that made Sweden worth defending.