Finnish President Niinistö speaks at Finland's NATO accession ceremony at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, April 4. (Xinhua News Agency reporter Zheng Huansong/Photo)
On April 4, 2023, Finland officially joined NATO and became its 31st member state as the blue cross flag was raised in the square of NATO headquarters in Brussels.
As early as the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in 2022, Finnish President Niinistö said in an interview with the media that Finland will plan to join NATO or establish a new form of military cooperation with Sweden and the United States for national security considerations in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
Based on its established national policy of "strict neutrality", Finland considered more about establishing a "new type of military cooperative relationship" with the United States and Sweden at the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, and joining NATO was not the priority option of its geopolitical strategy, but at the time of the rapid change in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the balance of decision-making quickly tilted towards abandoning the neutral position.
Although Finland and Ukraine are separated by thousands of miles from the north and south, there is no doubt that the Russian-Ukrainian conflict is the most direct reason for Finland's entry into NATO. Finland's accession to NATO is like a strong wind on the high sea, bringing more instability to the choppy geopolitical situation in Europe.
Since then, Finland has completely ended its 77-year status as a "neutral country", and Finland's existing national security strategy has been completely changed, and it will receive military support from NATO to deal with external threats and challenges in the future. The direct land border between NATO and Russia has increased by 1,340 kilometers, and the direct border between Russia and NATO is as many as six countries, and the confrontation between the two sides will become more tense. Finland's move will also promote the process of joining NATO by European countries such as Sweden.
Since 1991, not only Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and other former Warsaw Pact countries have been absorbed by NATO, but also Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and other Soviet "republics" have applied to become NATO members. After the "Crimean crisis" in 2014, the ambiguous relationship between Ukraine and NATO constantly challenged Russia's national security bottom line. NATO's generous acceptance of Finland shows that NATO's provocations against Russia are more reckless.
Russia's diplomatic service warned that NATO's eastward expansion will not substantially improve the security situation in Europe, but will bring more uncertainty. Finland's entry into NATO will also spur Russia's military deployment on the northwestern border, as well as a series of countermeasures against Finland and NATO. The ups and downs of the European situation have been shrouded in a thick fog.
Why does Russia's "special military operation" in Ukraine cause great insecurity for Finland? Why did this background make Finland quickly abandon the fundamental national policy of "neutrality" and firmly fall for NATO? We should not only examine the security concerns Finland faces in the realities of its relations with its neighbors, but we should also look back in history and find deeper answers from history.
"Neutrality between the seams"
Finland is located in the high latitudes of the northern hemisphere, 1/3 of the country's land is within the Arctic Circle, its territory has vast lakes, wetlands and forests, rich in natural resources, although the population is relatively sparse but the people live extremely rich. But in terms of the country's overall strength, Finland does not have a significant advantage over its strong neighbors around it.
Geographically, Finland is located in the eastern part of Scandinavia, bordering the Arctic Ocean in the north and the Baltic Sea in the south, which is the "T-junction" of northern Europe, connecting Russia in the north with Scandinavia, and even Western European countries, south through the Baltic Sea, up to Poland, Germany and other European hinterland countries.
Historically, Finland was surrounded by continental powers, and after the Middle Ages, the Kingdom of Poland-Lithuania, the Kingdom of Sweden, the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia and later the German Empire came to power successively to become the dominant force in the political landscape of the European continent. For two centuries, from the Thirty Years' War to the Napoleonic Wars, Finland was the core of repeated contention between Sweden and Russia; In the two world wars of the 20th century, it was the primary object of discussion or wooing between Russia and Germany in order to achieve their strategic goals; After the end of World War II, the world entered a "cold war" state of bipolar confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union, and Finland was the "outpost" of the free world embedded in the socialist camp, which was in a semi-encircled state of the "Warsaw Pact". Although Finland repeatedly emphasized its status as a neutral country and affirmed that it would not join any military camp, under the Yalta system at that time, Finland had to fulfill its security obligations with the Soviet Union stipulated in a series of treaties signed with the Soviet Union after World War II, and on the other hand, it had to enhance relations with the re-emerging Western European countries to pursue its own economic development; After the collapse of the Soviet Union, although the world pattern began to enter the process of "multipolarization" development, with the continuous eastward expansion of NATO, Finland was once again pushed to the cusp of confrontation between Russia and NATO.
Finland is the eastern gateway to the Baltic Sea, which is the central window to Russia's ocean. Looking further at the history of relations between Russia and Finland, Finland has often borne the brunt of Russia's European strategy: since Peter the Great, Russia's management of the European part has been intended to gain access from the Baltic Sea to the Atlantic Ocean; After the Napoleonic Wars, the Russian Empire played the role of "European gendarme" in the "Vienna System" for nearly half a century, at which time, the Baltic Sea was extremely important for Russia to intervene in the European situation and maintain its European hegemony; For half a century from the beginning of World War II to the end of the Cold War, Finland was used by the Soviet Union as an important buffer against Nazi Germany and NATO, and was also drawn together by Nazi Germany and the Free World camp as a base to contain the Soviet Union. For this reason, Finland has often been in the vortex of continental power games throughout history.
Finland's strong neighbors between the east and west have historically been in a state of hostile or Cold War-style vicious competition, and this geopolitical environment has not fundamentally changed today. How to carefully serve the powerful neighbors between East and West has always been at the forefront of Finland's diplomatic strategic choice.
The peculiarities of geopolitics determine Finland's special diplomatic and strategic decisions. Being caught between major powers makes it difficult for Finland to have too much room for complete autonomy in foreign strategic choices, and in a relatively peaceful and stable international political environment, "neutrality" is indeed the wisest choice for Finland. However, when a stable regional geopolitical structure begins to be broken, the real external environment begins to be full of competition and confrontation, Finland, which is at the "T-junction" of Europe, is often very easy to passively get involved in the confrontation between its strong neighbors on the east and west, and "neutrality" can only become an empty slogan, and the tense situation will inevitably force it to make the choice of "choosing a side".
In the context of today's Russia-Ukraine conflict, the saber rattling of the situation in Europe challenges Finland's neutral status, and the increasingly dangerous external geopolitical environment forces Finland to make choices about the future of the country and the fate of the nation, which is not difficult to understand the strategic motivation behind Finland's accession to NATO.
The helplessness of "taking sides"
"Neutrality in the cracks" has led to the helplessness of Finland's "choosing sides", and the clues of this "helplessness" can be found from Finland's hundreds of years of history.
Finland has long been the domain of the Kingdom of Sweden, then a Nordic powerhouse, since the Middle Ages. At the beginning of the 18th century, Peter the Great of Russia began to adjust the expansion strategy of the empire, and the goal of finding access to the sea to the west became as important as the colonization of the eastern Eurasian hinterland. From 1700 to 1721, Russia fought the 20-year "Northern War" with Sweden in order to seize access to the Baltic Sea. At great expense, Russia eventually acquired land along the Gulf of Finland coast and established its new capital, St. Petersburg.
The end of the Northern War did not stop the Russian Empire from expanding in its northwestern direction, and in 1741-1743, 1788-1790, and 1808-1809, Russia and Sweden experienced three more wars, and the victorious Russia gradually established its rule over Finland through the Peace of Aubus and the Peace of Frederikshafen.
Finland under the Russian Empire was different from the rest of the empire. In 1809, after Tsar Alexander I completely acquired Finland, he established the "Grand Duchy of Finland", which was concurrently held by the Tsar himself. Finland retained a large degree of autonomy in the territory of the Russian Empire, and Finland had its own independent "four-tier parliament". The constitutional system implemented by King Gustav III of Sweden in Finland was continued, and the "serfdom", which was very common in the Russian Empire, was not extended to Finland, and the Finnish language and culture were completely preserved for more than a hundred years.
In 1917, Finland declared its independence at the heavy cost and revolution of Tsarist Russia in World War I, and in the civil war of 1918, government forces with the help of German military forces eliminated the leftist armed forces supported by Soviet Russia, thus eliminating the possibility of Finland being reintegrated into Soviet Russia. In the civil war, Marshal Mannerheim, who led the government army, always regarded the maintenance of the "independence" of the country as the bottom line of military operations, strictly adhered to the principle of neutrality, and did not adopt the opinion of joint forces with Germany and directly at Petrograd.
In 1938, when Germany blitzed Poland, the Anglo-French forces on the Western Front hid behind the Maginot Line and stood by and watched Poland's demise, the Soviet Union felt a security threat from the Axis powers, and considering the defense of Moscow, Leningrad and other core areas, Stalin decided to establish the "Eastern Front" to advance the strategic depth of its western border.
In late 1939 and early 1940, the Soviet-Finnish War, which lasted for nearly six months, paid a heavy price for defeating Finland, gaining a large amount of territory such as Karelia (including Vyborg, Finland's second largest city) and the Rebach Peninsula, while also renting a naval base on the Hanko Peninsula, allowing the Soviet border to advance about 150 kilometers west. Although the Soviet-Finnish war was short-lived, it caused great damage to the feelings between the two peoples.
On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany tore up the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact and blatantly invaded the Soviet Union, and Finland assisted the German army in attacking the Soviet Union in the name of "recovering territory", starting a three-year "continuation war".
Although in World War II, Finland repeatedly declared its "neutral status" and emphasized that the war against the Soviet Union was a "defensive war" to safeguard national sovereignty, but with the rapid formation of the World Anti-Fascist League camp, Finland's fight against the Soviet Union was also recognized as an "accomplice" of Nazi Germany, and the core of the Allied camp such as Britain also declared war on Finland.
After the Battle of Charkulsk in 1943, the Soviet-German battlefield reversed, the Soviets completely gained the initiative on the battlefield and launched a counteroffensive against the Germans, and the Soviets broke through the Finnish "Karelian Line" in the summer of 1944 and entered the Finnish mainland to force a peace agreement with the Soviet Union. In the winter of that year, the Finns launched the "Battle of Lapland" against the German forces in Finland, thus completely withdrawing from the Axis camp.
After the end of World War II, the comprehensive national strength and international prestige of the Soviet Union reached an unprecedented level, and Finland was once regarded as a "defeated country" because it helped Germany fight against the Soviet Union. The complete asymmetry of Soviet power after World War II forced Finland to sign a series of agreements and treaties in favor of the Soviet Union, including Finland's obligation not to join any military alliance against the Soviet Union, Finland's obligation to assist the Soviet Union in defending against any country that invaded the Soviet Union through Finland, and Finland's territorial concessions to the Soviet Union over the 1940 Moscow Peace Treaty. After World War II, Finland was used by the Soviet Union as one of the "satellite powers" to consolidate its homeland security.
Although Finland came under geopolitical pressure from both NATO and the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War, it ultimately did not change its policy of strict neutrality.
It was not until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 that Finland's diplomatic strategic choice was completely removed from the framework of Soviet-Finnish relations, and it officially became a member of the European Union in 1995. Historically, Finland's special relationship with Russia and other neighboring powers has determined Finland's geopolitical choices towards neighboring powers, especially Russia.
Historically, the competition between European powers has made Finland not immune to itself, but it is often prone to suffer from great power competition in the escalation of the situation, which is not difficult to understand Finland's strong preparedness for any risky measures brought about by its strong neighbors. Finland's accession to NATO was based on an important strategic choice based on its more than 100 years of historical experience.
Finland's accession to NATO will undoubtedly play a very big role in rewriting the current geopolitical pattern in Europe, which will create a series of new problems in the future:
What role will Finland play in the future confrontation between NATO and Russia?
How does Finland, once a strict adherent to the principle of "non-alignment", adapt to its new identity after renunciating its neutrality?
How will Russia, increasingly isolated by Europe, respond to NATO's onslaught?
What impact will the further growth of NATO's power have on the future Russia-Ukraine conflict?
These issues need to be further observed and studied in the future. Perhaps the reasonable answers to these questions are precisely hidden in history.
Li Shuqi, special researcher of the Southern Defense Think Tank
![Wu Yanzu participated in "In the Blizzard"? After reading the Finnish report, you will understand![fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)