Do Finland and Sweden join NATO?
“Good-looking hero, Kaukomieli / Wandered through Pohyola’s chamber / Through Sariola’s halls / How the hero went uninvited / To the party and the carousel / Uninvited to the banquet.” Then it goes Runa 27 of Kalevala, Finland’s national epic – known to the rest of the world by Jean Sibelius Kullervo symphonic poem.
During its short history as an independent nation, Finland has been left uninvited to many banquets, but nowadays the doors to the Western world’s prominent banquet, NATO, are wide open for Finland and its neighbor Sweden. And as Finland’s President and Prime Minister made clear in double New Year’s messages, Finland intends to decide for itself – without first consulting Russia – whether it wants to join the alliance.
It is a remarkable departure from the year of Finland’s Cold War, which involved consultation with the Soviet Union before any decisive decision. In fact, it could prove to be a crucial point in the two Nordic countries’ relationship with NATO.
“Good-looking hero, Kaukomieli / Wandered through Pohyola’s chamber / Through Sariola’s halls / How the hero went uninvited / To the party and the carousel / Uninvited to the banquet.” Then it goes Runa 27 of Kalevala, Finland’s national epic – known to the rest of the world by Jean Sibelius Kullervo symphonic poem.
During its short history as an independent nation, Finland has been left uninvited to many banquets, but nowadays the doors to the Western world’s prominent banquet, NATO, are wide open for Finland and its neighbor Sweden. And as Finland’s President and Prime Minister made clear in double New Year’s messages, Finland intends to decide for itself – without first consulting Russia – whether it wants to join the alliance.
It is a remarkable departure from the year of Finland’s Cold War, which involved consultation with the Soviet Union before any decisive decision. In fact, it could prove to be a crucial point in the two Nordic countries’ relationship with NATO.
As early as 1995, at a seminar in Dublin, a journalist from the Finnish daily newspaper Helsingin Sanomat “NATO is no longer a four-letter word in Finnish political discourse.” Things were already changing. During the Cold War, Finland and its neighbor Sweden had been famously non-aligned and insisted on securing their own defenses, which they did at a significant cost and with impressive efforts involving all sections of society. But NATO as a four-letter word? In the Cold War Sweden and Finland, mentions of the alliance were really as toxic as ugly language in polite company.
Admittedly, despite maintaining its official policy of neutrality, Sweden secretly collaborated with NATO. Beginning in the late 1940s, the Swedish Social Democratic government provided intelligence to the United States and other NATO countries, bought defense equipment from them, and relied on the United States to come to Sweden’s aid during a Soviet invasion.
Even Sweden’s former prime minister Olof Palme, who openly disapproved of the United States and even joined protest marches against the Vietnam War, continued cooperation until he was assassinated in 1986. “But the Swedish people were the last to know anything about this. ” Rodney Kennedy-Minott, the US Ambassador to Sweden from 1977 to 1980, told Radio Sweden in 1994.
In fact, Swedes were so involved in their country’s self-defense that they willingly, even enthusiastically, participated in what was called total defense, a very sophisticated system that provided opportunities for most people to help keep the country safe. A few 3 million Swedes, of a total of 7 to 8.5 million civilians at the time, served in the armed forces but mainly assisted the country’s defense in civilian capacity, from conducting contingency plans (including underground facilities) for key companies to assisting military radio communications, driving vehicles to support the armed forces and even train dogs for the military.
So it was that in 1994, when the then 22-year-old Pal Jonson was called up for military service, he did not try to get out of it even though he went to college in the United States (on a table tennis scholarship). On the contrary, the budding international relations researcher enthusiastically assumed his new role as coastguard. And he was already convinced that his country should join NATO. “NATO gives countries a place at the security table,” he told me. “It guarantees the transatlantic link and it helps allies to standardize their armed forces.”
“If you had asked me then if Albania would become a NATO member before Sweden, I would have laughed,” added Jonson, who then received his doctorate in military science and is today chairman of the Swedish Parliament. Defense Committee. Of course, Sweden did not. “Our non-aligned status has more to do with national identity than security policy.”
Cold War Finland, meanwhile, could not have had Swedish cooperation with the United States even if it had wanted to: the Soviet Union kept its neighbor, who had been forced to sign a so-called friendship treaty after World War II, under close scrutiny. According to the treaty, the Finns were not even allowed to keep the aid defense organizations that allowed Sweden to maintain its impressive total defense.
The powerful former President of Finland Urho Kekkonen was in fact a cunning operator who often put coordination with Moscow before coordination with Finland’s own parliament – but his actions also gave Finland the freedom to integrate into Western Europe without incurring Moscow’s anger. Despite the Kekkonen and the Treaty of Friendship, the Finns used the few means at their disposal to protect the country from the Soviets. After World War II, they introduced a policy called mental national defense to instill in the will of the people to defend the country.
The policy was so successful that a Gallup poll in 2015 showed that Finns were more willing than people elsewhere in Europe to defend their country: 74 percent of Finns said they would be willing to defend their country with weapons. The Swedes came in at 55 percent; Germany, 18 percent. Of course, citizens of a well-governed country that is not part of a defense alliance are likely to feel more loyal to their country’s defense than those who are used to relying on the US military.
But given the efforts involved in defending a country of 5.6 million people against a direct neighbor of 146 million people, it shows that three quarters of the population are willing to make a remarkable civic commitment. In addition, in the 1960s, Finns followed Sweden’s example and launched a national defense course for traveling leaders throughout society. Even today, those who are lucky enough to be admitted to the housing course – they range from parliamentarians to business leaders –study the principles of Finland’s national security and establish unique ties that promote national cohesion.
And of course the Finns had their unique Finnish music. Finnish orchestras and choirs continued to perform Finnish works even during Kekkonen’s most cozy years with Moscow, almost as a collective injection of national determination. And they continued to perform “Finland, “Sibelius’ most famous work, whose body hymn ends with the words” Finland, rise, for to the world you cry / that you have thrown off your slavery / under the yoke of oppression you never lie / Your morning has come, our Finland! ” (Listen to it here.)
When the President of Finland Sauli Niinisto said in his New Year’s speech to the nation that “Finland’s room for maneuver and freedom of choice also include the possibility of military adaptation and applying for NATO membership, if we were to decide for ourselves”, it meant infinitely more than about e.g. The President of Switzerland would make the same statement.
And that meant even more when the Prime Minister of Finland Sanna Marin made the same point and noted in her New Year’s announcement, “we retain the opportunity to apply for membership in NATO. We should uphold this freedom of choice and ensure that it remains a reality, as this is part of each country’s right to decide on its own security policy. ” The two leaders made the statements days after Russia’s spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, warned of “serious political and military consequences” if Finland and Sweden joined the alliance.
“The Russians make us talk about NATO,” said René Nyberg, a former Finnish ambassador to Moscow and co-author of a 2016 report commissioned by the government on Finnish NATO membership. “But the real issue is not Finnish or Swedish NATO membership; it’s Ukraine. By directing the international debate against NATO enlargement, Russia is trying to hide the deep trauma that one country – Ukraine – has lost. “
Finland and especially Sweden have spent many years after the Cold War being tormented by NATO membership, and the words of the two Finnish leaders will surely affect Sweden as well. “Sweden and Finland have extremely close military cooperation and even joint defense planning,” Jonson pointed out. In fact, since the two countries would in fact only join the alliance, the emotions of both countries are of great importance.
Last year’s annual survey of Finns’ attitudes to national security, conducted by the Finnish Ministry of Defense, showed 24 percent support NATO membership, while the 2020 survey showed 20 percent support it. In recent years, surveys have actually been floating around 20 percent. A corresponding Swedish survey from the beginning of 2021 showed in the meantime 46 percent of Swedes want to join NATO, up from 43 percent three years earlier.
In the end, Finland and Sweden may decide not to apply for NATO membership. But the key point that Niinisto and Marin emphasize is that it is Finland’s choice, just as it is Sweden’s. What a liberating feeling for two nations – especially Finland – that have spent so many decades worrying about how Moscow might react to every military decision they have made.
While Kekkonen felt compelled to consult the Kremlin far beyond military matters, Finland has come to Kaukomieli’s era, which is acting undesirably.