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Finland in NATO

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I hadn’t realized that Finnish talks with NATO had progressed so far, but Defense News says that NATO will extend a formal invitation to Finland within the next two years. I’ve been mildly interested in Finnish national security since, as a discussant at the 2003 ISA, I read a 57 page single spaced conference paper on Finish security policy. Note to conference participants: Do not ever write 57 page single spaced conference papers. Finland is also interesting because of its history as the EXCEPTION, the sole uncontroversial example of a democracy fighting other democracies.

This is a very interesting discussion of the pros and cons of Finnish participation in NATO. The most fascinating point is 7.2: Russia will not Return Karelia to a NATO Member.

A second argument against membership is again highly sectorial, and focusses on the hope that Finland may one day get back those territories in Karelia she lost to Russia during the second world war. This argument notes that it is highly unlikely that Russia would return the lost territories to a Finland that joined NATO, considering Russian resistance towards NATO, and particularly the security concerns of her military.

WEAKNESSES

The first basic counterargument is of course that one must see this particular issue from Finland’s broader security perspective. The return of the lost territories is important, but it is not vital for the survival or independence of Finland’s people, nor for the health and prosperity of society. Those NATO related questions which do relate to these matters need to be given priority.

A second key argument is that it does not look likely that Russia as we know her today would return even a part of the territories anyway. This is because the cohesion of the Russian Federation is a major security threat to Russia. The entire Federation consists of potentially contested border arrangements, and any discussion of adjustments in one area is likely to unleash a hornets nest of demands and conflicts. Thus only a radically different sort of Russia could consider returning the lost territories. This would either have to be a very much liberalized Russia, in which case NATO membership would probably not be a factor, or a Russia in disintegration, in which NATO membership also would be largely irrelevant.

Right; I don’t expect that Russia would ever have an interest in returning Karelia (or the “Finnish Border Hexes”, as we used to say in Advanced Third Reich) to Finland.

I also wonder what impact Finnish entry into NATO would have on Sweden, which has paid a price for neutrality and defense self-sufficiency over the last half century.

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