Finland’s NATO Move Leaves Others to Carry On the “Helsinki Spirit”

Finland’s membership in NATO marks the end of the nation’s admirable tradition as a global peacemaker.

MEDEA BENJAMIN NICOLAS J.S. DAVIES, Apr 11, 2023

On April 4, 2023, Finland officially became the 31st member of the NATO military alliance. The 830-mile border between Finland and Russia is now by far the longest border between any NATO country and Russia, which otherwise borders only Norway, Latvia, Estonia, and short stretches of the Polish and Lithuanian borders where they encircle Kaliningrad.

In the context of the not-so-cold war between the United States, NATO and Russia, any of these borders is a potentially dangerous flashpoint that could trigger a new crisis, or even a world war. But a key difference with the Finnish border is that it comes within about 100 miles of Severomorsk, where Russia’s Northern Fleet and 13 of its 23 nuclear-armed submarines are based. This could well be where World War III will begin, if it has not already started in Ukraine.

In Europe today, only Switzerland, Austria, Ireland and a handful of other small countries remain outside NATO. For 75 years, Finland was a model of successful neutrality, but it is far from demilitarized. Like Switzerland, it has a large military, and young Finns are required to perform at least six months of military training after they turn 18. Its active and reserve military forces make up over 4% of the population–compared with only 0.6% in the U.S.–and 83% of Finns say they would take part in armed resistance if Finland were invaded.

Only 20 to 30% of Finns have historically supported joining NATO, while the majority have consistently and proudly supported its policy of neutrality. In late 2021, a Finnish opinion poll measured popular support for NATO membership at 26%. But after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, that jumped to 60% within weeks and, by November 2022, 78% of Finns said they supported joining NATO.

As in the United States and other NATO countries, Finland’s political leaders have been more pro-NATO than the general public. Despite long-standing public support for neutrality, Finland joined NATO’s Partnership for Peace program in 1997. Its government sent 200 troops to Afghanistan as part of the UN-authorized International Security Assistance Force after the 2001 U.S. invasion, and they remained there after NATO took command of this force in 2003. Finnish troops did not leave Afghanistan until all Western forces withdrew in 2021, after a total of 2,500 Finnish troops and 140 civilian officials had been deployed there, and two Finns had been killed………………………………

Finland will find that its tragic choice to abandon a policy of neutrality that brought it 75 years of peace and look to NATO for protection, will leave it, like Ukraine, dangerously exposed on the front lines of a war directed from Moscow, Washington and Brussels that it can neither win, nor independently resolve, nor prevent from escalating into World War III………………………..

NATO membership will integrate Finland’s arms industry into NATO’s lucrative arms market, boosting sales of Finnish weapons, while also providing a context to buy more of the latest U.S. and allied weaponry for its own military and to collaborate on joint weapons projects with firms in larger NATO countries. With NATO military budgets increasing, and likely to keep increasing, Finland’s government clearly faces pressures from the arms industry and other interests. In effect, its own small military-industrial complex doesn’t want to be left out……………………..

Finnish law prohibits the country from possessing nuclear weapons or allowing them in the country, unlike the five NATO countries that store stockpiles of U.S. nuclear weapons on their soil–Germany, Italy, Belgium, Holland and Turkey. But Finland submitted its NATO accession documents without the exceptions that Denmark and Norway have insisted on to allow them to prohibit nuclear weapons. This leaves Finland’s nuclear posture uniquely ambiguous, despite President Sauli Niinistö’s promise that “Finland has no intention of bringing nuclear weapons onto our soil.”……………………..

Perhaps most regrettable is that Finland’s membership in NATO marks the end of the nation’s admirable tradition as a global peacemaker………………….more https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/finland-nato-russia-helsinki-spirit