The Ambassador Brunch
Uppsala
20 May 2024
A quest for balance is something natural. So also. in the new world of nuclear weapons after World War II. But it took several crises before the Cold War found its precarious balance. To the surprise of all everything changed after the super-power we knew collapsed in 1991 and did so peacefully. Peacefully in the beginning but as the war in Ukraine shows not in the long run. In hindsight it is evident that the implosion was a result of a systemic failure. The Soviet economic and social model had lost the battle with the liberal market economies.
Looking further north the situation on the ground was similar but at the same time dissimilar. The Soviet build-up on the Kola peninsula was the most significant military factor. Unlike the pre-war situation, it was not anymore, the security of Leningrad that dominated Soviet planning. The defense of the second-strike capabilities concentrated in the Kola peninsula became the focus. For NATO the challenge was twofold: To prevent the Soviet Navy’s outbreak into the North Atlantic and to secure that allied military assistance reached Norway in time.
Denmark was very much a part of Central Europe because Soviet troops were at the gates of Hamburg. Sweden had emerged from the war as a powerful military actor with the fourth largest air force in the world after the United States, Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom. But after having failed to create a Scandinavian – called Nordic — Defense Union with Norway and Denmark in 1948 Sweden opted for military non-alliance although with secret defense and intelligence cooperation with the United States. Finland was a decisive factor in Sweden’s decision not to follow the example of Norway and Denmark and join NATO.
And Finland? Defeated but never occupied Helsinki was forced to sign in 1948 a Friendship Treaty with Moscow, which against all odds never morphed into a military pact. The Soviet shadow was very present. The Soviet Union leased a naval base in Porkkala, only thirty kilometers west of Helsinki, until 1956. As a reaction to the letter of FM Molotov in 1949 inquiring about the modalities of Norway’s NATO membership Norway and Denmark adopted self-imposed restrictions concerning allied presence during peacetime.
The threat of a nuclear war was omnipresent. One of the self-imposed restrictions of Norway and Denmark banned the deployment of nuclear forces on their soil. A Swedish initiative was adopted in the United Nations in 1961 to commit the non-nuclear states not to produce or accept nuclear weapons on their soil. By this time Sweden already had given up plans to develop its own nuclear deterrent. Two years later in 1963 President Kekkonen of Finland launched his initiative to create a Nordic Nuclear Free Zone, suggesting that the Nordics would pledge not to acquire nukes nor allow their deployment. Two years later 1965 Kekkonen suggested a bilateral agreement with Norway to guarantee peace on their common border. The Norwegians were not amused.
All of this is ancient history, but the dominant factor behind Finnish actions was a need to create facts and arguments to counter any Soviet moves to trigger the military clauses of the Friendship Treaty. An example of a Finnish initiative, which was crowned with success was the idea of a European Security and Cooperation summit in Helsinki 1975 virtually codifying the post-war status in Europe.
The rather complicated political and military setting in the North prompted political scientists to formulate theories and models explaining it. The most well-known remains “Nordic Balance”. It was the brainchild of the Norwegian political scientist Arne Olav Brundtland, husband of Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland. His idea was to prove the existing military setting in Fenno-Scandia as a functioning balance: Norway is a NATO member, Sweden neutral and Finland is bound by a Friendship Treaty with the Soviet Union. It was a factual description of the existing situation but unpalatable for Finland, which refused to see itself as a counterweight to Norway.
The main flaw of the concept was that it missed the real existing balance that had emerged after the war and that was confirmed in 1961. When FM Andrei Gromyko summoned the Finnish Ambassador, he also saw it fit to subsequently invite the Swedish Ambassador, because what he had to say concerned Sweden, too. Referring to a growing German military threat Moscow demanded consultations with Finland based on the Friendship Treaty of 1948. President Kekkonen was forced to travel all the way to Novosibirsk to convince Nikita Khrushchev to abandon the idea.
The Finnish factor in Swedish foreign policy was not new and was well understood in Moscow. It was not Norway or Norwegian decisions that would have influenced Soviet moves vis-à-vis Finland, it was Sweden and, Swedish policy of neutrality and non-alliance that played a decisive role.
It was not an easy task for Finland to join the European integration dynamic. Anticipating Stalin’s disapproval Finland never attempted to join the Marshal plan. It became a member of the Nordic Union only 1956 after the Porkkala base had been returned. It was not able to directly join EFTA, the free trade agreement for countries that did not or were not able to join the EEC, the European Economic Community, but associated membership known as FINEFTA in 1961 did the trick. All of this required skillful diplomacy with the successors of Stalin. This was repeated when Finland like Sweden concluded a free-trade agreement with the EEC in 1973. At the end of the day, it was evident that Finland had not missed a single European integration train. At the same time Finland had become the largest Western trading partner of the Soviet Union to be bypassed by Germany only after the deal of providing Moscow large diameter gas pipelines and starting to import gas in volumes.
A stable military situation in the North, growing trade and the weakening of the attractiveness of the Soviet system created something of a balance of interests in the North. The abrupt change came with the implosion of the Soviet empires, the outer empire of the Warsaw Pact and the internal empire of Soviet Union. This resulted in the dynamic enlargement processes of the EU and NATO. Becoming a member of the European Union was a natural step for Finland and Sweden. Unfortunately, Norway failed to join although the government of PM Gro Harlem Brundtland advocated it. As to NATO both countries went for close cooperation and military interoperability but did not contemplate membership until the war in Ukraine.
Still the Finnish and Swedish approaches were not identical. The Finnish Government adopted a “NATO option” that is the option to join if its security required it. In the case of Sweden, the option was of course there but it was never politically enunciated. The second difference which had long lasting effects were the diverging decisions in developing national defense. Sweden, like most European countries suspended conscription and gave up territorial defense to concentrate its efforts on expeditionary capabilities. Finland did not take this road. It maintained conscription and retained territorial defense as it core task.
In hindsight it is worth looking at the historic debate of joining or not joining NATO in both countries. Had Sweden joined NATO after the war it would gravely have affected the position of Finland. This was well understood by all post-war governments in Stockholm. The Swedish solution was ingenious. Building a formidable national defense based on a strong military defense basis, creating a world class intelligence capability, and securing secret American guarantees.
In the case of Finland, a NATO option emerged only after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But unlike the Baltic States or former Warsaw Pact states Finland was not defenseless. It had well trained and motivated armed forces based on universal male conscription and a large reserve. It acquired in 1992 64 F-18 Hornet fighter jets from the United States and simultaneously bought enormous amounts from the East German armory after the unification of Germany. Not only did Finland develop one of the most modern Air Forces in Europe but it also had the largest artillery in Europe. A decade later to replace Soviet equipment, tanks etc. Finland bought Leopard tanks and American rocket artillery from the Netherlands for a song.
Despite voices to join NATO, it remains a fact that there was no public support for membership in Finland prior to Putin’s menacing words towards the end of 2021. The same applies with variations for Sweden. For Finland non-alignment was a pragmatic solution imposed by historic circumstances. For Sweden neutrality and non-alignment was anchored in a two-century tradition that had become part of the national identity. There is another intriguing aspect to the question should Finland have joined earlier together with the Baltics or Poland in the 2000s. Emphasizing the decisive logic of Finnish defense it is safe to say that the pressure to abandon conscription would have grown. Why maintain conscription as the only NATO member?
It is reassuring that the Finnish perception of the Soviet/Russian threat has been validated by the war in Ukraine. The main threat was never a re-run of the Winter War, that is a massive attack over the land border etc. Instead, we concentrated ourselves on the risk of a strategic surprise attack, a decapitation attempt with air borne troops securing Helsinki airport and then proceeding with their task. This is exactly the Soviet operation we saw in Prague 1968, in Kabul 1979 and which failed in Kiev 2022. This was the basic assumptions of territorial defense. A decentralized defense organization that could not be eliminated by a surprise attack.
Yes, there was a plan B, although not publicly talked about but well understood that Finnish defense at the end of the day was defense against unwanted help from the East. This was astutely formulated by a Norwegian historian Nils Ørvik — försvar mot hjälp. As you can guess that it did not please President Kekkonen, because it was too blunt.
