{"id":83096,"date":"2023-10-23T15:00:21","date_gmt":"2023-10-23T04:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=83096"},"modified":"2023-10-23T12:55:41","modified_gmt":"2023-10-23T01:55:41","slug":"lessons-from-finland-for-the-indo-pacific","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/lessons-from-finland-for-the-indo-pacific\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons from Finland for the Indo-Pacific"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I recently visited Finland, for the first time, to attend the Helsinki Security Forum<\/a>, organised by the Finnish Institute for International Affairs<\/a>, on the theme \u2018Deter, defend and secure\u2014Europe in the era of radical uncertainty\u2019. This year\u2019s edition, the second iteration of the forum, included a panel<\/a> on Indo-Pacific security\u2014a sign that Finland\u2019s strategic attentions are not entirely fixated on Russia, or distracted by the policy adjustments required by NATO membership since the former neutral nation formally joined the alliance in April. Finland\u2019s focus is likely to remain on NATO\u2019s expanded Nordic\u2013Baltic front for the foreseeable future, but Indo-Pacific countries, including Australia and New Zealand, can still learn<\/a> a lot from its example, in terms of continuity and change.<\/p>\n

Finland combines a Scandinavian aura of self-assurance with the edginess of a frontline state. Helsinki is closer to Saint Petersburg than it is to Stockholm. With a 1,300-kilometre border with Russia, Finland harbours no doubts about the direction from which potential threats are likely to come. The memory of Russian aggression in World War II is still present\u2014including scars from Soviet air raids in downtown Helsinki. More than a 10th of Finland\u2019s territory was annexed by the Soviet Union, including the second-largest city, Vyborg. This manifests in a popular defence consciousness and willingness to protect the homeland that is absent in much of western Europe.<\/p>\n

If an acute military threat were to materialise, Finland\u2019s relatively small peacetime armed forces can mobilise a conscript-based reserve of 280,000 personnel. Theoretically, a total of 870,000 Finns, aged 18\u201360, can be called on for military service<\/a>. This is a remarkable scale of mobilisation for a nation of just 5.5 million people, a population similar to that of New Zealand. Conscription has always enjoyed widespread support in Finland, but public approval ratings have surged since Russia\u2019s all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Finland\u2019s concept of \u2018total defence\u2019 finds some resonance with Singapore<\/a>, a city-state with a similar-sized population. Both countries demonstrate that limited manpower is no barrier to a self-reliant defence posture, or to the attainment in parallel of an enviable standard of living.<\/p>\n

Finland acquired a reputation during the Cold War for having a foot in both camps, giving rise to the unflattering label \u2018Finlandisation<\/a>\u2019. For over a century, until 1917, Finland was a Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire, though it was never settled by Russians en masse. Maintaining neutrality in the Cold War was a geopolitically precarious juggling act, yet the country\u2019s basic identity remained Western-oriented, paving the way for eventual accession to the European Union in 1995.<\/p>\n

During the Helsinki Security Forum, Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen referred to a \u2018new Iron Curtain\u2019 on Finland\u2019s eastern border. Every Finn I spoke to expects Russia\u2019s isolation from Europe to be long-lasting, regardless of the military outcome in Ukraine. By joining NATO, Finland has thrown off any remaining ambiguity about its allegiances.<\/p>\n

Finland\u2019s entry into NATO has shone a spotlight on the impressive capabilities and practices it brings to Europe\u2019s collective defence and security table, particularly under Article 3<\/a> of the North Atlantic Treaty. In the 1990s, as other European countries cashed in the post\u2013Cold War peace dividend, Finland never dropped its guard, maintaining its conscription-based model. In contrast with most European NATO members, Finland has maintained a deep arsenal, a lesson in self-reliance retained from the Winter War in 1939\u201340, now having to be relearned more widely in Europe in the light of battlefield experience from Ukraine. After significant defence spending increases since 2020, Finland entered NATO committing<\/a> well above 2% of its GDP to defence, including a US$10 billion pledge to acquire 64 F-35A fighter jets\u2014not far off Australia\u2019s inventory. Its navy is replacing patrol boats and minelayers with new corvettes.<\/p>\n

While Finland has good reason to be confident in its ability to fend off conventional military probes from Russia, especially given Russia\u2019s poor offensive performance against Ukraine, the longest-standing lacuna in its deterrence toolkit has been in the nuclear domain. Access to NATO\u2019s nuclear umbrella was an important driver behind Helsinki\u2019s decision to enter the alliance, given Vladimir Putin\u2019s willingness to issue nuclear threats and Russia\u2019s lowered doctrinal threshold for the use of nuclear weapons<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Finland and Sweden, which is on course to join NATO later this year and is also heavily reinvesting in defence, can exploit their geography in ways that constrain Russia\u2019s offensive options in the Baltic and High North. In short order, the Baltic has been transformed into a \u2018NATO lake\u2019, raising the risks for Russia\u2019s Baltic fleet and Kaliningrad if hostilities with NATO were ever seriously in prospect (notwithstanding the suspected sabotage<\/a> of seabed infrastructure in peacetime). Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said at the forum that Helsinki\u2019s membership of NATO wouldn\u2019t be complete until Sweden joined, underlining the closeness of Finland\u2019s relationship with its neighbour to the west.<\/p>\n

Finnish authorities\u2019 recent identification<\/a> of a Hong Kong\u2013registered container ship, along with a Russian vessel, as potentially being involved in damaging a gas pipeline and separate communications cables running across the Gulf of Finland could\u2014if the investigation finds evidence of state involvement\u2014prompt a reassessment of China\u2019s intentions and the risks posed by its deepening security partnership with Russia. Until now, Helsinki has tended to resist the proposition that Beijing and Moscow pose a concerted challenge. NATO membership bolsters Finland\u2019s defence and security, but it could also make the country a target for retaliation below the threshold of armed conflict on a wider international stage. Paying more attention to the Indo-Pacific is therefore prudent.<\/p>\n

Between them, the Nordic and Baltic countries have added significant aggregate to the balance of military power and political resolve in Europe as a whole. Finland\u2019s and Sweden\u2019s entries into NATO bring a cohesion to Europe\u2019s defence and deterrence posture that had been missing, even during the Cold War. The abandonment of decades-long neutrality was a bold and unexpected step for Finland to take, adapting to a fundamental change in its strategic circumstances. That ought to be the new definition of Finlandisation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently visited Finland, for the first time, to attend the Helsinki Security Forum, organised by the Finnish Institute for International Affairs, on the theme \u2018Deter, defend and secure\u2014Europe in the era of radical uncertainty\u2019. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":143,"featured_media":83098,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[857,1114,3277,261,163,1111],"class_list":["post-83096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-baltic-states","tag-defence","tag-finland","tag-nato","tag-russia","tag-sweden"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLessons from Finland for the Indo-Pacific | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/lessons-from-finland-for-the-indo-pacific\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lessons from Finland for the Indo-Pacific | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I recently visited Finland, for the first time, to attend the Helsinki Security Forum, organised by the Finnish Institute for International Affairs, on the theme \u2018Deter, defend and secure\u2014Europe in the era of radical uncertainty\u2019. ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/lessons-from-finland-for-the-indo-pacific\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ASPI.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-10-23T04:00:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-10-23T01:55:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/GettyImages-1619503065.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"683\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Euan Graham\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Euan Graham\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/\",\"name\":\"The Strategist\",\"description\":\"ASPI's analysis and commentary site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/lessons-from-finland-for-the-indo-pacific\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/GettyImages-1619503065.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/GettyImages-1619503065.jpg\",\"width\":1024,\"height\":683,\"caption\":\"A Finnish Air Force's F-18 takes off from Orland Air Base during the The Arctic Fighter Meet exercises occurring from August 21 to 25 in Brekstad, located west of Trondheim, Norway, on August 23, 2023. 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