Finland in NATO
Part One: The Historical Background
Note: This article is being published in two parts. Part One, presented here, summarizes the history behind Finland’s decision to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Finland’s strategic contribution to European collective security as a NATO member state, together with a description and analysis of the Finnish military capabilities is covered in Part Two.
Modern Finnish history has been dominated by two themes: its ties to the West via the Swedish/Scandinavian connection, and its relations with tsarist Russia and later the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Both geographically and politically, therefore, Finland occupied an equivocal position up to the end of the Cold War. Since then, the demise of the USSR and the rise of Putinist Russia have had, from the Finnish perspective, profound foreign policy and security policy implications.
Finland was a province of Sweden from the thirteenth century to 1809, when it was occupied by Russia. The 1814 Congress of Vienna formalized Russian rule and Finland became an autonomous Grand Duchy within the Russian Empire. In contrast to the situation in the Kingdom of Poland (Congress Poland), the Finnish national idea developed in a relatively peaceful manner. By and large, the tsars respected Finnish autonomy and it was not until the 1850s that Finnish nationalism became a significant political factor.
The Finnish national idea was first championed by the Swedish-speaking upper class, not least as a means of cementing ties with the Finnish-speaking free peasantry. As was the case elsewhere in Europe, nationalism and liberal political ideas advanced in tandem, with the result that in the last two decades of the nineteenth century the Russian government resorted to political prosecutions, press censorship, and a policy of “Russification” in an effort to maintain control. By then, however, Finnish nationalism could not be suppressed, and the stage was set for independence.
Even so, when the tsarist regime collapsed in February 1917 Finland did not immediately separate from Russia. Though there were calls for independence, especially on the Left, many Finns supported autonomy within the Russian Republic. Finland’s non-socialist parties—the Whites as they came to be called—feared that independence might saddle the country with a revolutionary socialist regime. But negotiations between the Finnish and Russian governments on Finland’s status soon reached a dead end, while the Bolshevik coup in October 1917, upended Finnish politics. The Reds now clamored for association with the Soviet Russian state, while the Whites demanded independence.
Ironically enough, the Bolsheviks undermined the position of their Finnish comrades by promulgating a decree on the right to self-determination for all the peoples of Russia. Taking advantage of this, the Finnish Parliament formally proclaimed the country’s independence on 6 December 1917. Lenin’s government in Moscow recognized Finnish independence, perhaps calculating that what was being lost could be recovered later as the European revolution unfolded. But in the brief (January-May 1918) but sanguinary civil war that followed between the Finnish Reds and Whites, the latter prevailed with German help.
Finland was now an independent Grand Duchy, and the government intended that the country should become a kingdom when a suitable candidate for the throne could be found. The choice fell on a German prince, Frederick Charles Louis Constantine, Landgrave of Hesse. He was elected King of Finland by the Finnish Parliament in October 1918. But the collapse of the Central Powers and the abdication of the German Kaiser derailed this plan and instead, Finland became a republic. The parliamentary democracy thus established survived the vicissitudes of the interwar period, but with the rise of Stalinist and Nazi totalitarianism Finland’s diplomatic position grew increasingly precarious.
With the outbreak of World War II, the pressure on Finland from its menacing eastern neighbor, the USSR, became acute. From late 1939 to the spring of 1941, Stalin was in league with Hitler—a partnership that he embraced in order to stave off war with Germany for as long as possible. Having swallowed up eastern Poland and occupied the Baltic States, Stalin turned his attention to Finland, demanding territorial and security concessions intended to bolster the defenses of his northern flank, especially in the Leningrad area. Though the Finnish government was inclined at first to compromise, it ultimately concluded that the Soviet demands were unacceptable and rejected them. Stalin thereupon launched an invasion of Finland. Whether he planned actually to annex Finland outright or merely install a puppet communist government remains debatable. Either way, there can be no doubt that Stalin intended to extinguish Finnish independence.
But the Winter War (30 November 1939-13 March 1940) proved to be no walkover for the Soviet colossus. The Finnish Army, though small and lightly armed, was well trained and competently commanded. On the Karelian Isthmus north of Leningrad, six Finnish infantry divisions repelled repeated Soviet attacks, inflicting heavy casualties. In central and north Finland, several Red Army divisions were encircled and destroyed. There the Finns, well trained in winter warfare, employed guerrilla tactics to split up the road-bound enemy formations into small groups and liquidate them. Numerical superiority enabled the invaders eventually to prevail, but not before the Finns had inflicted a series of stinging and costly defeats on the Red Army. This had its effect on the peace settlement. Though the terms imposed by the USSR were stringent, they fell short of Stalin’s original ambitions.
During the Winter War, there was considerable sympathy in Western Europe for Finland, which was seen as one more victim of totalitarian aggression. Some 12,000 foreign volunteers, the majority of them Swedish, served in the Finnish Army. Not very wisely, Britain and France considered intervention in the war on Finland’s side. Their righteous indignation was bolstered by the calculation that intervention would be a convenient pretext for seizing the iron mines in northern Sweden that were so vital to the German war effort. Fortunately, however, this ill-advised scheme came to nothing.
The Finns’ bitterness toward the aggressor found an outlet little more than a year later, when Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, his invasion of the USSR. Finland joined in, retaking the territory it had lost and occupying much of Soviet East Karelia. But the Finnish government was wary of Nazi Germany. Finland declined to sign the Tripartite Pact and described itself as a “co-belligerent” rather than a formal German ally. Militarily, the Finns limited their operations after the initial 1941 offensive. Field Marshal Mannerheim, the Finnish Commander-in-Chief, told the Germans that until direct contact between the German and Finnish fronts was secured by the capture of Leningrad, he could not commit to further offensive action. The portion of the Eastern Front manned by the Finns thus lapsed into relative inactivity. Britain declared war on Finland in December 1941, largely as a sop to Stalin; Churchill writing to Mannerheim that he was “deeply grieved” by the necessity of doing so.
Germany’s failure to capture Moscow and Leningrad in 1941 led the Finnish government and military command to doubt whether Germany could prevail over the USSR. These doubts rose to the level of conviction after the 1942 Stalingrad debacle and the failure of the Germans’ Kursk offensive in July 1943. Thereafter, the Finnish government was on the lookout for an opportunity to come to terms with Stalin. But given its economic and military dependence on Germany, it was hard to see how Finland could contrive an exit from the war without parlous consequences.
The break came in June 1944 with a Soviet offensive on the Karelian Isthmus, later extended to the Finnish front in East Karelia. Heavily outnumbered, the Finns were driven back in both sectors and though they managed to stabilize a new line, their own exhaustion and the disaster that befell German Army Group Center on the main Eastern Front later in the month convinced the Finnish government and high command to ask for terms. Mannerheim became President of Finland, and it was he who led his country out of the war.
The peace terms, though harsh enough, were far less draconian that those imposed on Germany and other Axis powers. Finland was compelled to yield up all the territory it had recaptured in 1941 and more besides. There was an exchange of populations, the Finnish armed forces were compulsorily demobilized, an indemnity was paid to the USSR, and “war responsibility trials” were conducted by a Finnish court. The defendants were limited to a handful of high government officials, all of whom were convicted and sentenced to terms of imprisonment. But these trials were deeply unpopular in Finland. It was asked, sardonically, why high officials of the Soviet government were not being held legally responsible for waging aggressive war in 1939-40. As soon as possible, the Finnish government granted parole to the convicted men.
Still, given the fate that befell the countries of eastern and central Europe after 1945, the Finns could count themselves fortunate. Parliamentary democracy and a capitalist market economy survived, though the country’s sovereignty was compromised by the need to avoid provoking the USSR. The Paris Peace Treaty (1947) imposed strict limits on the size and armament of the Finnish armed forces, such weapons as submarines, torpedo attack craft and guided missiles being banned, and throughout the Cold War neutrality was the cornerstone of the country’s foreign policy. Officially, Finland enjoyed “friendly relations” with its overbearing eastern neighbor, these being formalized in 1948 by a Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance between the two nations. But memory lived long. Bitterness toward the USSR and resentment over Finland’s status as a de facto Soviet satellite, though necessarily muted, never died away.
Thus when the USSR collapsed, Finland hesitated only briefly before asserting full independence. The Finnish government recognized the independence of the Baltic States in 1991, applied for European Union membership in 1992, and in 1993 denounced both the 1947 peace treaty with its military restrictions and the 1948 friendship treaty.
Russia’s turn under V. Putin toward despotic authoritarianism and an aggressive foreign policy caused great uneasiness in Finland and suggestions began to be heard that Finland should emulate the Baltic States by joining NATO. Public opinion on this question was divided and the general consensus was that Finland should not consider joining NATO unless Sweden did likewise. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 settled that matter, however. Both Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership, and though objections from the Turkish government have held up Sweden’s accession, the Finnish application was accepted and Finland formally joined NATO on 4 April 2023 as the alliance’s thirty-first member state.
Thanks, Thomas. Looking forward to Part 2.