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Richard Helppie
Hello, and welcome to The Common Bridge. I'm your host Rich Helppie. Today, a very important topic in international affairs. As you know, Finland and Sweden have been invited to join NATO; both countries have made application. This has ramifications beyond a simple joining of a military alliance. Today from Finland we have an expert on this topic, Mr. Timo Stewart. Mr. Stewart, welcome to The Common Bridge. Thank you so much for joining us.
Timo Stewart
Thank you very much, Rich, it's great to be here.
Richard Helppie
Good. Are you in Helsinki today?
Timo Stewart
I am. It's a rainy spring afternoon in Helsinki.
Richard Helppie
Sounds lovely. I wish I was there doing this in person with you. The Common Bridge of course is on substack.com. Go to substack.com, look up The Common Bridge. We're on most podcast outlets, YouTube TV and, of course, on your Radio Garden app you can find us on Mission Control Radio. Today we're going to talk about the fact that war is being waged in the Ukraine. I believe this is the 99th day of the Russian's invasion. Russia, of course, has a long history of invading neighboring countries; goes back hundreds of years. In recent decades: 1956 invasion of Hungary, 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. Of course Finland and Russia have their own history of wars. From 1939 to 1945 is the most recent fierce fighting for the homeland, but that history also goes back centuries. Former Soviet bloc countries, such as Poland, are now members of NATO. Our guest today from Finland, Timo Stewart, he is a senior research fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. He has a PhD in political history at the University of Helsinki, and his work has focused on the history of ideas, political, religion and European relationships with the Middle East. His book on the Finnish archaeologist and treasure hunter Valter Juvelius and Parker Expedition In The Late Autumn In Jerusalem won the Laurie Yonsei Prize for nonfiction and was shortlisted for the Finlandia Prize in 2020. His latest book on the history of Finnish Christian Zionism is coming out this September. So Timo if you'll pardon my pronunciation, hyvää päivää, and thank you for joining us on The Common Bridge.
Timo Stewart
Hyvää päivää.Thank you very much.
Richard Helppie
Our audience likes to know a little bit about our guests. So tell us a little bit about your early days. Where'd you grow up? What was your academic preparation like and a little bit about your professional work.
Timo Stewart
Well, I grew up in Helsinki, and have basically studied history: history of Finland, history of Europe, history of Middle East. History has been my passion for many years. But I've also worked in number of countries around the world a lot with conflict resolution. And this also has a lot to do with the Middle East, of course. Now, for the past good year or so I've been here at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. Before that at the Finnish Foreign Ministry, so you could say that Finnish history, the history of ideas, political history in general, these are my passions, and I've been fortunate enough to be able to work on those topics as well.
Richard Helppie
And we're very fortunate to have you here as our guest. What is the Finnish Institute of International Affairs? What is that?
Timo Stewart
Well, it's a research institute that is funded by the Finnish Parliament. We're an independent institute. We conduct research on the topics that we find relevant and important, but the Parliament funds us because a lot of the work we do directly benefits the work of the Parliament when debating foreign affairs and international relations. And of course, Finland being an EU member, EU policy is also part of what we do. And I'm, in fact, part of the European Union research program here at the Institute of International Affairs.
Richard Helppie
That sounds like an intriguing way to spend your days, and I'm sure, evenings, all waking hours. You've written a lot about Finland and Sweden, or much has been written about them, applying for membership in the NATO alliance. Of course Vladimir Putin has issued threats if Finland and NATO follow through. Is this risky, having Finland join the NATO alliance?
Timo Stewart
Well, it's something that has been debated and discussed in Finland for, well, a good 20 years at least. And for a long time, people would say that look, it does carry certain risks, because previously Russia has, on several occasions, made it clear that they would not be happy about Finland joining NATO. And Finland has been very careful to maintain good relations with Russia. So this is something that nobody wanted to jeopardize. At the same time, Russia, until last year, always added that it's, of course, Finland's own choice what it does, and Finn's - being very independent minded - we consider this a very important thing. It is our own choice as a sovereign state who to ally with, what organizations to join, and which ones not to join. The comments that came from Moscow at the end of last year, that they would not look kindly to Finland joining, that actually pushed a lot of Finns into supporting NATO membership, because it sounds like somebody was trying to boss us around a bit. As it happens, the Kremlin put a brave face on events. Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, he said in May that, look, it makes no big difference. Finland and Sweden have been practicing, training with NATO for years and Russia doesn't mind too much. So we don't consider it a big risk now.
Richard Helppie
There's some 800 mile border, plus or minus some. And I know that there are people that think Finland being non-aligned - although militarily inter-operable with Western powers - might be a better position. Does this mean at some point there are going to be NATO bases in Finland? Or would Finland troops have to be deployed to protect other parts of NATO, particularly the US dominated [areas]. And there are those that think that this is a little bit of an impingement on Finland's independence and sovereignty, because the United States is the 800 pound gorilla here. Any thoughts about that?
Timo Stewart
In Finland, people don't see it as impinging on our sovereignty, and it's not something that would be welcomed here. Finland has, I mean, it's a small country and population is just five and a half million. But our reserve is 900,000 and there's a wartime strength of 280,000 in our military. We've got a strong military that's been trained for decades. Unlike a lot of European countries, we never decommissioned any parts of our army, we never let our guard down in this sense. So we're not expecting NATO bases and I don't think NATO is offering any bases. Finland's completely capable of taking care of its own defense. What we're looking for in NATO is an assurance of an alliance, which then makes it, in our view, less likely that we'll need to defend ourselves because it will make war less likely. But ultimately, we're prepared to take care of our own security and to add to the security of NATO and NATO allies.
Richard Helppie
That is a comforting thought, that Finland will retain its independence, its autonomy, and that rugged Finnish resistance and stubbornness that has seen the country so well throughout history. Let's talk a little bit about history. I know that this is your area of expertise. I'll try to hang on as much as I can. But Finland had the opportunity to join NATO in 1949 and didn't. What happened then?
Timo Stewart
Well, actually, 1949 Finland didn't have the opportunity to join NATO. I'll...maybe if you allow me, I'll take us back ten more years.
Richard Helppie
Please, yes, indeed. And all of us with Finnish heritage are of course very proud of the performance of the Finns in the Russo-Finnish wars of that time. So ten years, go back 15. [Chuckling].
Timo Stewart
I think ten will be enough. We'll go back to the autumn of 1939 and Europe's about to be plunged into the Second World War. Germany and the Soviet Union, they sign a non-aggression pact, often now known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and it had a secret part to it in which Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union essentially divided Eastern Europe between them. So Germany said, look, we're going to take western Poland and you can take the Baltic states, Eastern Poland, and Finland. And this was was indeed implemented; Germany invaded Poland, which kicked off World War II. But a few weeks later, the Soviet Union invaded Poland as well and they demanded military bases in the Baltic states, which the Baltic states then made a decision to allow. They made similar demands to Finland but Finland declined, which then resulted in the Soviet invasion of Finland at the end of November 1939. There's actually remarkable parallels in what happened back then compared to this February and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. So that started what Finns call the Winter War. It was a 105 day war in which this very heavy fighting [occurred] along the eastern border. The Soviet Army was unable to invade but just like in Ukraine, they made some territorial gains and the Finnish losses were severe. The Soviet losses were even more severe, for which reason they eventually decided to give up on the plan to take over Finland and they settled for an armistice and a peace agreement in which Finland had to cede large territories. So we'll skip a bit and...
Richard Helppie
It was part of the Karelia Peninsula, they had (Timo Stewart: Yeah.) to cede. And, of course, the military tactics that the Finns employed have been long studied; how a smaller, more adept army on their own territory can defeat a larger army. You talked about the historical parallels; I know that the Ukrainian invasion, they thought was going to go easier. And what I've read about the Winter War, some of the Russian troops were up there with summer uniforms; not a good strategy when you're going into Finland in the winter time.
Richard Helppie
I understand that the President, for some 25 years, Urho Kekkonen - again, forgive my pronunciation - was very instrumental in keeping the Soviets at bay.
Timo Stewart
Well, that was the biggest part of his foreign policy legacy. And he's also, he's controversial in Finland. As you said, he was president for 25 years, which is not a healthy amount of time for one person to be a president of a democracy. So this Cold War period is a time that the Finns now look back on - a lot of Finns look back on it - with a bit of self-criticism. Maybe some people went too far in understanding Soviet wishes in Finland; perhaps things could be done a little bit differently. But it's easier to say, of course, in hindsight, it was a difficult position that Finland was in.
Richard Helppie
Now in 1991, the Soviet Union falls. What difference does that make for Finland? We know what happened to the map of Europe. This is when Ukraine was no longer a captive state, but an independent state. So what's going on in Finland, what's going on at the time in Ukraine, and how are things advancing from that point in 1991?
Timo Stewart
Well, it was a breath of fresh air for Finland. Soviet Union fell, Russia looked like it was starting on a path towards democracy and multi-party, healthy, open society. And at the same time, there was a lot of concern about what was happening in Russia; there was a lot of instability, the Russian economy took some while to get on its feet. There was outright poverty across the border so things were also a little bit wary. But the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it gave Finland the possibility to apply for membership in the European Union - which Finland promptly did - and to cement its ties to Europe, to the west; which we feel we're very much part of that European Union. The European Community membership wouldn't have been possible during Soviet times for us.
Richard Helppie
As of now I can understand how this turmoil has developed. In Finland today, from what I've read, is that there is a lot of support for joining NATO. What does Finland hope; those people that advocate joining NATO? [They are] already in the European Union, already kind of economically aligned with the West, already part of the countries that have practiced a democratic form of government, tiny nation - about an eighth of the size of the population of Ukraine - and now Putin says don't join NATO or else. And Finland says no, we're going to join. What do the proponents of joining NATO think the benefits are?
Timo Stewart
Well, they look at Georgia, they look at Ukraine. I mean, Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, and invaded Ukraine in 2014; took over Crimea, sponsored militants in the Donbas, and basically has been fighting a war there ever since. This invasion in February was just sort of upping the stakes from a situation that had been going on for eight years. So people look at that and see that these are two countries that were trying to increase their ties with the West; we're talking about NATO membership. But since they weren't NATO members, Russia felt free to invade because they could be relatively certain that NATO wouldn't actually intervene. Probably Russia calculated that the West wouldn't even send weapons or give the support that has been shown to Ukraine now. But to a lot of Finns...I mean, NATO membership support jumped from 25% to about 75% in just a matter of a few months. Because the idea was until then that Russia has been going in a really disconcerting direction for years. The space for free society has been curtailed, they've been shrinking; journalists have been murdered and killed; free press stifled; democratic rights trampled on; the whole system has been rigged in the favor of Vladimir Putin's party. All these things we've watched and we've seen, but despite Georgia and despite 2014 in Ukraine, most Finns thought that Russia wouldn't want to challenge the international security system in Europe as blatantly as it did. But now that it did, it seems that all bets are off. So in this situation, most Finns feel that, even though we have strong defense, we'd rather be in a situation where we don't have to use it. And Russia probably wouldn't want to pick a fight with NATO, so better join NATO and then we can ride out this rough period without actually having a war.
Richard Helppie
I really appreciate that insight because, for people that don't live next to this giant Russia, with the country becoming more unstable, more dangerous, more aggressive; what they did in Chechnya, what they did in Georgia, what they did in Ukraine, the rumblings they've made about the Baltic states. That more than kind of makes sense; look, they're getting more dangerous and behind door number one, we can fight them again with our own resources at great loss and ultimately, they've got a much bigger economy and a much bigger military. Or we can be part of NATO and have many nations, including the United States - the most powerful military on the planet - backing us up. With this alliance, is there any thought or any risk about things like NATO putting in defensive missiles, or something like that, on Finnish territory that the Russians might look at as a threat? So by way of illustrating that, if there were nuclear armaments deployed into Finland, they could be in Moscow in a minute versus Moscow's ability to retaliate against United States [it] would take 30 minutes, 40 minutes or so. Is the alliance doing anything that might precipitate war or is this threat just there and it's just got to be dealt with?
Timo Stewart
Things are very clear in our membership in NATO being all about defense. And we view NATO as a defensive alliance. Russia has been trying to portray NATO as this aggressive, expansive force that keeps taking over territory, but it's not how it works. Countries - democratic countries - decide to apply for membership and join NATO voluntarily, because - just the opposite - they're afraid of Russia, which actually is trying to aggressively take over countries. So Finns definitely don't want a war with Russia. And we wouldn't be this eager to join NATO if we thought the NATO wants war with Russia. We don't think anybody wants a war with Russia. We'd rather resolve issues peacefully. But if Russia wants war, we must be ready to be strong. There's been a debate in Finland about NATO's deployment of missiles or bases and all that. There's no reason to think that it would make any tactical sense to deploy nuclear weapons, for example, in Finland. There's perfectly good fast delivery devices available. Also, placing nuclear weapons so close to a frontier presents other tactical problems. So Finns are not asking for bases, they're not asking for missiles. I think there'd be quite a strong public opposition, not to speak of it still being illegal for example, to deploy nuclear weapons into Finland. So we're not looking for that and we're not expecting that.
Richard Helppie
Do you have any insight at all - it's not something that we thought we'd be talking about today - but Turkey is resisting both Sweden and Finland. I don't understand at all their objections or if they're using it for political leverage elsewhere. Any insight into why Turkey is objecting, at the moment, to the joining of NATO by Finland and Sweden?
Timo Stewart
Well, my reading is that it's mainly for political leverage. They're trying to maximum out their political leverage ahead of the NATO summit in Madrid. And it's unfortunate; it probably has more to do with the United States-Turkey relations than anything actually to do with Finland and Sweden. We certainly hope that this can be sorted out. It's not particularly helpful now for the public debate in Finland concerning NATO. There's also been a strand of thinking here in which NATO is seen as a club of Western democracies. So Finland being a Western democracy, why not join all the other clubs that Western democracies are members of. Turkey's behavior in recent years hasn't exactly portrayed it in this light and now them blocking Finland's membership and Sweden's membership is certainly not helping the issue. So we also see it as an internal NATO problem that we hope that NATO will iron out; it seems that one member is using outright blackmail at the expense of actual real politic benefits for the alliance to achieve some maybe domestic politic benefits or maybe some leverage on more minor issues.
Richard Helppie
That's the way it appears to me, but again, I'm not a historian or international expert by a longshot. And Sweden coming in - and Sweden's got an interesting history, they seem to have been at war with everybody around them for centuries, they just can't get along, apparently - but they're behaving now. [Laughter.] Timo, this has been really fascinating. What didn't we cover today that perhaps we should have discussed? When you're thinking about these, literally, Earth changing issues? What are some of the questions that your policy advisors or heads of state are asking of you that we didn't have a chance to talk about yet?
Timo Stewart
Well, here the debate very much is now focusing on Turkey, and also on what's happening with Ukraine, what the possible outcome of the war could be; how would it be possible to get Russia to end its invasion as quickly as possible. But maybe something that in the US - people are not as familiar with as you are having Finnish roots - the perception of Russia in Finland is maybe something that's not fully appreciated outside of Finland. We've, for decades, lived with the memory of the events of the Second World War, and they're very much tied to Finnish independence and Finnish desire for self-determination. So for example, my father is from New Zealand, actually. And he moved to Finland over 40 years ago and married my mother. He had a very interesting conversation with my grandfather, before he married my mother. My grandfather, being a typical Finnish man, he took his future son-in-law - he saw that they were being serious - took him to the sauna. They're sitting there in the hot room - and he wasn't a man of many words - but he turned around at one point and said, what will you do when the Russians invade? And it wasn't "if", it was "when". So he was not uncommon for his generation; he'd lost his home in Korelia, in the war. These sorts of stories run in every family.
Richard Helppie
Indeed, if I could respond to that. As I was leaving my cousin's home, he points proudly to the Finnish flag. And of course, I don't speak Finn, he didn't speak any English, and as a typical Finn, that meant he just spoke louder and faster, so that I would understand. [Laughter.] But one of my other cousins interpreted, he said, he wants to show you our flag has no tools on it; no hammer, no sickle, and I'm very proud of that. And yes, the family members, of course, fought in those wars, and most of them have since passed at this point. I don't think people understand the geography and how close Finland is; it shares that long border, Barents sea ports and such; sleeping next to a giant that could wake up at any moment and decide to get hostile.
Timo Stewart
This is exactly the way Finn's feel about it. It's something that's been built into the national culture; ways of dealing with it built into society in many ways. Finns, on many levels, it's all about readiness and being prepared for crisis, for conflict, for mobilizing. So when we talk about NATO, we're not thinking to be security free-riders. We're a competent society that's learned to deal with living in a very, very tough spot. But what's changed is the assessment of the future and we feel that it's better to face these challenges together with allies rather than on our own.
Richard Helppie
Are there any policies, other than what we've discussed, that would be particularly good or particularly bad in this situation, given Russia's aggression toward Ukraine and saber rattling against other states?
Timo Stewart
Well, I think appeasement is very dangerous. That's a bad policy. I'm not too fond of historical comparisons because history sort of repeats itself but it's always unique. I think there are enough examples from the past, to see that you can't give in to bullies. If you have a country that invades his neighbor unprovoked, it can't be seen to benefit from that. So this is something that I think we should all remember going into the summer, if the war continues into next winter, and possibly rising prices, and more cracks in western unity; it may cost to fight a war, it may cost to support Ukraine fighting its war, but what they're doing essentially is fighting for all of us.
Richard Helppie
Indeed, yes. I think that's a great articulation of where we stand. I had Professor Jesse Kaufman on my show a few weeks ago, Professor of European history, and his take at that time, he doesn't see the Ukraine war ending, absent regime change, either in Ukraine or in Moscow. He doesn't see how this ends with both the current administrations in place in both countries. Do you see any way that they could resolve that? And again, I know that's not your exact area of expertise but you are studying that area. Is it possible for Putin to somehow declare victory and get out?
Timo Stewart
Hard to say, very hard to say. I think a lot will depend on the military successes and failures on the battlefield. If Russia manages to consolidate its hold over the Donbas it's possible that they could try and call it a day and freeze the frontlines and then that will be a whole different situation. If the Ukrainian defenses don't hold, if the Russians manage to break through in the east, then there's no telling. They might not stop until until they've taken Kiev. My hope is that the Ukrainians will be supported and will be able to fight on and eventually to free all their territory.
Richard Helppie
That'd be a great conclusion. Timo, well, you've been a great guest today. I'm, of course, very excited to have this opportunity. As we wrap up today, any closing thoughts at all about these topics or anything else?
Timo Stewart
It's been a long day, I guess, but I'm just very happy to be with you here on the show and to all the listeners out there, will be very happy to join as your NATO ally, hopefully in the very near future.
Richard Helppie
We look forward to having you. So on The Common Bridge with our special guest from Helsinki today, Mr. Timo Stewart, please look him up, his full bio will be on Richard Helppie's Common Bridge on Substack. Listen for us on your favorite podcast outlet, YouTube TV, and of course Mission Control Radio. So with our guest today, Timo Stewart, this is your host Rich Helppie, signing off on The Common Bridge.
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Transcribed by Cynthia Silveri
NATO Membership for Finland