REMIT’s Finnish partner FIIA has come out with a new op-ed in September. FIIA’s researcher Eoin McNamara penned an article for New Eastern Europe, discussing what led to Finland’s 2023 joining of NATO, and what this means for the country, the organisation, and their mutual future.
Author Eoin McNamara says of his work: “The goal was to explain historic tendencies and cultures in Finnish security and defence policy with commentary on recent geopolitical shifts with Finland joining NATO in 2023, and how these shifts might affect geopolitics in Northern Europe and EU as a whole.”
Abstract
With over 100 years of independence, Finnish society has many achievements to celebrate. As the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland in 1906, it was the first place to introduce universal suffrage. Finland is one of the world’s most developed democracies.
The country has consolidated a successful welfare state based on a social ethos of equality and solidarity. Its economy has thrived at many intervals, with its pioneering technology sector globally prominent during the famous “Nokia boom” in the 1990s while remaining renowned for technological know-how today. What is most interesting about the social stability and prosperity that Finland enjoys is that these achievements have often been fostered amid recurring geopolitical turmoil instigated by its larger neighbour: the Soviet Union later succeeded by the Russian Federation. Violent turmoil accompanied the birth of Finnish sovereignty. As the tsarist Russian Empire buckled under pressure from the Bolshevik Revolution, Finland declared its independence on December 6th 1917.
Full Citation
McNamara, E.M. (2024), “Finland in NATO: From Finlandization to Active Integration,” New Eastern Europe, Vol. 5, 2024. https://neweasterneurope.eu/2024/09/16/finland-in-nato-from-finlandization-to-active-integration/