Security Issues Are Not Resolved by Nervousness

It is in the fundamental interests of the countries and peoples of Northern Europe to maintain and consolidate the zone of peace and stability in the region. This is not to say that those countries do not include political forces that are ready to support the entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO and to help these states become deeply integrated into the military and political structures of the North Atlantic treaty, or, on the other hand, very influential political and social circles that are firmly against such a turn of events.

The northern countries are looking for someone to have a fight with

For several post-war decades, including the Cold War years, the northern European region remained relatively stable and peaceful. The political leaders of countries in Northern Europe took some important initiatives at the beginning of the 1990s, aimed at ensuring that the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a new Russia did not have a destabilising influence on the situation in the region. They were directly involved in establishing consensus-based international cooperation forums with Russian participation on the perimeter of the northern European states’ borders, such as the Council of the Baltic Sea States, the Barents Euro-Arctic Council and the Arctic Council, providing for extensive cross-border cooperation between all the member states. These cross-border links continue to develop fruitfully today.

Russia’s very useful cooperation with the Northern European countries is reflected in four partnerships created within the framework of Northern Dimension, which deal with issues concerning transport and logistics, the environment, culture, health and social welfare. The “Vision for the Arctic” [1] statement, which was approved by consensus by the ministerial session of the Arctic Council involving the foreign ministers of five Northern European countries, Russia, the USA and Canada in Kiruna in May 2013, emphasised that the member-countries’ efforts were focused on the “further development of the Arctic region as a zone of peace and stability. We are convinced that there are no problems that we cannot jointly solve through cooperation on the basis of existing international law and goodwill”.

It is in the fundamental interests of the countries and peoples of Northern Europe to maintain and consolidate the zone of peace and stability in the region. This is not to say that those countries do not include political forces that are ready to support the entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO and to help these states become deeply integrated into the military and political structures of the North Atlantic treaty, or, on the other hand, very influential political and social circles that are firmly against such a turn of events.

The previous coalition government in Sweden, which was very favourably disposed towards a shift in the country’s traditional policy, stepped up its links with the alliance but did not decide to raise the issue of NATO membership. It is difficult to convince the Swedes, who in 2014 marked the 200th anniversary of the country’s non-involvement in wars, that the country’s traditional non-aligned policy now needs to be radically revised.

Recently Finland’s prime minister Alexander Stubb expressed the view that the country’s new government, which will be formed after the April parliamentary elections, should raise the question of whether the country should join NATO. He obviously believes that Finland will greatly strengthen its security and opportunities for developing the cooperation with Russia that is so advantageous to it if it turns into a NATO member-country with a 1,300 km-long border with Russia. Not only foreign minister Erkki Tuomioja disagreed with him, but also the people who took part in a February public opinion poll in the country conducted by the Finnish economic research centre EVA: only 26% of the country’s citizens supported the idea of joining NATO.

NORDEFCO

Both the leading member-states of the alliance and Finnish and Swedish supporters of NATO membership for these two Nordic countries are trying to keep this idea afloat, constantly trying to influence public discussions with arguments that are varied but essentially the same. These are mainly attempts to intimidate the population with the threats which are allegedly emanating from modern-day Russia. Therefore the existence of such discussions which are constantly stirred up and imposed on the public in no way means there is broad support for the idea of NATO membership in Swedish and Finnish society.

The recent election of the Social-Democratic government in Sweden took place to the accompaniment of a campaign about foreign submarines suddenly appearing in the skerries near Stockholm, which the astute Swedish military unerringly identified as Russian boats, although they could not actually produce serious evidence to support their conjecture. This is not required, however, because the impact on public opinion and the pressure on the incoming government in the necessary spirit had already occurred.

While not reneging on the Norwegian government programme for development for the northern regions of the country, which was announced in 2006 and augmented in 2009, in which Russia was proclaimed a key partner in its practical implementation, and not winding it up, the Conservative Party that came to power in Norway after the last parliamentary elections has intensified the ritual bellicose anti-Russian rhetoric, for the benefit of its main military and political ally, the USA, rather than because of any real growing apprehension about the “Russian threat”. Norway has joined in the sanctions against Russia, a key partner in the implementation of the government’s programme to develop the country’s northern regions, demonstrating that there is room for elements of political masochism in its government.

It is difficult to call the plans announced by Norway’s defence minister Ine Eriksen Søreide to raise the state of readiness of the country’s armed forces to “rapid response to possible events” extraordinary, since any country’s defence ministry has to deal with such things constantly. The minister also announced the intention to step up military cooperation with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which was obviously meant to sound threatening.

When assessing the current events taking place in the countries of Northern Europe it is appropriate to take into account the long-term processes of development. Among their political leaders and general public there is a firmly held conviction that to stand together in defending the shared interests of the small countries in the region on international issues is more effective than the efforts of individual states. Close cooperation on international issues and coordination of foreign policy actions enable the northern countries to act as an influential community of states which is constantly increasing its political weight on the international stage and to secure both its own national independence and its state sovereignty. One would like to emphasise especially that sub-regional foreign policy cooperation is developing outside the framework of the North Atlantic Treaty. On issues on which the positions of the northern European states vary they act autonomously and independently of each other.

Aija Lehtonen
Finnish cadets

The integration processes that have undergone impressive development in the sub-region are aimed at using the inherent integration measures to constantly expand the sphere of shared or coinciding interests of the “Big Five” northern European states on basic issues and thereby to create a constantly strengthening basis for further deepening their foreign policy cooperation, which is far stronger than the shaky basis of political agreements.

As is known, in 2009 the countries of Northern Europe concluded an agreement on defence cooperation (NORDEFCO), under which each of them is entitled to choose the spheres and levels of that cooperation. The association they created is not a military alliance; it allows bilateral cooperation between individual Nordic countries on matters of interest to them, and also the involvement of other countries in that cooperation.

I would like to note in relation to this that the countries of Northern Europe started to pay increased attention to the Baltic states as soon as they gained their independence, and focused on developing various forms of cooperation with them. The cooperation between the Nordic and Baltic states has acquired an organisational framework, and meetings of prime ministers, foreign ministers, industry ministers and also officials are constantly being held. From 1996 to 2003 cooperation with the Baltic states was undertaken, in particular, within the framework of the Baltic countries’ peacekeeping battalion (BALTBAT), and the joint air space surveillance and control system (BALTNET), the joint Baltic naval squadron (BALTRON) and the Baltic countries’ defence college (BALTDEFCOL) in Tartu continue to operate. Sweden, Finland and Norway, together with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and also Ireland, are part of the Nordic Battlegroup, which was created under the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy, and cooperate within it in fulfilling the “Petersberg tasks”.

Expansion of the sphere of shared or coinciding interests of the northern and Baltic states through various forms of cooperation is intended to add another three countries to the northern European “Big Five” with the aim of gradually creating an influential bloc of eight small European states acting in solidarity on international issues on which their positions are close or coincide and thus increasing their political weight in the international arena. So far they are only at the beginning of this long road, because the northern European integration processes have an indirect bearing on the Baltic states. Norway’s intention to step up military cooperation with the Baltic states is therefore entirely bound up with the long-term northern European strategy and with the conditions enshrined in NORDEFCO, while the Ukraine crisis has served as a reason for specific actions in this area.

1. Kiruna Vision for the Arctic, document available for open-access download, http://www.arctic-council.org/index.php/ru/document-archive/category/425-main-documents-from-kiruna-ministerial-meeting