[Fredrik]

There simply is no purpose right now in joining NATO. It would not enhance your security, and the obligations you would have being part of NATO would outweigh any benefits you might get from that.

I however don't see NATO doing a lot to help little Finland whether they are member or not, unless they in turn have something to gain. NATO would not risk war just for little Finland unless once again they had reasons to want war.
Seriosuly, when has a nation gone to war for someone else unless they had something to gain?

+1.

In a few years, we will be completely dependent on Russia for our non-renewable energy. There isn't much we can offer them in exchange for their oil, NG and coal. A friendly, dependable buffer zone in front of St. Petersburg could be valuable for them.

In addition to the close relationship between the Estonian language and the FInnish language, the Estonians themselves have long been considered by academic ethnologists to be a Finnic people closely related to the Finns. This ethnic link was made partly because of the fact that the Estonian language shares many similarities to Finnish. but the assignment of Estonians as a Finnic people has been recently been confirmed and proven beyound a doubt by DNA studies. In fact maternal DNA studies suggest the Finns and Estonians share a common ancestor-- a woman who lived about 50,000 years ago, during marine isotope stage 3 i.e. during the mid-Wurm glaciation of the most recent Ice Age.

I appreciate your interest in our history. The common "mother tongue" of Finnish and Estonian was spoken about 2,000 years ago, and the languages haven't changed much since. Genetically, Finns have somewhat more of the Asiatic N3 paternal haplo group (which came to North Europe from Central Asia via Siberia), whereas Estonians can trace more of their ancient paternal ancestry to Ukraine and South Russia (haplo group R1). In both nations, maternal genes came almost exclusively from West Europe.

[Munqi]

In a few years, we will be completely dependent on Russia for our non-renewable energy. There isn't much we can offer them in exchange for their oil, NG and coal. A friendly, dependable buffer zone in front of St. Petersburg could be valuable for them.

No finn would ever accept an alliance with Russia if we had to choose between Europe and it. Or even America and Russia.

[IslandCrow]

NO

The cost of changing the military system here to fit in with Nato will be very high, and a depression is not the right time to start spending extra money.

The defense policy (since the peace treaties with USSR at the end of WWII), has been to have a big enough force to prevent an attack on Russia through Finnish territory. This meant a large conscript force (where most males are trained) but a very small standing army. To change this to be able to take part in rapid reaction forces anywhere else (as per requirements of Nato) would need to expand the standing army part and a lot of new hardware.

Going back to the collapse of the Soviet Union, in some circles related to the military (ie old, not current, officers), the fear was not an invasion by the Russian military, but there was the fear of what could Finland do if Russia collapsed so much that it would revert to sending around 5 million hungry citizens over the border to find food/shelter that it coiuld no longer provide.

[Plantagenet]

The defense policy (since the peace treaties with USSR at the end of WWII), has been to have a big enough force to prevent an attack on Russia through Finnish territory.

Modern Finns are actually mainly worried about NATO and/or Sweden attacking Russia through Finnish territory and Finnish defence policy isn't designed to deter the possibility of another invasion of Finland by Russia?

Frankly, I find that hard to believe.

[Micki]

The defense policy (since the peace treaties with USSR at the end of WWII), has been to have a big enough force to prevent an attack on Russia through Finnish territory.

Modern Finns are actually mainly worried about NATO and/or Sweden attacking Russia through Finnish territory and Finnish defence policy isn't designed to deter the possibility of another invasion of Finland by Russia?

Frankly, I find that hard to believe.

Sweden attacking Russia???? What a larf.
Has someone hacked your account???? You posts are just getting weirder. First Iran repeatedly threatening Israel and now this....

[Tanada]

IMO Finland should avoid foreign entangelments in the form of military alliances.

I wish my country were wise enough to do this as well.

[Pops]

NATO died in Afghanistan.

[jaakkeli]

The defense policy (since the peace treaties with USSR at the end of WWII), has been to have a big enough force to prevent an attack on Russia through Finnish territory.

Modern Finns are actually mainly worried about NATO and/or Sweden attacking Russia through Finnish territory and Finnish defence policy isn't designed to deter the possibility of another invasion of Finland by Russia?

Not modern Finns, but Stalin-era Russians. That explanation may sound weird to foreigners, but that's basically it. After World War II, Finland was forced to sign a defense treaty with the Soviet Union against attacks from the West. They were not so much worried about Sweden, though, but remember, Norway was occupied by Germany pretty quickly and Sweden could have been easily taken by them. That's what the Russians were worried about.

Defending Russia from Western attacks was the basis of Finland's *official* defense policy until the collapse of communism. Unofficially, people had other plans, but that's what the official army was built for after WWII and it has not been greatly reformed after the collapse of communism. There's now a big debate on reforming some rather outdated structures and NATO is an obvious option.

[Fredrik]

In a few years, we will be completely dependent on Russia for our non-renewable energy. There isn't much we can offer them in exchange for their oil, NG and coal. A friendly, dependable buffer zone in front of St. Petersburg could be valuable for them.

No finn would ever accept an alliance with Russia if we had to choose between Europe and it. Or even America and Russia.

Not even if our (already modest) electricity and fuel supplies depended on such an alliance? (We should be glad if a political alliance is all Russia required!)

I think basic necessities will triumph over traditional nationalist sensibilities pretty much everywhere. The global web of alliances is going to look rather different ten years from now.

[Alcassin]

Well for so many years Finland was dealing with USSR so succesfully that I think it would be a sign of weakness.

[Nickel]

Of course Estonia is a different nation then Finland. However, the Estonian language is closely related to Finnish.

That's not what you said. You said the Estonians WERE Finns, not spoke a language related to Finnish. You might as well have said the Germans were Englishmen. Hey, some of them even know English!

[Nickel]

Modern Finns are actually mainly worried about NATO and/or Sweden attacking Russia through Finnish territory and Finnish defence policy isn't designed to deter the possibility of another invasion of Finland by Russia?

Frankly, I find that hard to believe.

Yeah; there's even a name for the process; it's called -- get this -- "Finlandization".

[dorlomin]

I think basic necessities will triumph over traditional nationalist sensibilities pretty much everywhere. The global web of alliances is going to look rather different ten years from now.

Russia’s gas is not as never ending and bountiful as many portray it. Gazprom is steadily relying more and more on FSU state like Kazakhstan to provide the gas and they will provide the infrastructure to get it too market.

[Fredrik]

I think basic necessities will triumph over traditional nationalist sensibilities pretty much everywhere. The global web of alliances is going to look rather different ten years from now.

Russia’s gas is not as never ending and bountiful as many portray it. Gazprom is steadily relying more and more on FSU state like Kazakhstan to provide the gas and they will provide the infrastructure to get it too market.

From what I've read I've gathered that there's still plenty of gas in remote locations in Siberia, but it takes a lot of investment and work to bring it online. In any case, the proportion of gas in the energy mix is bound to decline in Russia as well, following oil. Coal will be the major energy source in (and hopefully, from) Russia after 2025.

[dorlomin]

I think basic necessities will triumph over traditional nationalist sensibilities pretty much everywhere. The global web of alliances is going to look rather different ten years from now.

Russia’s gas is not as never ending and bountiful as many portray it. Gazprom is steadily relying more and more on FSU state like Kazakhstan to provide the gas and they will provide the infrastructure to get it too market.

From what I've read I've gathered that there's still plenty of gas in remote locations in Siberia, but it takes a lot of investment and work to bring it online. In any case, the proportion of gas in the energy mix is bound to decline in Russia as well, following oil. Coal will be the major energy source in (and hopefully, from) Russia after 2025.

You could always look to Norway for renewables like hydro and wind, plus using Finnish sourced wood to suppliment any coal (or gas) fired power stations. The UK also now has some big LNG terminals being built to buy from Quatar and is well linked into the main Euro gas distribution grid. Going for LNG is always an option although that means competition with Asia, but IMHO, keeping a big (100 day plus) store of gas and building and then mothballing LNG terminals so if someone steps on the pipeline you can get (expensive) gas from the LNG markets.

My sense is that energy is moving up the EU agenda at quite some speed. I think that EU wide energy co-operation is our best road to avoiding the doomers dystopias.

[Plantagenet]

After World War II, Finland was forced to sign a defense treaty with the Soviet Union against attacks from the West. They were not so much worried about Sweden, though, but remember, Norway was occupied by Germany pretty quickly and Sweden could have been easily taken by them. That's what the Russians were worried about.

Thanks...thats very interesting about the "defense treaty" that the Russians forced on the Finns.

The invasion of Norway by the Nazis is a funny thing to choose as an example of what the Soviets feared. Perhaps the facts about this have been whitewashed out of current history books in Russia, but the invasion of France and Norway by the Nazis was agreed to in advance by the by Soviets in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact (aka Hitler-Stalin Pact) where the two countries planned their joint invasion of Poland, and then agreed that Germany should invade the countries to the west while Russia simultaneously invaded countries to the east (leading to the WWII invasion of Finland by the Russian communists, of course----).

[Micki]

It is also little known fact that Finland actually was forced to declare war on Germany. One of the Sovjet terms to Finland was that Finnish territory had to be emptied of Axis forces within a certain amount of time or the countries would be in a astate of war again. The finns were therefore forced to turn their guns against their former ally.

Yes, it was agreed in the pact that Finland would fall on the Sovjet side. It is however unlikely that Sovjet would have put the effort that it did on Finland just for the principal and given that Finland had limited resources the Sovjets could be interested in it stands pretty clear that it was Finland's strategic location that was of greater importance than anything else.
I would even posit that it wasn't just for protection purposes (attacks from Norway as well as defence of the waters out to Attlantic ocean and buffer for Leningrad) but as a launching pad for future invasions. It must have been very tempting for Sovjet to consider taking all of Scandinavia.

[Tuike]

While I was googling I found this new Finnish Doomer site in the internet.

http://www.samassaveneessa.info/

There's all the basic stuff like peak oil explained on the main pages, then there is a forum, where are main topics such as, planning to the future, energy depletion, economic meltdown, food and starvation, climate change and not forgetting tin foil topics! There are not yet many posts there, the forum came up I think in late November 2008.

I have bookmarked the page!

[Micki]

Should heating oil be in short supply you'll have to move into the sauna. Hope most people were sensible enought to keep the wood fired burners in the sauna instead of installing those horrible electrical ones.
But you don't have to go far mack in time when finns generally lived under very simple conditions. With the possible exception of some spoilt city kids I think finns are mentally better suited than most to handle a power down. As long as koskenkorva can keep the conveyorbelts going that is.

[SeaGypsy]

Finland is possibly the best place in Europe to be in a well prepared situation; untold numbers of lakes, massive forests and a traditional land system allowing for a family fishing cabin.
My GF from Helsigfors family had a cabin 6 lake crossings by canoe from the nearest road. Summer was mosquitoes and berries; winter was ice fishing. What a brilliant idea! Fishing cabin on Skis; you drag it out onto the ice and drill a hole under the floor. While fishing in arctic cold listening to the radio by the potbelly stove.
Finland and the Fins are scary enough to not be messed with; Russia and Sweden both had various attempts at subdung them.