Red Dawn in Lapland
outsideonline.com
outsideonline.com
I ran an ultra marathon in Lapland last winter and it's an incredible, surreal place.
Also, it was very interesting to see the pseudo-paranoia some of our hosts (here and in Estonia) had about Russia. One made the point to me that "your paranoia is justified when you've been occupied on and off so many times over the last century."
Not gonna lie, when Russia entered Crimea I got a pit in my stomach.
Exactly. Same for everybody I know in Northern Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.
In any case if you forgot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_S-363
My point about the nonchalance in Swedish culture towards Russian aggression however is less about those involved or otherwise supportive of the military – they are all but certain to keep it top of mind – but with the rest who seem to either actively campaign against the military under some naive assumption that "surely not here, we're friends!" or simply don't care.
Swedes simply don't have that deep rooted paranoia (for lack of better word – strong worry perhaps) that you'll see in for instance the Baltic states. Quite possibly because while we may have had incidents, there have been no occupation or all out conflict for so long while with the Baltic states, and indeed Finland, it's still fresh in mind.
All of the Baltics have this, not without reason. Keep in mind too that Kaliningrad is Russian and that the shortest path between Russia major and Kaliningrad runs right through Lithuania, just a little bit North of the Polish border.
With what happened in Ukraine in recent memory you can't really fault the people there for being paranoid.
With what happened in the Ukraine, you can't fairly describe the fears of Russian action in the region as paranoia.
"Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean that they're not after you", and it's corollary "just because they're after you doesn't mean that you can't be paranoid". ;)
https://twitter.com/PeopleOfFinland/status/95006224332396954...
Particularly disturbing to me was this passage in the Wiki:
The genetic makeup of Sami people has been extensively studied for as
long as such research has been in existence. Ethnographic photography
of the Sami began with the invention of the camera in the 19th century.[137]
This continued on into the 1920s and 1930s, when Sami were photographed
naked and anatomically measured by scientists, with the help of the
local police—sometimes at gunpoint—to collect data that would justify
their own racial theories.
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sami_people#Discrimination_aga...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/21/opinion/santa-christmas-m...
[1] https://www.academia.edu/4811760/An_Essay_on_Saami_Ethnoling...
Moreover, about survival, I recall tactics for nuclear war. The instructions were to take cover and use spruce branches to shake off the fallout, and then continue fighting.
Not until after they were rebuffed by Sweden and Great Britain, there was no way they were going to stand up to Russia in the longer term without outside help.
There is no geopolitical reason to invade Finland and there is also no economical reason to do so. Most companies are foreign owned and would be pulled out of Finland the moment an invasion would start. The main natural resource of Finland is trees, which Russia has more than plenty of. Adding Finland to Russia simply solves no problem whatsoever, perceived or real.
Finns ignore this. They're paranoid because their parents taught them to, whose parents taught them to until you reach turtles.
> Finland mattered because of its perch above the Baltic Sea and because its southeastern border with the Soviet Union was less than 20 miles from Leningrad. If the Germans took Finland, they would be dangerously close to this Red Army stronghold.
Just substitute Russia for "the Soviet Union", NATO for "the Germans".
Meanwhile (because of another weird fluke of Napoleonic wars), soon after the loss of Finland, one of Napoleon's capable generals (Bernadotte) was given the crown of Sweden. As a Swedish monarch who had no attachments to the lost territory and possessed the strategic acumen to realize how awesome deal it was not to have Finland around, he did not contest the conquest (plus, he could use it as a point in Congress of Vienna to negotiate Norway to be given for Sweden as "reparations"). Why it was such an amazing deal? For several hundred years, area of Finland used to be a battlefield for numerous wars fought between Sweden and Russia. Ever since Napoleon and the establishment of the buffer country called "Finland", Sweden has enjoyed a remarkably long period of uninterrupted peace.
During same period of time, Finland's history could be summarized as "Finnish people not being fond of the Russian ideas how to deal with the defense of St. Petersburg". I don't foresee this state of affairs changing anytime soon.
The question of how Finland should have responded, especially from 1941 on, is a valid topic of discussion, but this discussion must be based on fact, taking into account the context of Soviet aggression and the lack of options available to Finland. Limiting yourself to what was known at the time, what would you have advised Finland to do?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac...
Not exactly first or last time this has happened. Vietnam had been promised independence from the US after WWII, and tried to align with the US. When they US, renegaded on their promise and let France take Vietnam back, those fighting for Vietnamese independence ran out of options, and eventually allied with their last option, the Soviets.
Same with the founding of Israel. the UK and the US refused to take in jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. It left jews with the shitty option of declaring the state of Israel for their own survival.
People want to survive so they pick the options they have even if they aren't great. Then they get to listen to people from big countries moralize and criticize for the rest of their existence.
Okay, that last part was kind of exaggerated ;-)
The Finns are not the only ones who've learned lessons from the Winter War. If Russia has any plans for another invasion, you can be sure they would be keen not to get humiliated a second time. No doubt the Russians are making their own contingency plans, and undergoing their own cold-weather training in freezing terrain that Russia itself has no shortage of. It's unlikely that they would go in to Finland unprepared again.
What they're prepared for is a "strategic strike" and/or a limited scale invasion which is a part of a larger conflict in Europe. Combined arms and fast pace, but not a hybrid war like in Crimea or a separate war where Russia is only engaged in Finland. The Finnish Army reformed their doctrine quite recently [1] with the goal of ensuring adequate performance with lesser troops (war time strength has been reduced significantly in the 2000s).
[1] video with Eng subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2crAx8kibis
Russia is capable of dealing with long drawn out battles on home turf. They have not displayed that great ability to invade. To be real, neither has really the US either.
You can't underestimate an opponent fighting on home turf for their own independence against an opponent, where the soldiers don't really see the reason why they are invading in the first place.
Also remember for whatever tech or equipment the Russians have. They have really shitty democratic traditions. They don't let their men work independently. History has shown again and again that top heavy armies are ineffective.
It is how Israel beat 3x bigger Arab armies, even when the Arabs had better tech.
Russian and American forces successfully invaded German-occupied territory and Germany in the second world war.
I am interested in your world view. How did you come about to being an "authoritarian hawk," and what are the tenets of that viewpoint?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2015/03/20/one-year-a...
Seems like some people just refuse to see that?! Why??? Who is really brainwashed here?
Obviously peace is the ideal, but it's clear who the more agressive party is, the article is not about them, peace is also always bilateral. For Finland this is not about ignoring diplomacy, they don't ignore it, because they can't.
Crimea was Russian originally not Ukrainian. Of course they stole it from somebody else before that.
The Ukraine has a long history with Russia, and when the Soviet Union split up the west agreed to not try to get the Ukraine into NATO, EU or other western organizations. Russia sees the Ukraine as a buffer state and don't want the west on their doorstep.
The west broke all those promises it had given Russia. Naturally they are pissed from feeling ignored. Russia is a bit childish, but it is simple. They just want to feel respected. That is all we got to give them. When they don't feel respected. They start acting like dicks. Sure it is not fair or warranted, but we could totally avoided this if we had been smarter.
Finland has done everything it can to be friendly with Russia but Russia want's to play the role of a bully. Just few years ago Russia started to intentionally violate Finnish airspace. Finnish Air Force had to increase preparedness to the level where drivers sit in the cockpit and scramble to intercept. Today Russia is fighting constant propaganda war against Finland within Russia and inside Finland.