On February 24, much of Europe was shocked by the footage of Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. But citizens of Finland have spent decades watching detailed videos about how their society would respond to a foreign military attack. The most recent video is two years old: “Battlefield 2020.”
Ever since Finland gained independence from Russia in 1917, it has been preparing for a new invasion along its over 830-mile Eastern border. While the country has a population of less than six million, mandatory military service has swelled the ranks of its defense forces. The nation’s artillery capability is stronger than anywhere else in Northern or Western Europe, and it purchased dozens of American F-35 stealth jets earlier this year for over $9 billion USD.
This vigilance has created a culture of preparation in the Nordic country which may sit uneasily with its democratic character. In the global imagination, Finland exists as a democratic welfare state with a strong education system and high levels of happiness. Yet its history and geopolitical position have produced a unique people with a strong commitment to security issues on the impending new northern front of NATO.
Finland was an autonomous part of the Russian empire from 1809 until 1917 when it expelled the remnants of Russian imperial control. In the Second World War, the state defended itself against the Soviet Union twice and has been a de facto part of the Western world for decades. Finland’s attempts to balance its relations with the powers that surround it gave rise to the Cold War term “Finlandization”: the strategy of making concessions to a stronger bordering country to maintain independence.
In the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Finland did not relax into complacency. Unlike much of Europe, it did not repeal military drafts, cut military funding, or halt some forms of crisis preparation. Even Sweden, Finland’s western neighbor, temporarily deactivated its military service in 2010. In Finland, many deemed preparing for the worst nearly as crucial as before, and maintaining this attitude, never disposed of the twentieth-century organizations put in place to protect its safety.
“In a way, Finland’s National Emergency Agency is a remnant of a past world,” noted Katri Liekkilä, who serves as the agency’s International Relations Manager.
Beyond maintaining stockpiles of essential materials and goods, the functions of the agency range from fostering higher digital and cyber security in critical sectors to facilitating public-private cooperation. The organization works to secure the continued functionality of all the systems critical to the population’s livelihoods as well as the nation’s economy and defense.
For example, to protect the country’s energy infrastructure against foreign manipulation, Finland organized a joint cyber drill at the end of September in which government officials and energy businesses from the capital region practiced handling prolonged power outages.
In Liekkilä’s view, this is the essence of comprehensive security: finding out how different fields can collaborate with and learn from each other in times of crisis. Different levels of government can also use the agency’s framework to gather relevant information from each other.
Besides Finland, Switzerland is among the few countries in Europe which still integrate civilian and military emergency preparedness. Although the European Union (EU) requires all member states to maintain significant emergency stocks of crude oil or petroleum, few have centralized organizations dedicated to security of supply and strategic stockpiling that rival Finland’s. In the US, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) shares many of the same tasks of its Finnish counterpart, but many functions, such as protecting critical infrastructure, are also decentralized to other governmental organizations.
In particular, Liekkilä lists its National Emergency Supply Fund as one of the country’s greatest successes in upholding security of supply and preparedness levels. The fund is not a part of budget negotiations, so it cannot be subject to cuts by the government.
The ultimate basis of Finnish security is conscription: six to eleven months of military service is mandatory for all male citizens before turning 30. As a result, most citizens have a personal connection to the Finnish Defence Forces.
“The contacts you make in different sectors of society while completing your military service stick with you throughout your life,” explained Aila Henriksson, a recent 23-year-old conscript from Espoo. Even after conscripts leave the service, the small and united nature of the country leads to security cooperation spanning the public and private sectors.
The mobilization of Finnish society around national security has produced a culture of preparedness and unity that stands out among European states.
“In Finland, it is a source of pride for many parents to have their children complete military service,” Liekkilä explained. She emphasized that this has traditionally been the case. In this regard, Finland is somewhat of an anomaly, she continued — “in many other European nations, if you walk in their streets in military wear, you might attract deprecatory gazes.”
A universally-held commitment to national security appears in the vast number of civil organizations and high demand for voluntary defense courses. After working as a contractual soldier for months after the end of her required year in service, Henriksson has also taken up further voluntary training.
“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has only increased my willingness to protect my country,” she said. Finland constantly ranks among the highest in Europe for citizens’ will to defend the state against foreign aggressors.
Perhaps the most vivid depiction of the motivation that drives this culture is the Defense Forces’ video shown to Finnish conscripts, “Battlefield 2020.”
In the 18-minute video, a news anchor details a hypothetical crisis scenario in which tensions have risen in the Baltic Sea region. In this scenario, an adversary attempts to gradually jeopardize Finland’s defense capabilities. The audience witnesses the attack proceed from telecom failures to submarine sightings and then a serious land invasion. The educational video showcases how reservists are brought into active service and all Finnish authorities come together to combat a foreign threat.
Henriksson admitted that watching the piece makes her emotional.
“While the video evokes a certain type of fear, it also makes me proud and grateful that Finland would fare well in times of crisis,” Henriksson said. “It showcases that the whole country, even beyond conscripts, has a duty to protect our country.”
For citizens out of military service, the country also organizes large-scale National Defence Courses four times a year. These courses are a place for representatives from Finland’s most vital institutions across public and private sectors to mingle, discuss, and learn about Finland’s foreign, security, and defense policy.
“This way, all sectors of society share the same basic idea of the current position the state finds itself in,” said Johanna Vuorelma, a political researcher from the University of Helsinki.
This culture of preparedness has been showcased again since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine. At the end of September, Vladimir Putin reiterated his threats about using nuclear weapons. Eleven days later, Finnish authorities emphasized that all citizens under 40 should have iodine at their homes to protect themselves in case of nuclear fallout. Within hours, long lines had formed at pharmacies.
Henriksson has retained a calm attitude towards individual preparation.
“I am trying to cause as little panic around me as possible while still following the necessary precautions, buying the iodine tablets and so on.”
Finland has achieved such high levels of preparedness and unanimity in part through its robust, globally-renowned democratic government.
The country is perhaps best known internationally for its education system and high rankings in the happiness index. Liekkilä noted, “Historically, quality education from an early age has brought the nation together.”
Finland also benefits from a relatively stable government.
“Due to the multiparty system, there are no major political swings in government officials every four years,” Vuorelma said.
In all, Vuorelma concluded that Finnish people place high trust in institutions and abide by government recommendations because of the healthy democratic system.
However, in some ways, a focus on security strategy may be difficult to reconcile with the democratic culture in Finland. In foreign policy, a strong consensus-seeking culture can sometimes prevail over democratic dissent and debate.
For instance, when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine led Finland to consider seeking NATO membership, the president, the prime minister, and other key players in Finnish foreign policy abstained from stating their views immediately. Opinion polls in January showed 28% of the public supporting NATO, which quickly rose to 54% in the days following the invasion. Between March and May, when the political leadership finally voiced their unanimous support for applying for the alliance, public endorsement for the decision had reached 76%.
Finnish leaders explained their silence as deference to public deliberation. Some expressed that politicians should have acted more quickly given the uncertainty of the timeline and scale of Russian aggression in Ukraine. For many Finns, however, this time allowed them to evaluate the decision more thoroughly.
Henriksson’s opinion about NATO shifted toward consensus during this deliberative period.
“In my close circles, the spring was met with a lot of anxiety. I, then, gained a better understanding of how much added security the alliance would bring while developing the Defence Forces through international cooperation,” she recounts.
Yet as public opinion took shape, Vuorelma sometimes saw some of her peers face more pressure for consensus than deliberation. She recalls that many researchers have raised significant concerns about whether the publicly expressed viewpoints, both during that deliberative period and after it, have been diverse enough.
“I have colleagues who have received death threats for publicly voicing critical views about Finland’s NATO membership application,” she said.
“When it comes to security issues, the information is often classified, which makes it difficult to be considered transparently in a democratic process. Overall, a militaristic atmosphere is not always favorable for democratic conversations.”
Some also view the securitization of society as a question of prioritization: how should the government allocate its resources in the face of unprecedented threats?
Although the preparedness of the health sector traditionally falls under the duties of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, when Finland abruptly found itself needing large supplies of face masks at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the task was allocated to the National Emergency Supply Agency. As the agency did not have an appropriate procurement function in place for completing the unexpected assignment thoroughly, it received stark criticism for its failure to deliver appropriate face coverings in a timely manner. Some of the contracts it formed with individual entrepreneurs also proved unsuccessful, leading to the resignation of the agency’s CEO.
The inadequate level of cross-governmental coordination ultimately led to a mask shortage in the country, which made it difficult for the coalition government to instate a recommendation for using face coverings until months into the pandemic. Liekkilä underlines that while better coordination and a whole-of-society approach is needed, the core of the agency’s priorities are in enabling the continuity of critical societal functions and support to national defense.
For many years, the Finnish culture of preparedness may have seemed archaic or paranoid to many global observers, but Finns see events of the past year as proof of the importance of their preparations.
Right now, many view this prioritization of “hard security” as more reasonable than ever. As Russia continues to use energy as a weapon against European countries, Finland is not alone in concerns over its energy infrastructure. Suspicious disruptions to the Nord Stream pipelines continue to occur and European leaders have voiced increased worries regarding further hybrid attacks.
According to Liekkilä, both the pandemic and Russian invasion have led more and more foreign leaders to recognize the need for a centralized security organization such as the one she represents. Vuorelma also believes that the rest of the world could benefit from bringing the Finnish model of National Defense Courses to their own countries.
If the present moment, then, comes with a sense of vindication to the Finnish people, it also comes with more visible evidence of its eastern neighbor’s aggression than they have seen in decades. This latest invasion has spurred another move towards alliance with Western Europe and the United States, continuing a halting trend in Finnish history around moments of crisis. When the Soviet Union collapsed in December of 1991, Finland sought membership in the European Community just three months later. The organization soon became integrated into the European Union.
Now, the country is only two ratifications away from voting to join the North Atlantic Alliance, a process that has taken around half a year to change 30 years of policy after the collapse of the Soviet Union. If and when Finland joins NATO, it will more than double the alliance’s eastern border with Russia, leaving more questions about East-West relations in Europe long after the war in Ukraine has ended.
For such a watershed moment, it was not politically elected leaders but rather consensus-based public opinion which led the process towards application. Vuorelma believes at least one politician is responsible for the shift:
“I guess you could say that it was Putin himself.”