Fred Kaplan writes:

The fact that Finland and Sweden are about to join NATO is even more remarkable than many media accounts portray. Not only have both countries maintained a studied neutrality for many decades, they—especially Finland—have done so under the thumb of pressure from Moscow.

During the Cold War, the term Finlandization was coined to describe a nominally independent country whose foreign (and, to some extent, domestic) policies were dictated by a neighboring great power.

In the 1970s, when West Germany led the way in pursuing friendly relations with the Soviet Union, some U.S. officials feared that Moscow would exploit the overtures and “Finlandize” our front-line ally in the East-West standoff. Just a few months ago, when Vladimir Putin was surrounding Ukraine with military forces, some suggested Finlandization as a way to stave off an invasion.

This is why it ranks so high in the catalog of unlikely events, in this era of unlikely events, that Finland—along with its neighbor in neutrality, Sweden—stands poised to join not just the world’s most powerful military alliance but an alliance whose main purpose is to contain Russian aggression. [Continue reading…]