Paul R.S. Gebhard writes:

Since its founding, NATO’s key challenge has been ensuring that its members have the military means to fulfill their political commitments to each other. With Finland, which filed its application along with Sweden this week, the Alliance can rest easy: The Nordic nation not only meets the threshold criteria of defense capability for membership, but exceeds it.

The country’s experience since it secured independence from Russia in 1918 has forged a national policy of defense and resilience that would make it both a net contributor to Alliance security and a model for other NATO nations. For Finland, the Cold War never really ended; whereas many in the West divide the late twentieth century into the Cold War and post-Cold War periods, history there is not so easily parsed. Today, the Finns defend an 830-mile border with Russia—the same one with which they gained independence, then successfully defended through sheer force of national will during the Winter War with the Soviet Union.

In response to the reality of Finland’s geographic position, the Finns have developed a clear eyed, determined perspective. As a Finnish diplomat put it to me: “We are concerned, but not afraid.”

That mindset was translated into policy. When the Cold War ended, the United States and its NATO allies slashed their defense budgets, ended conscription, and reduced their total armed forces to cash in their peace dividends. But Finland never had that luxury. Reliant on its own resources for its national security, its defense spending as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) has, on average, been remarkably consistent for the last fifty years. It reduced its active-duty military force from 39,000 in 1989 to 23,000 today, but retained its policy of universal conscription for males over 18. It also increased its ability to field a fully equipped force through rapid mobilization from 250,000 to 280,000. [Continue reading…]