OPINION:
A few decades back, I had the honor of joining friends from the Helsinki Rotary Club to bring some good cheer to Finnish war veterans during the holiday season.
It was awe-inspiring to be among those brave Finns who had tenaciously defended their homeland against overwhelming odds when the Soviet Union invaded in 1939. Serving under legendary Field Marshal (and later President) Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, Finnish soldiers used their martial skill and superior knowledge of the terrain to hold their massively larger neighbor at bay, while the Red Army — then as now — suffered from poor logistics, misguided tactics and inferior leadership.
Deploying sophisticated insurgency tactics, most famously in the Karelian Isthmus, the Finns inflicted massive casualties on the Red Army. They saved their country’s democracy and free-market economy from Stalin’s communist totalitarian police state.
I know from deep personal experience that Finns are staunchly independent. They are well known for their “sisu,” a Finnish word meaning a combination of grit, determination and resilience. Throughout their history, Finns steadfastly relied on themselves to solve whatever challenges they faced. Being part of a military alliance was simply not part of their DNA.
That is until Russia launched its unprovoked, unjust war against Ukraine in February 2022. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s army has abducted Ukrainian children; deliberately targeted civilians in their apartments, schools and maternity wards; and forced millions of Ukrainians to flee their homeland, which the Kremlin’s crimes against humanity have transformed into a perilous war zone.
Don’t buy the Kremlin’s twisted claims of Russophobia. It is Russia’s own bellicose threats and aggression that are to blame for the most destructive land war in Europe since World War II. And that very same misguided aggression is what drove Helsinki to end its long tradition of nonalignment by formally joining the NATO military alliance last week.
A European Union member since 1995, Finland has a front-row seat to the Kremlin’s coercive strategy of blackmail, extortion, espionage and military attacks, posing a direct threat to Europe’s prosperity and independence.
Finland in NATO will matter: Russia now faces a land border with NATO member states that is twice as long as it was before. Finland has a highly modern army, navy and air force backed by F-35 fighter jets; massive stocks of artillery with howitzers, mortars, anti-aircraft missiles and rocket launchers; surveillance radars; and a reserve force of almost 300,000 soldiers and an additional 900,000 citizens who can be mobilized.
With Finland, NATO will also be able to defend its Baltic members far more effectively.
Furious, the Kremlin predictably warned that if Finland joined NATO, there would be consequences including “nuclear weapons and the risk of WWIII.” It’s the same rhetorical brinkmanship that Mr. Putin has used, hoping to deter the Biden administration and its allies from giving Ukraine the military equipment needed for the existential fight against Russia.
But, just as predictably, Finland was not deterred by Russia’s bluster. In fact, President Sauli Niinisto argues that Mr. Putin’s threats have had the opposite effect. Mr. Niinisto, who has a long-standing relationship with the Russian president and a sophisticated understanding of Russia, has lauded Ukraine’s resilience and compared Mr. Putin’s war to Stalin’s “Winter War” against Finland: “These authoritarian leaders hardly understand that people in free democratic countries have their own principles and strong will.”
Mr. Putin has long cultivated his public image as a savvy KGB spy, one who rose through the ranks to become director of Russia’s Federal Security Service.
But it’s now clear he has been responsible for the most catastrophic intelligence failure since Hitler’s ill-fated invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Mr. Putin badly misread Ukraine’s will and capacity to fight, as well as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s ability to mobilize his nation and the West in defense of freedom, liberty and democracy. Mr. Putin also clearly failed to comprehend how his barbaric war on Ukraine would result in the very NATO expansion that he claimed he was trying to prevent.
Finns must surely see a lot of their own “sisu” in those brave Ukrainians fighting off murderous Russian marauders. Like the Finns, Ukrainians have fought courageously and with great ingenuity against a ruthless enemy, despite being outmanned and outgunned.
Finland’s momentous decision demonstrates that NATO has awakened from its post-Cold War slumber, a most welcome strategic triumph, at a time when the U.S.-Russian relationship is more fraught with peril than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis.
• Daniel N. Hoffman is a retired clandestine services officer and former chief of station with the Central Intelligence Agency. His combined 30 years of government service included high-level overseas and domestic positions at the CIA. He has been a Fox News contributor since May 2018. Follow him on Twitter @DanielHoffmanDC.
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