Finland's NATO membership: Continuous shelter‐seeking strategy

Abstract

This article offers a challenge, in the form of an illustrative case study, to the notion that Finland's NATO membership is a radical reversal in security policy. With the use of shelter theory, it examines how Finland (as a small state), beginning in the Cold War, has actively sought to achieve political, economic and societal shelter from Western organizations. However, due to geopolitical restraints, the country has at various times been unable to fully adopt preferred shelter arrangements, especially within the military security sphere. The analysis indicates that the institutionalisation of Finland's shelter strategy has often been a tedious, diplomatic quest to integrate with the West, contingent upon opportunistically taking advantage of external ‘critical junctures’ to solidify its own interests. The article posits that Finland's pursuit of Western economic and societal shelter during the Cold War transformed into further Western political shelter‐seeking in its aftermath and, finally, membership of NATO in 2023. The case of Finland indicates that shelter theory captures the foreign policy strategy of a small neutral/nonaligned state. Nevertheless, our specific case also indicates that the theory ought to take a closer look at four features regarding relations between small and large states, that is how an agressive neighbour can restrict a small state's foreign policy choices, how economic and societal shelter relations may precede political shelter relations (or vice versa), the role of critical junctures within shelter theory, and, finally, how a history of cooperation may be transitioned into full‐fledged shelter.

Sweden's quest for shelter: ‘Nonalignment' and NATO membership

“…However, forced or coerced cooperative arrangements, where a larger actor pressures the smaller into an agreement, do not fall within the parameters of shelter; shelter-seeking is a deliberate foreign policy strategy by small states to acquire sufficient shelter from larger entities. In other words, an arrangement is only an instance of shelter when the smaller player has sufficient agency (Thorhallsson & Stude Vidal, 2023).…”

“…Shelter theory is recognised as one of the grand theories within small‐state literature in explaining foreign policy strategies of small states (Wivel, 2021), and has been used to explain the policy behaviour of numerous small states, including all five Nordic states, the three Baltic states, Singapore, Armenia and Cuba (see Bailes et al, 2017; Bailes & Thorhallsson, 2017; Thorhallsson & Stude Vidal, 2023).…”

“…A Swedish effort towards membership was believed to also cause Finland to follow suit, likely amplifying instability in the Nordic region (Ericsson, 1996). Concurrently, economic interdependence, and the forces of globalisation—receiving significant tailwind in Europe following the collapse of the Soviet system—spawned a general notion that the new Russia could eventually assume a democratic, militarily responsible and cooperative political modus operandi , a hypothetical development that many European states, perhaps naively, put faith in (Thorhallsson & Stude Vidal, 2023; Tiilikainen, 2001). Ultimately, geostrategic comforts, geopolitical predictions and identity factors contributed to the Swedish decision to continue with alliance politics along recognised lines, and to reject full‐fledged NATO membership even after the fall of the Soviet Union.…”

“…Theoretically, the case of Sweden does not constitute an exemption to the premise inherent to shelter theory, namely, it accurately depicts the foreign policy strategy of a small-state. Nevertheless, some of the theoretical lessons learned by the Swedish NATO application serve as reinforcement to those gathered by the Finnish case, which have already been discussed (see Thorhallsson & Stude Vidal, 2023). These include more meticulously examining the role and extent to which societal and economic shelter-seeking may precede and affect political shelter-seeking (or vice versa) and assessing the potential role of 'critical junctures' within the shelter theory framework.…”