The Politics of Neutrality and Defence: Finnish Security Policy Since the Early 1970s

Abstract

For Finland, the last decade has been one of implementation in foreign policy and doctrine formation and material expansion in defence policy. After tracing the fundamentals of Finland's security conception, the article notes that the basic argument and strategy for an active foreign policy line, promoting peace and security, and based on acceptability of the line in the East and West, was established as early as the mid-1960s. Finland's Nordic security policy for confirming the ‘disengaged’ position of the area has been tenacious, whereas in European and global fora Finland's activity has been more dependent on the East–West climate. The three parliamentary defence committees formulated a defence doctrine legitimating the national defence system and ensuing armaments programmes dimensioned to respond to a limited conventional attack. The internal debate resulted in a consensus doctrine on how much Finnish–Soviet military cooperation to include in the defence doctrine that corresponds with the basic philosophy of Finland's foreign policy to trust in political regulation as the best security guarantee even in conflict situations. The military provisions of the Finnish–Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance are to be used actively and reliably to maintain the preventive effect of the defence arrangement. With the onset of the 1980s the debate on the increased danger of limited nuclear war is testing the credibility of the defence doctrine based on a restrictive threat conception and questioning the concept of security policy traditionally used.