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The Eurasian Politician - Issue 4 (August 2001)
By: Dr. Jukka Tarkka
Originally published in Turun Sanomat, 5th June 2001
The enlargement of the European Union and NATO in the Baltic Sea orbit creates interests and aspirations that cannot be understood without taking into consideration the historical memory left by the Soviet Union.
The Baltic states are striving to release themselves from the backwardness brought about by half a century of Soviet power. West European states share an unexplicated need to make up to the Baltic nations for that they were abandoned by the West in the time of need.
Finland’s joining to the European Union was a same kind of postume reaction to the oppressive hegemony of the Soviet Union as is the aspiration for NATO membership for the Baltic countries. Since the Baltic countries had harder experiences than Finland had, they are not satisfied with the mere European Union, as Finland perhaps is.
Finland survived both the World War II and the Cold War as an independent and healthy nation. Now she is trying to adapt into the success gained by hard work, yet without being self-satisfied.
In the course of centuries Sweden has always made it better than Finland, and they have not even had to struggle. Now Sweden is trying to adapt into her easy success.
The influence of the Cold War is visible in the difference of Swedish and Finnish attitude towards the European Union. For Finland it is a national achievement and object of active development. For Sweden it is a boring self-evidence, and it is popular social entertainment to mock about it.
The Baltic countries do not see or recognize the security effect of the EU, although Finland is an excellent piece of evidence of the membership’s political effectivity. The Balts can only be satisfied with a NATO security guarantee. Many wise guys of outside world, including the foreign political leadership of Finland, is trying to slow down the Baltics’ excessive enthusiasm for NATO.
According to the alarmists, provoking Russia in vain would again create a division line in Europe, when we have just got rid of them. It would shake the region’s stability. It would increase insecurity.
Their wisdom, however, is based on yesterday’s truths and ignores the present. There is already a division line in the Baltic Sea orbit. It is an unstable region suffering of a security deficit.
Russia, and many Westerners, too, demand the Baltic nations to give up what they estimate themselves to be good for their own security. This kind of demands create instability, because unfulfilled wishes will inevitably erupt sometimes, in one way or another.
Russia announces and manifests that she considers the Baltic countries as a part of her interest sphere. Instability is created by somebody announcing to use power where people do not want to submit to such power.
New division lines are not created in Europe by the Baltic states joining a security structure that they desire. A division line is rather created if the West quietly accepts such countries to Russia’s interest sphere, that do not want to belong to it.
The Baltic Sea was once called "the Sea of Peace" [by the Finnish left], which meant that the Soviet navy ruled its open sea and the Soviet army prevailed on its shores. That was only apparent stability and the instability it covered started to erupt as soon as the military might containing it ceased to be.
Both Sweden and Finland claimed that they were outsiders of the Cold War. Actually both were, however, in its front line, but on opposite sides. Sweden for her own will, Finland against her will.
Sweden was secretly an eager helper of the NATO. She built up a sizeable infrastructure to be a credible part of the West’s defence.
Finland claimed to be neutral, but the Soviet Union manifested that she considered Finland as the support region against aggression to her north-west side. Everyone could see this by a short look at the map, and everyone understood it, however hard the Finns tried to camouflage.
Open acceptance for Russia’s claims on interest spheres in the present situation would create worse instability than was the tension pressed under cover in the Soviet times.
The ostensible balance of the Cold War is still influencing on the background of the present situation, like history usually influences.
The historical experiences of the Baltic countries are so traumatic that the European Union, which fulfils the dreams of the Finns almost perfectly, hardly satisfies the first wishes of the Baltics. Only NATO can do good to them, and they feel being in lethal danger without it.
Besides history, the feeling of insecurity in the Baltic countries is based on the security and military doctrines of present Russia, and on her political behaviour.
Russian opposition against NATO membership of the Baltic countries can also be interpreted as an evidence of that fact that the Kremlin has goals, which would be harder to achieve if the Baltics would join the Western defensive alliance.
In his presidential campaign last year, Vladimir Putin spoke about the greatness of Russia and the strength of the Russian state in a manner that resembled parade patriotism of the Soviet era. The Baltic nations know what "Russia’s greatness" and the "strenght of its state" actually mean.
The Russian military doctrine adopted in the 1990s the concept of "Near Abroad". According to this concept, Russia can intervene, also in military means, in the internal affairs of her nearby regions if Russian minorities there are treated badly. The most crucial target area of this message were the Baltics.
The military doctrine, based on the security concept that was revised last year, no longer speaks of "Near Abroad". Instead, it defines the situations in which Russia announces to take a right to use military power, including nuclear weapons.
Such a situation would be, for example, that a state "in regard to which Russia has security obligations" sets up for military co-operation with a nuclear state or with an alliance armed with nuclear weapons. Between the rows there is a reference to the Baltic countries.
The naval doctrine based on the security concept describes the worst threat against Russian naval power to be that the Russian navy would be closed off from oceans. This has been Russia’s worst nightmare since Peter the Great’s times.
The doctrine defines it as Russia’s goal to thwart all such countries and alliances, which could limit the movement of Russian naval power, from the coasts of access passages to oceans. Nothing has changed since the times of the Soviet era – and neither since the times of czarist Russia.
The weakness of present Russia gives the West an opportunity for a light smile at these doctrines. However, those who have own experience of what these hard rhetorics may mean in practise, can not afford to be light-minded.
Also the NATO might already now have its own stakes on the chessboard of the Baltic Sea region.
A new strategic concept approved by the NATO summit in 1999 includes a new notion of crises, where NATO has security interests, although there would not be the defence obligation based on the 5th Article of the Alliance Treaty. The referent crises are thereby named "non-Article 5 crisis".
According to this, the NATO is prepared to interfere also crises evolving outside its own territory, if it seems that their escalation might lead to threatening situations for the Alliance.
Therefore the NATO is not indifferent about what Russia will do to the Baltic countries, even though they would not yet be members of the NATO.
Instability in the Baltic Sea region is based, on one hand, on the fact that the Baltic countries want to alter the situation by joining the NATO, and on the other hand, on Russia’s denial of these countries’ right to realize their own will.
The Baltic Sea region is plagued by political pressure and uncertainty. NATO’s emergence as the manifest power in the region could well loosen the tensions torning the region to different directions. Could NATO be the factor improving stability on the Baltic Sea?
Such a factor would be needed to control the contradictory powers smouldering under the surface, when the Baltic countries seek NATO membership. Russia demands them to be included in her interest sphere, Sweden and Finland put their heads into the bush of history, and the NATO still hesitates.
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Published with the author’s permission. Dr. Jukka Tarkka is a doctor of political science and an expert of security politics in Finland.