Finland strengthens, and is strengthened by, NATO

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Among Russian assumptions when it invaded Ukraine were European division and American distraction.

Instead, what it got was a doubling of its border with NATO nations when Finland officially became the alliance's 31st member last month.

Notably, NATO's enlargement came as a response to Russian revanchism, not the cause of it, said Mikko Hautala, Finland's ambassador to the United States.

Hautala, in Minnesota this week, said in an interview that "I don't buy for a day the idea that NATO enlargement has provoked Russia, because Ukraine was nowhere near getting that kind of status. I think on the contrary, the Russians saw, or they concluded, that Ukraine was weak enough to be invaded. They also concluded that Europeans would be too divided to be seriously considered as a counterforce. They also thought that the U.S. was too distracted by domestic issues, by China, so that they wouldn't really resist this blatant attempt."

Russia "misread us," said Hautala, who read the Kremlin as Finland's envoy to Moscow from 2016 to 2020: "A long-term Russian theory of the West is that we are kind of getting lazy, and we are getting soft, and we don't want to take on these kind of challenges."

While Hautala acknowledged there may have been some evidence to convince the Russians, "when we saw a really serious challenge, a kind of blatant violation of international law and the level of violence, I think it also woke up even those who were sleeping at the moment."

Finns never fell asleep, however, Hautala said, even though the Nordic nation long resisted joining NATO. But Finland still built a strong military — already spending above NATO's targeted 2% of GDP on defense — as it partnered in NATO missions, including Afghanistan.

"Our integration with NATO was really high because it was part of our policy for a couple of decades already that we retain the right to apply. And we wanted to make sure that if there's ever a situation when we conclude that we need to do this now, that we are so close in different standards, different methods, that we can actually complete the process relatively quickly."

The situation came in 2022 when Russian tanks headed to Kyiv. Consensus coalesced quickly, Hautala said, with Finns moving from a minority favoring NATO ascension to 50% and soon 80% approval. "And obviously, in a democratic country, when basically most of the people feel this is something we should do, then usually the system, if it works like it's supposed to, then political consequences follow."

Unfortunately, that doesn't seem so obvious in a Washington gripped in gridlock. But the system worked in Helsinki, in part because the political culture, just like the social one, encourages consensus.

"Our political system is different from the U.S., since we have a lot of smaller parties that always have to form a coalition," Hautala said. "You never can guarantee with whom you are going to co-govern, so it means you usually have an incentive to try to make good relations, because sometimes you have to co-govern across the ideological aisle."

March's national election was a case in point. Less than a percentage point separated the top-three parties, with the center-right National Coalition Party garnering 20.8% of the vote, followed by the populist Finns Party (20%) and the center-left Social Democrats at 19.9%, ending the tenure of 37-year-old Prime Minister Sanna Marin, who led Finland to NATO (but led a lifestyle that caused controversy when she was filmed drinking and dancing with friends).

"Our government used to be left-center; now, I think it's right-center," said Hautala, who added that major changes in foreign policy are not expected.

Hautala doesn't anticipate major changes from the east, either.

Elites in Moscow "never fully accepted the dissolution of the Soviet Union," Hautala said, adding that "fundamentally, the war, or the invasion, is about imperial conquest. Russians feel that they are entitled to bring their former great-power status back." And because it's a "long-term problem, we have to be ready to support Ukraine for quite a long time."

Hautala's long-term thinking applies beyond Kyiv, Moscow and Washington. St. Paul is a growing focus for Finland, too, he said, as his country tightens ties with the U.S. state claiming the highest level of Finnish ancestry.

The connection isn't just cultural, but increasingly commercial, with trade between Minnesota and Finland growing to $99 million last year, according to Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development data. Minnesota exports jumped 36% to $35 million, while Minnesota imports of Finnish goods went up 19% to $64 million.

Hautala said that a 2021 memorandum of understanding between the Finnish and Minnesota governments was an actionable document "to bring these two ecosystems together," drawing on the strengths of companies and research institutions, including the University of Minnesota, which he called "one of the best universities in the world."

While there's often strong stateside criticism of Minnesota's business climate, the view from abroad is more sanguine, with Hautala admiring the "strong manufacturing base" and "world-leading companies that want to be sustainable" — a business objective, and advantage, of Finnish firms, too.

Finland is taking a unique approach regarding the American market, focusing on a handful of states, often with cultural affinity, said Gabrielle Gerbaud, executive director of the Minnesota Trade Office, with much emphasis on what she called "food-tech" and "clean-tech" industries. A 2021 trade mission by state officials and the memorandum of understanding was "to make sure we prioritize the collaboration at the research level," to make Minnesota "the place to come" for Finland.

When Finns do come, Hautala said, there are "cultural, historical, people-to-people connections that form a kind of backbone for the relations."

The social model in Minnesota, Hautala said, is "quite close to the Nordic model." And the social model in Finland is working. In fact, it may be among the world's best.

"We are not the biggest economy in the world," Hautala said. "And we don't have the best climate in the world." And yet, he added modestly, for six straight years Finland was first in the World Happiness Report, a condition that may be contagious when Finn Fest takes place in July in Duluth.

Among the factors engendering happiness, Hautala cited "our relationship with nature" as well as trust in institutions for giving people "a lot of stability and safety in their own life."

And now, with NATO, there is more stability and safety in the nation's life, too, even with the bear just over the border.