The Peter Zeihan Podcast Series - Finland: NATO's Newest Member || Peter Zeihan

Episode Date: April 4, 2023

Finland got the green light and has officially become NATO's newest member. While the Finns are breathing a sigh of relief, we must consider how this could change the scope of the war.Full Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/zeihan/finland-natos-newest-member

Hey, everyone, Peter Zine, coming to you from New Zealand's Mount Cook National Park. That is the mountain in question just behind me, just got back from it. Today is the 4th of April, which means that when you see this, you know, it's far your time. Finland will now have joined as NATO's newest member, and I think it's worth spending a couple of minutes talking about what that means. Some of the folks who were concerned about Finland joining said that, you know, this is going to add roughly 1,000 kilometers of border between NATO and Russia.

But that's really not the way to look at it, because that is a border zone, basically the northern eight-tenths of the Finnish border zone, that's completely empty and unpopulated. The type of military incursion you would see in that area, which has no infrastructure, would be limited to special forces going after reindeer. And if there's one thing that we've seen in the Ukrainian war to this point, Russian special forces are not nearly as special as we all thought. as a rule, once you leave the Russian military, you either become a full-time civilian or you join a group like Wagner.

And Wagner is already completely committed to Ukraine. In fact, the Russians are literally running out of veterans that they can tap. Anyone with skills that are military appropriate has pretty much already been committed to the cause. And the Russians are even liquidating some of their positions abroad and elsewhere in the country in order to support the Ukrainian war effort. So we're seeing air defense troops from the far east. and even peacekeepers from Nogorogarabah being relocated back to Ukraine. So the Russians simply don't have the force structure that's necessary to launch an assault on that front at all. And if you look back historically, if anything, it's the sentence that might get a little punchy

now that they've got a security guarantee from a couple of nuclear powers. A couple three, sorry, I always forget about France. Anyway, if you look back to the Winter War, which was fought in 1940, 1941, It's one of the many side shows that happened in World War II. The Russians with poor logistics and poor leadership and poor training. Saw familiar. Poured across the border thinking they could do a decisive knockout punch and occupy all a family in a matter of months. Again, sound familiar.

It didn't go that way, and the Finns proved that with a generation of intensive training to prepare for one thing, a Russian invasion, you can actually get pretty good. And over the course of the Winter War, the Finns regularly, inflicted a 40 to one casualty ratio on the attacking Russians. And it ultimately ended in an armistice and a peace treaty. Technically, the peace treaty was very bad for Finland. But once the snows melt, then the Russian forces were able to act like Russian forces and use human wave tactics. And so the Finns realized that they had to settle before the spring really locked in. And because of that, they gave up territory that was home to about a fifth of their population at the time. Which brings us to the final point of why NATO membership with Finland is actually

a great thing. That check of territory that the Finns gave up is called the Carillion Isthmus. It's a sliver of territory just to the northwest of St. Petersburg, sandwiched between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Lagoda. And as you approach St. Petersburg, it narrows. It is relatively rugged. It is heavily forested. There's a bunch of swamps, a huge number of lakes and very, very limited infrastructure. So if we did see a renewed conflict between Finland and Moscow, regardless of who started it, the Finns would be able to use very, very short-range fighters and bombers and even artillery to destroy that infrastructure to forestall any Russian advance. So all this raises the question of why Finland has not been in NATO until now.

I mean, it's from a defensive point of view, it's a pretty slam-done case, and it has to do with that same winter war. The Finns knew that if they were standing alone against Stalin, and they even fear today after seeing what they have in Ukraine, that if they're standing alone against today's Russia, that in the end they wouldn't have a chance. Finland's a country of just a few million people versus Russia's 130 million plus. And so even if you get those 40 to one casualty ratios, eventually you simply run out of people before the Russians do. And so Finlandization is the term that took place during the Cold War. The idea that Sinlan could be independent, it could be a democracy, and whatever economic system it wanted.

But all security decisions had to be run by Moscow, and Moscow had full veto power. So NATO membership was completely off the table. But the Russia of today is nothing like the Russia of 1946. And so Finland now thinks that if we've got a Russia that is in its dying days because of its demographic collapse and it's willing to lash out at any territory that it thinks that it needs to survive, the Finns know that Finland is on that list, and best to get the security guarantee of cover from the United States, from Germany, from France,

from Britain, and all the rest now. The next step, of course, will be Swedish membership. That's going to take at least a few more weeks, but now that the Finns are in, it's really only a matter of time. All right, talk to you guys later.