The Peter Zeihan Podcast Series - Finnish Presidential Elections and Anti-Russian Sentiment || Peter Zeihan

Episode Date: January 28, 2024

Finnish politics are not something that often make the headlines, but with a marked shift away from “Finlandization” (when a smaller country remains neutral to appease a larger and more powerful neighboring country) comes some unfamiliar coverage. Full Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/zeihan/finnish-presidential-elections-and-anti-russian-sentiment

Everybody, Peter Zion here coming to you from the slopes of Mauna Loa with Moena Kea there in the background, surrounded by volcanic goo. I was going to go all the way up to the top, but apparently the volcano decided to destroy the road. So whatever. Anyway, that means you get a bonus video. The big news that's happening today, we were seeing this on Sunday the 28th, is that there are presidential elections in Finland, and for the first time ever, they matter. So since the Ukraine War, we haven't had a lot of electoral contents in Europe in the context of the changed security environment. This is really the first one that matters. It matters for more than one reason.

Finland, well, there's a term for it, finedalization. The idea that you're scared or your bigger neighbor, so you plot a neutral policy in order to make sure that they're not aggravated. And this is the position that Stalin forced upon the Finns back at the end of World War II. And so presidential elections have always been about the debate of just how friendly can we be to the Russians so that they don't decide to invade us. And that has been the case now for over a half century. And the outgoing president was known as the Putin whisperer because she had a tight personal relationship. But with the Ukraine war, that has changed. And Finland is arguably of the real countries, the sizable countries that are assisting the Ukrainian.

the one who has provided the most material support per person as well as leading the charge in terms of diplomatic efforts and has also jumped on board NATO, which is something that they assiduously avoided for the last 70 years in order to not aggravate the Russians. Now the presidential contest is a beauty contest about who can be the most anti-Russian, who will take the strongest position on any type of security issue. And so we're kind of seeing the debate take place in three General Reinas. The first is the Ukraine war proper, who's going to promise more aid, who's going to be more of a hawk. The second one has to do with citizenship. There are a substantial number of dual citizens who are Russian and Finnish citizenship. And the debate at the

presidential level now is whether or not to revoke their Finnish citizenship if they do not surrender their Russian citizenship. And that's important enough as it is, but it also is carrying out into European foreign policy, because Finland is not the country in Europe that has the largest percentage of ethnic Russians among its population. That would be Latvia, with Estonia and Lithuania coming up in second and third place. So there's always been a little bit of a quiet human rights debate within Europe about the position of the ethnic Russians in those countries, with Finland trying to take the position of the ethnic Russians in order to mollify Moscow. Well, that is not the case anymore. The debate is whether or not these people should be kicked out,

whether they should be forced to change languages, whether they should lose their European Union citizenship. The fact that the Finns have changed so much in two years is just a testament to just how brutal war in Ukraine is and how close it hits to home to countries in these regions. Something to consider if you don't live in Eastern Europe for anyone else in the world, the countries from Finland to Estonia to Latvia to Poland to Romania to Bulgaria. You know, these are the countries who have the most experience of living under Russian rule or fighting the Russians, and they're the ones who have been basically training their military in order to support the Ukrainians and the conflict because they know what happens if they don't. Anyway, by the time

you view this, the polls will have opened in Finland, and we should have results in the not too distant future as Europe's most neutral country becomes its most aggressive. Oh, one more thing for those of you who are not fueled by issues of democracy versus repression and mass rapes and org. How about illegal migrants? Yeah, so the Russians have been flying people in from South Asia and the Middle East and herding them through the forests of northern Russia and forcing them through the Finnish border.

So that really has the Finns all cheesed off too.