History Teacher
I grew up steeped in the history of World War II. My parents were both veterans of the war, from two different armies. Dad was a Warrant Officer in the United States Army, Mom a member of the British Special Operations Executive, Churchill’s “private spies”. My parents old friends were World War II veterans as well. The after-dinner conversations often wandered back to those times.
It’s no wonder I grew up to be a history teacher. I was learning history from the very beginning. I always took a special interest in World War II: the clear black and white contrast of Fascism versus Democracy, the sudden failure to the onslaught of attack, and the long struggle to a final victory. It was personal – the Nazi’s dropped bombs on my Mom. She hid in a “Morrison Shelter”, a metal box in the dining room. My grandparents and Mom climbed into it when the sirens went off. In the daytime there was a cloth over it – it served as the dining room table.
And of course, but for World War II, I wouldn’t exist. My parents fell in love in London, in the middle of the war, as the bombs fell.
Staying Neutral
One of the fascinations of the War was how nations responded, first to the threat of Fascism, and then to the reality of war. The United States, for example, tried to “hide” behind its oceans. It wasn’t until the Japanese reached out to attack at Pearl Harbor, that the final decision was made to enter the conflict. It was over two years after the Germans crossed the Polish border to begin their war of conquest.
There were two nations in Europe that managed to maintain neutrality in this existential struggle between good and evil. Switzerland was able to hide within its mountains. It was obvious that to conquer the Swiss would require enormous effort tactically, and the Swiss were able to maintain their neutral position despite being positioned between Germany and Italy. The world needed some piece of neutral ground, where the two sides could brush against each other without weaponry. And the Swiss were also adept at finding ways to profit from their position.
Sweden
Sweden was in an even more perilous position. Just a short distance across the Baltic Sea from Germany itself, the Swedes were ultimately surrounded by German allies. The Germans conquered Norway, Denmark and Poland. And then there was Finland. We’ll come back to that later.
Sweden is the home to Alfred Nobel. He is the chemist who invented dynamite and the compounds that base almost all modern explosives. Nobel saw his creations as benefits to modern engineering. But they also developed into weapons of war, the modern explosives in bombs and artillery shells and even the powder that fired the bullets. In realization of this, Nobel left his considerable fortune to the establishment of peace, what we call the Nobel Peace Prize.
The Swedes took that same attitude, determined to maintain their non-combative status through two World Wars. But they weren’t pacifists; the Swedish Army is well trained to protect their own nation. Sweden didn’t “take a side” in World War II, and maintained its precarious position even as Germany swept through their neighbors.
Winter War
But Finland had a different enemy. As the Germans attacked Poland at the beginning of the War, the Soviets launched a counter-attack, seizing the Eastern part of Poland as a buffer against Nazi aggression. And the Soviets also attacked into Finland, the “Winter War”. Like the Ukrainians today, the Finns were able to hold off the Soviet Army for months, losing significant portions of their Eastern border, but preventing a Soviet takeover. It wasn’t until the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union itself, that the Russian pressure on Finland relaxed.
The ancient proverb, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” directly applied to the Finnish situation. For them, the invaders of World War II were Soviets, not Nazis. So Finland loosely allied themselves with the Germans. At the end of the war, when Berlin fell and Nazism was crushed, the victorious Allies recognized their dilemma, and didn’t punish Finland as a nation.
Armed for Peace
Throughout the Cold War era both Sweden and Finland maintained their neutrality. Finland still had an eight hundred mile border with the Soviet Union, and Sweden (not far from the Soviet border as well) saw no reason to enter the positioning between the Soviet bloc and the US led NATO alliance. While they both joined in the European Union, they stayed out of the Cold War struggles.
But it was not a neutrality of weakness. The Swedes developed one of the best Air Forces in the world, while the Finns, still cognizant of the Russian threat, has one of the most effective artillery capabilities. They were neutral, but armed and ready.
With the fall of the Soviet Union, both the Swedes and the Finns compared positively with remaining Russian forces. There was no need to change their longstanding tradition of not taking a side. But recognizing a growing Russian threat, Swedish and Finnish forces trained alongside NATO units, so that if cooperation was needed, they were prepared. And this week, the nations of Sweden and Finland asked for formal membership in NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the world’s largest military alliance.
Putin’s Bad Day
Vladimir Putin didn’t like that Ukraine was not part of Russia’s economic and political sphere of influence. So he launched an invasion of Ukraine, hoping to quickly topple the government. But like Finland in the Winter War, the Ukrainians are surprising the Russians and the world by stopping and even driving the Russian Army back.
Putin seems determined to rebuild the old Soviet Union as a new “Greater Russia”. That expansion directly threatens Finland again, but also Sweden as nearby Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are “under the Russian gun”. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are all members of NATO, as are Poland and Hungary. To rebuild Russian hegemony, Russia will have to directly attack NATO nations. That will trigger Article Five of the NATO agreement: an attack on one NATO nation is an attack on all.
Putin’s dream is in direct conflict with NATO. His goal is to take away the self-determination of the nations of the old Soviet Union, and more. Now Sweden and Finland have formally requested to join in defending the world from his aggression.
It’s a good day for NATO, and a very bad day for Vladimir Putin.
