Finnish Military and political leaders have exploited public fears over the conflict in Ukraine to achieve their goal of NATO membership, an academic has said.
Finland formally joined the US-dominated military bloc on Wednesday, ending the policy of neutrality between east and west since the end of the Second World War in 1945.
The Nordic country which borders Russia's Murmansk, Karelia and Leningrad regions becomes the 31st member of the still-expanding alliance set up in April 1949 — six years before the founding of the Warsaw Treaty Organisation that NATO ostensibly opposed and which dissolved in 1991.
Glenn Diesen told Sputnik that before the Russian special military operation to defend the Donetsk and Lugansk Peoples' Republics from NATO-sponsored Ukrainian aggression, public opinion in Finland and fellow applicant Sweden was strongly in favour of continued non-alignment.
"During the Cold War, since Europe was divided with the capitalist West and the communist East, we had a belt of neutral states running from Finland, Sweden, going the way all the way down to Austria, throughout the continent to avoid as much tension as possible," Diesen said.
"This is the role they took... after the Second World War and throughout the Cold War," he added. "And this also built into the national identities of the countries: they consider themselves to be neutral. And the public therefore have not been on board."
But, the historian noted, the launch of Russia's military operation in February 2022 "created a lot of concern and fear among many, both in Finland and Sweden" — and for the first time, "we saw the public getting on board with NATO."
"The military leadership, as well as men in the political leadership in Finland and Sweden, they all really wanted to join NATO, but they didn't have the public with them," Diesen pointed out. "Suddenly now the public here wants to join. You don't let a good crisis go to waste."
That explained the rush by the two Nordic countries' leaders to apply for NATO membership, he said.
"They want to get into NATO as quick as possible because at some time, some point, this war will be over and perhaps the public support for NATO will go away," Diesen stressed. "So it's better to get them into NATO now while they have the public on their side."
The academic said Finland's entry into NATO was a "great shame" and a "complete disaster".
"Finland has been a great success story for neutrality. It's brought security and stability both to itself, but also the wider Scandinavian region. And also it prevented too many direct tensions between Russia and the United States and NATO on the other side," Diesen said. "We really need more neutral states in Europe to keep the dividing lines less militarized. And this is doing the opposite. So one has to also recognize what this has done."
He said NATO's latest expansion had doubled the bloc's "front line" with Russia, which has a 1,340-kilometre (830-mile) land border with Finland.
"This expansion is an incredible provocation and it will only destabilize Europe and make nuclear war more likely," Diesen warned. "Keep in mind that NATO's expansion is deemed by Russia to be the greatest threat to its security. It's considered to be an existential threat, meaning that Russia will do anything possible to avoid this threat."
He asked how Washington would react if Russia and China formed an anti-US alliance which included Mexico on its southern border. "You see China establishing a security partnership with Solomon Islands on the other side of the Pacific Ocean and Washington's outrage: 'How dare they?' And this is considered to be a threat."
But the West expects Russia to believe it has "nothing to fear" and should have no objections, even when NATO's frontier is now "Right next to St Petersburg, its second biggest city"
"Do we think that pointing this huge gun closer to Russia's heads will bring us security and stability?" Diesen asked. "We currently have another major war in Europe as Russia responded to the threat of NATO's expansionism to Ukraine in a very reckless manner."
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