Filenews 26 March 2025 - by Andreas Kluth
As president of the United States, Joe Biden constantly used a characteristic phrase that underlined two opposing aspects of his presidency, compared to his successor, Donald Trump: The 46th president was losing in communication, but he was winning in geopolitical strategy – the 47th is exactly the opposite.
Biden almost boasted that while Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted "the Finnization of NATO," he instead took "the NATO of Finland." Finnization and NATO both count by five syllables and mean little to ordinary Americans, who may imagine generals and admirals spending their time in the sauna. You won't hear anything like that from Trump, who prefers monosyllabic Anglo-Saxon words. As a way to communicate his grand strategy to voters, Biden's phrase failed.
However, this strategy that Biden was trying to advertise was a success – a success that Trump is now undoing.
The term "Finnization" was coined by West German scholars during the Cold War. It referred to the experience of Finland, which had twice repelled the invasion of the Soviet Union, once in the Winter War of 1939 and once as an ally of Nazi Germany in the period 1941-1944. As part of the truce, it ceded about 10% of its territory to Moscow and agreed to the relocation of Finns living there. But it remained an independent nation.
The arrangement that was later called Finlandization began in 1948 with a treaty between Helsinki and Moscow. In exchange for the privilege of remaining otherwise sovereign, Finland agreed to comply with Soviet foreign policy and avoid closer ties with NATO, the United States, and Western Europe. Kari Suomalainen, a Finnish cartoonist, later defined Finnishization as "the art of bowing to the East without offending the West."
Finnization in this narrow sense was gradually abolished only after the Cold War, with steps that Ukrainians now dream of taking. In 1995, Finland joined the European Union. And during Biden's term in 2023, in response to Putin's aggression, he finally joined the NATO alliance. Today, Finland is consistently ranked as the happiest country in the world.
Years later, Finnishization acquired a more general meaning. Although this phenomenon owes its existence to the fact that Finland was too brave and powerful to be defeated (but still too weak to win), the word took on a derogatory connotation along the way and referred to a situation in which a weaker country relinquishes part of its sovereignty to appease a stronger power.
In this sense, Finnization usually takes the form of involuntary neutrality or non-alignment and submission to the sovereign. Mongolia, which both Moscow and Beijing consider a neutral state, has been described as Finnized – and so have some of the "stans" in Central Asia. At the same time, Taiwan has been considering whether Finnization would be the right way to keep mainland China at bay.
Putin's original plan for Ukraine was absolute conquest and submission. But when brave Ukrainians, like the Finns in 1939, denied Moscow this triumph, Putin was forced to change strategy. To tolerate the existence of Ukraine, the country would have to become a no-man's-land, forever out of NATO, demilitarized and subjugated to the Kremlin. In short: Finnish. He has similar visions for, say, Moldova or Georgia (outside NATO), and even for Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania (within NATO).
As the Biden administration has made sure to explain, Putin's threat is expanding even further. He wants to suppress, and ideally dismantle, not only Ukraine but the entire Western alliance. With the invasion of Ukraine, it has also renounced the entire rules-based international order, the foundations of which are law and the principle of national sovereignty, as enshrined in the United Nations Charter.
So when Biden said that Putin finally ended up "naturalizing" Finland, he was referring to more than Finland's accession to the alliance. He meant that Russia had failed in a broader sense, as Ukraine – with American, European, and even Asian aid – defended itself and drew closer and closer to the West. And the West, without retreating, was more united and determined to defend not only Ukraine but also the very idea of national sovereignty.
Trump is on a collision course with these achievements. It has long despised NATO, calling into question the mutual assistance clause and undermining its deterrent effect on Russia. He has despised allies – including Denmark, coveting Greenland's territory – and has approached Putin as a "strongman" comrade. He has intimidated the Ukrainian president in the Oval Office and, in the name of negotiating peace, seems indifferent to the possibility of a truce that would amount to a capitulation of Ukraine.
Trump even seems willing to put his little stone in the history of "Finnification". How else could one describe the submission to which he has in mind to lead Canada to the north or Panama to the south?
Biden understood the value of alliances and the international order, while Trump did not. Biden has also been bad at explaining foreign threats to Americans, while Trump knows how to connect with many voters. And yet: Even in short and catchy words, a policy of abandoning friends and the ideal of domination, while acquiescing to tyranny and aggression, is a horrible, grand strategy.
Rendering – Editing: Lydia Roubopoulou
