Finland’s strategic non-communication has a long tradition dating back to the difficult balancing act in the Cold War with the Soviet Union (aka finlandisation).

Although Finland is otherwise very NATO-interoperable, strategic culture needs an overhaul once we join the Alliance

During the Cold War Finland was in the absurd situation that the Finno-Soviet treaty of 1948 obliged Finland to have defence plans against the West (NATO) but it couldn’t have official defence plans against the Soviet Union.

Finland had defence plans for the eastern border but only very few written documents existed & they were camouflaged as things such as fuel supply plan and a travel report. Otherwise the knowledge was kept completely in oral form & in a very small circle

www.hs.fi/kotimaa/art-2000005699833.html?share=babf398e898ad4d4f25eb9dab2ee7e41

It’s a legacy from the Cold War that there’s still a culture of extreme secretiveness in Finnish defence policy & planning as well as in the armed forces. Hence also the approach never to disclose any details about the contents of Finland’s military aid packages to Ukraine.

Another main factor in Finland’s strategic culture is the “spirit of the Winter War”: memory of the Soviet invasion in 1939, when 🇫🇮 only received very limited material help from the West but managed, against all odds, to fend off the attack & not become part of the Soviet Union

The idea that we are all alone & can’t expect anyone to come for help sits incredibly deep.

There’s no scenario, even with full NATO membership still pending, where the US & other NATO countries would do nothing if 🇫🇮 was threatened. But it hasn’t even started to sink in yet

This is particularly visible about 🇫🇮 participation in the European leopard coalition: esp with an essential system such as MBTs, it’s every Finnish defence planner’s worst nightmare to even think of disclosing any numbers.

From the outside it looks like Finland is backtracking.

Once Finland becomes a NATO member, it has to be internalised that 🇫🇮 defence policy & planning isn’t our exclusive domain anymore but becomes part of the Alliance. Many people outside of Finland will have opinions on how to go about the border with Russia - and rightly so

Being part of NATO includes aligning strategic communication with the Alliance. We Finns can’t just keep doing our thing and not talk about it and get high blood pressure if someone else does talk about it.

We have to get used to it, and even worse: to communicate ourselves

Long rant short: it can’t continue that Finland’s security and defence policy-related strategic communication to international audiences depends on random individual Finns’ motivation to rant on Twitter