Dr. Robert E. Kelly, Professor of International Relations in the Department of Political Science at Pusan National University, said in an analysis published in 19FortyFive that it is now understood that Russian President Vladimir Putin has made the mistake in the Ukraine war of planning “hit fast, win fast”, hoping the whole thing would be over in a week or two.

Mr. Putin wants to reorganize the post-Soviet space in one swift stroke. NATO will let its guard down and fear Russia’s next moves. China will be impressed by its boldness, which will help offset the unbalanced economic relationship between the two countries. The world will once again have to admire the “master strategist Putin”.

Instead, war became a costly and debilitating disaster. Russia can still win in the sense that at least some of the conquered territory is kept. But in every other important respect, the war was a disaster, and it was getting worse and worse.

Economically, sanctions against Russia are reducing its GDP. Politically, Russia is almost alone as China and India have begun to distance themselves.

Militarily, the war is at a stalemate. Russia has not occupied new territory for a year. Ukraine has launched two counter-attacks and is preparing for an imminent third. And now, strategically, Russia has suffered another setback: Finland has joined NATO.

The Finnish flag was raised at NATO headquarters.

President Putin and many of his supporters have claimed for years that NATO expansion is forcing Russia to take tough action. But the reality is that NATO thrived because Eastern European countries wanted to join.

The motivations for joining are quite clear, they are worried about Russia’s foreign policy behavior as Moscow has a long history of conquering and dominating many of its neighbours.

The former Russian empire consisted of Poland and Finland. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union has really become a dominant force in Eastern Europe, controlling even more of the countries that joined NATO in the 1990s.

If Russia can live comfortably within its borders, if it does not insist on great missions – such as protecting the “Russian World” then it can live in peace with other countries. neighbor.

But that is relatively rare in Russian foreign policy. Instead, Russia’s urge to dominate causes neighboring countries to find a way out of Moscow.

European countries that were independent from the Soviet Union fled to NATO as soon as they could. Finland felt threatened enough to give up its longstanding neutrality. Sweden is expected to join NATO and so is Ukraine.

Finland is officially admitted to NATO. Photo: CBS.

The broader strategic consequence of the war is to push more countries towards NATO, which is exacerbating the encirclement around Russia by Western nations, rather than easing it as expected.

There was some concern that adding Finland would weaken, not strengthen, NATO. Helsinki is far from the traditional Western European heart of NATO, it shares a long border with Russia.

In 1939-1940, the country suffered heavy losses in the war with the Soviet Union. Western considerations of helping Finland were hampered by distance and weather.

Finland avoided NATO during the Cold War to avoid provoking the Soviet Union, and for the past 30 years it has maintained this policy in order not to provoke Russia.

The term “Finlandization” even appears to describe this neutral stance.

Those concerns are overwhelming for two reasons. First, Finland has a much stronger armed force than a conventional Western European army with limited resources.

In fact, the Finnish government has pushed NATO to spend more and take Russian threats more seriously. Concerns about free travel, which have soured the United States’ relations with allies such as Germany or Italy, do not apply. Helsinki was ready from defeat in 1940 to fight the Russians again if necessary.

Second, Russia is in no position to threaten a powerful conventional military at this point when it is already heavily mired in the Ukrainian quagmire. If you can’t defeat Ukraine, you won’t be able to defeat NATO-backed Finland.

To threaten Finland in a conventional way would require a withdrawal from Ukraine and a large-scale reconstruction effort on the Russian Army. And notably, Russia’s last military modernization in the decade before the Ukraine war was judged to be a failure, creating an army that is still flawed today.

A conventional Russian threat to Finland is at least a decade away, much longer, or unlikely.

In short, Finland’s accession to NATO is another surprise blow to Russian power. Moscow cannot meaningfully counterattack because it is bogged down in Ukraine. The development also exacerbated Russia’s isolation from the world’s most advanced economies.

The “swallowed up” town reveals the challenges of coastal states in the fight against climate change

The shocking event with Russia

The Finnish flag was raised for the first time at the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Brussels (Belgium) on April 4, the 74th anniversary of the establishment of this military bloc. The event marked the historic milestone of Finland’s abandonment of its neutral policy.

However, it is difficult to find any security threat from Russia to Finland. One can perceive this as a move by NATO to the detriment of Russia, with the pretext of Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine.

Some observers believe that this is a deliberate act of the US to complicate Russia’s relations with Europe, in addition to the Nord Stream incident in September 2022.

On the other hand, it is reasonable to say that this admission will make Europe’s security future more uncertain and the continent more dependent on the US as its security guarantor. .

In fact, the US has ensured that the core issue behind the confrontation between Russia and the West (that is, NATO’s expansion to Russia’s borders) is a thing of the past, although their proxy conflict in Ukraine has not achieved great results.

In response, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned on April 4 that Finland’s NATO membership would force Russia “to take countermeasures to ensure the strategic and tactical security of the country.” we”. According to Peskov, Finland’s accession to NATO is “an escalation of the situation” and “an encroachment on Russia’s security”.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry stated that Moscow “will be forced to take retaliatory measures of a military-technical and other nature to prevent threats to our national security.” “.

Nuclear risk

Finland’s membership in NATO will extend NATO’s front line with Russia by 1,300km (the length of the common border between Finland and Russia) – this adds pressure on the Northwest region of Russia.

Should NATO ever deploy missiles to Finland, Russia would have little choice but to deploy nuclear weapons to the Baltics and Scandinavia.

At that time, the military confrontation between Russia and NATO will worsen and the possibility of nuclear war will increase. In such circumstances, it is difficult for Russia not to take action to respond or prevent the US from gaining nuclear superiority, thereby maintaining the global strategic balance.

Russia’s focus will be on upgrading its defensive nuclear capabilities rather than conventional weapons. Russia has created deterrence by deploying tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus in response to Britain’s decision to supply Ukraine with depleted uranium ammunition.

Meanwhile, the United States has long deployed tactical nuclear weapons in European countries, including Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey, meaning that the United States has long deployed war nuclear weapons. art on the doorstep of Russia. Russia’s deployment of nuclear weapons in Belarus is in that context.

The geographical location of Belarus makes Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons here a great strategic deterrent against a number of NATO countries such as Poland, Germany, the Baltic states and even the Nordic countries. .

The vicious circle is growing, escalating the nuclear arms race, which, if left unchecked, can lead to a catastrophic nuclear war “doomsday”.

The US and its allies’ calculations

The US is not currently advocating for Russia-Ukraine negotiations. According to the strategic calculations of the Biden administration, if Russia wins in Ukraine, it means NATO loses and will long-term damage US leadership in the transatlantic as well as in the world.

The fact that the US and NATO brought Finland (and in the future, Sweden) into this military bloc is something of great geo-economic depth. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg recently stated: “If Finland and Sweden join this military alliance, NATO will have more opportunities to control the situation in the Far North.”

The United States hopes that the in-depth experience of Finland and Sweden in operations in the arctic and sub-arctic regions can provide NATO with an invaluable tool that could potentially “change the game” as the competition for gaining control of the huge natural resources in the Far North became more heated. The Far North is an area where Russia has made great strides.

In the future, much of the ice melts in the Arctic, making it appear many derelict lands that the world’s biggest powers will keep an eye on. Recent reports show that the four Nordic countries Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland are integrating their air forces here, with many signs of being in response to Russia.

Faced with that situation, Russia has made adjustments in its policy towards the Arctic. Russia’s revised Arctic Policy calls for “the development of relations with foreign countries on a bilateral basis, taking into account the national interests of the Russian Federation in the Arctic region”. The move comes after a US State Department official declared that cooperation with Russia in the Arctic was near impossible.