|
Finland Neutrality
Finland, independent only since 1917, does not have a
long
tradition of neutrality. In the interwar period, it
declared
itself neutral, but its foreign policy was not neutral
enough to
satisfy the security concerns of the Soviet Union, and
Finland
was drawn into World War II. The years immediately after
the war
were taken up by the country's struggle to survive as an
independent nation. The treaties of 1947 and 1948, which
confirmed the existence of a Soviet military base on
Finnish
territory and created a defensive alliance with the Soviet
Union,
seemed to preclude Finnish neutrality
(see The Cold War and the Treaty of 1948
, ch. 1).
The Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual
Assistance
(FCMA) of 1948 mentioned in its preamble, however,
Finland's
desire to remain outside the conflicts of the great powers
and to
maintain peace in accordance with the principles of the
UN. A
first example of the Finnish policy of avoiding
entanglements in
superpower disputes was the decision in early 1948 not to
participate in the European Recovery Program, also known
as the
Marshall Plan. Finnish rejection of the much-needed aid
was
caused by Soviet contentions that the program was an
effort on
the part of the United States to divide Europe into two
camps.
In the late 1940s, Finland joined the General Agreement
on
Tariffs and Trade
(GATT--see Glossary)
and the World Bank (see Glossary),
participating in their economic programs, but
avoiding
any political implications of membership that could be
seen by
the Soviets to link the country to the West. Finland also
stayed
out of the discussions of the period about the formation
of a
Nordic defense union.
During these early years after World War II, there were
few
official Finnish statements about neutrality, but in a
speech in
1952 Prime Minister Kekkonen held that the FCMA treaty
presupposed a kind of neutrality for his country. In 1955
a major
impediment to Finnish neutrality was removed by the
closing of
the Soviet military base located near Helsinki, and in the
following years leading Soviet officials praised the
neutrality
of their neighbor. In 1955, too, Finland was able to join
the UN
and the Nordic Council, acts that reduced its isolation
and
brought it more fully into the community of nations.
By the early 1960s, Finnish neutrality was recognized
by both
the West and the East, and the country entered a more
confident
period of international relations when it began practicing
what
came to be officially termed an active and peaceful policy
of
neutrality. Finland participated in local and in global
initiatives aimed at creating conditions that allowed
nations to
avoid violence in their relations with one another. As
President
Kekkonen noted in 1965 in an often-quoted speech, Finland
could
"only maintain its neutrality on the condition that peace
is
preserved in Europe."
An essential element of Finland's active neutrality
policy
was the concept of a Nordic Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone
(Nordic
NWFZ), first introduced by Kekkonen in May 1963 against
the
background of a Europe increasingly armed with nuclear
weapons.
The Finnish president proposed the creation of a zone
consisting
of Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland. Their de
facto
nuclear-weapon-free status was to be formalized by the
creation
of a Nordic NWFZ that would remove them somewhat from the
strategic plans of the superpowers. The zone idea was
based on
the supposition that, as these countries had no nuclear
weapons
in their territories, they might avoid nuclear attacks
from
either of the two alliances, whereas, the presence of
nuclear
weapons would certainly invite such attacks.
The Nordic NWFZ idea was not realized at the time it
was
initially proposed. A major impediment was the membership
of
Denmark and Norway in the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization
(NATO) and hence their pledge to consider the deployment
of
nuclear weapons on their territories in a time of crisis.
Despite
its lack of success, the zone proposal remained part of
Finnish
foreign policy, and in 1978 it was reintroduced in an
altered
form in the light of new developments in weapons
technology. In
Kekkonen's opinion, the cruise missile made the use of
nuclear
weapons in war more likely. His new Nordic NWFZ proposal
contained the concept of a negative security guarantee,
according
to which the superpowers would bind themselves to refrain
from
attacking with nuclear weapons those countries belonging
to the
zone.
The zone proposal has since become a permanent part of
security discussions in Nordic Europe, with support from a
variety of quarters. President Koivisto declared his firm
support
for the zone proposal in a speech at the UN in 1983, and
in 1985
a Nordic parliamentary group convened in Copenhagen to
discuss
the idea and to set up a commission to study it.
In addition to the problem of Danish and Norwegian
membership
in the Atlantic Alliance, other problems continued to
prevent the
zone's realization. A central question was how, and to
what
extent, the Baltic and Barents seas and the adjacent areas
of the
Soviet Union would be included. The Soviet Union, the only
power
of northern Europe that had nuclear weapons in its
arsenal,
always welcomed the zone proposal but left its
participation in
the zone uncertain. Finnish officials seemed content to
hold
continued talks about the zone. Foreign affairs
specialists
occasionally commented that Helsinki was more interested
in using
discussion of a Nordic NWFZ as a means of emphasizing the
existing stability of northern Europe than in the
realization of
such a zone.
Another core element of Finland's active policy of
neutrality
was the country's participation in arms control and
disarmament
initiatives. In 1963 Finland signed the Nuclear Test Ban
Treaty,
prohibiting nuclear testing underwater, above ground, and
in
outer space; and in 1968 it approved the Treaty on the
NonProliferation of Nuclear Weapons. It was the first country
to
form an agreement with the International Atomic Energy
Agency
concerning the peaceful use of nuclear power. In 1971
Finland
signed the treaty banning the placement of nuclear weapons
on the
world's seabed, and in 1975 it joined in the prohibition
of the
development, production, and stockpiling of biological
weapons.
Since the early 1970s, Finnish scientists have been
developing
technology for the detection of chemical weapons, and
since the
mid-1970s, they have been engaged in perfecting a global
seismic
verification station system.
Helsinki was the site for some of the Strategic Arms
Limitation Talks (SALT), and in 1973 and 1975 Finland was
the
driving force behind the Conference on Security and
Cooperation
in Europe (CSCE) and the host of its first and third
meetings.
The signing of the Final Act of the CSCE in Helsinki in
1975 was
the high point of the country's policy of active
neutrality. The
signed document recognized the legitimacy of neutrality as
a
foreign policy, a point demonstrated by Finland's hosting
the
conference. The country has continued to work as a member
of the
neutral and nonaligned group at later CSCE meetings, where
the
emphasis has been on the formation of confidence-building
and
security-building measures (CSBM). The fourth CSCE meeting
was
scheduled to take place in Helsinki in the spring of 1992.
Data as of December 1988
|
