Finnish prime minister Sanna Marin has called for Europe to build its own defence capabilities in the wake of the war in Ukraine, saying that without US help it is not resilient enough.
We should make sure that we are stronger, Marin said in Sydney on Friday.And I’ll be brutally honest with you, Europe isn’t strong enough. We would be in trouble without the United States.
We have to make sure that we are also building those capabilities when it comes to European defence, the European defence industry, and making sure that we could cope in different kinds of situations, she said.Marin said that when Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February, the priority of most Finns changed “overnight” to security.
Until Russia invaded Ukraine, Finland’s priorities were to have working bilateral relations with Russia and be close partners with members Nato, but not be a member, she said.
Helen SullivanThat was the best way to secure our nation.
This speech has been widely applauded on Twitter, and Sanna Marin praised for her ‘leadership’. I could only roll my eyes in dismay at the sheer number of facts contradicting these misinformed opinions.
The premise itself that Europe would be in trouble without the US in case of a Russian invasion seems somewhat questionable after more than nine months of fighting in which the Russian army failed repeatedly to defeat and conquer Ukraine. You could certainly argue that European countries wouldn’t have enough ammunition to sustain heavy fighting, or mobilize troops quick enough, but as things stand now I don’t think Russia would be able to mount an attack comparable to Ukraine.
European security stems from a paradox: the more secure it feels under US’ umbrella, the less it feels the need to invest in defense capabilities. But any relationship is mutual; the US in turn has a large open market for its products, including for its massive and ever-growing defense industry, a reliable customer where the US doesn’t have to worry too much that the arms it sells would be turned against it – as it regularly happens in the Middle East. Despite its recurring complaints that Europeans are not investing enough in their security, the US doesn’t quite welcome European autonomy in this regard, and tries to discourage such initiatives from gaining too much traction – an easy task on a continent with many countries and points of view on this topic.
As for Sanna Marin’s leadership skills… I would consider a leader someone who first of all identifies potential issues before they develop into full-fledged crisis (from the second part of the quote is seems clear that she didn’t consider Russia an immediate threat until the invasion of Ukraine, so a fail on this point); takes appropriate actions to avoid the crisis even without a public mandate (I would rate this a fail as well, despite the Finnish army being more prepared than most, because otherwise they would have applied to join NATO prior to this year’s events); and builds trust by matching their words with proper actions.
On this last point Finland is severely lacking. European defense was been a priority topic for France and President Macron for years before the issue of Ukraine came up; has Finland at any point supported these initiatives? Quite the contrary: in 2019 while Finland held the presidency of the Council of the EU, it oversaw drastic budget cuts including to defense funds; at the time the position of Prime Minister of Finland was held by another member of Marin’s Social Democratic Party. In 2021, in order to replace its ageing combat jets, Finland selected U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin instead of an European-made fighter jet.
I would welcome an European Union less reliant on the US, which could form and uphold its own foreign policy and interests at a global level. But this speech rings of hollow lip service to this idea without any concrete support, in order to garner short-lived popularity on social media – an unfortunate habit of Finland’s ‘leader’…
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