Finlandization

Finlandization (Finnish: suomettuminen) is the process by which one powerful country makes a smaller neighboring country refrain from opposing the former's foreign policy rules, while allowing it to keep its nominal independence and its own political system. The term means "to become like Finland", referring to the influence of the Soviet Union on Finland's policies during the Cold War.

The term is often considered pejorative. It originated in the West German political debate of the late 1960s and 1970s. As the term was used in West Germany and other NATO countries, it referred to the decision of a country not to challenge a more powerful neighbor in foreign politics, while maintaining national sovereignty. It is commonly used in reference to Finland's policies in relation to the Soviet Union during the Cold War, but it can refer more generally to similar international relations, such as Denmark's attitude toward Germany between 1871 and 1940, or the policies of the Swiss government towards Nazi Germany until the end of World War II.

In Germany, the term was used mainly by proponents of closer adaptation to US policies, chiefly Franz Josef Strauss, but was initially coined in scholarly debate, and made known by the German political scientists Richard Löwenthal, Walter Hallstein and Kurt Birrenbach, reflecting feared effects of withdrawal of US troops from Germany. It came to be used in the debate of the NATO countries in response to Willy Brandt's attempts to normalise relations with East Germany, and the following widespread scepticism in Germany against NATO's Dual-Track Decision. Later, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the term has been used in Finland for the post-1968 radicalization in the latter half of the Urho Kekkonen era.

In the 1990s, Finlandization was also discussed as a potential strategy that the Soviet Union under Gorbachev may have attempted to revise its relationship with the Warsaw Pact states from 1989 to 1991, as a way to transition from informal empire to a looser sphere of influence model, which was precluded by the fall of the USSR.

As early as 2010 Shinzo Abe feared the Finlandization of Japan and South Korea to China, because of its growing influence and power.

The term has also been used in discussing other countries, for example as a potential outcome of the Russo-Ukrainian War.

Finns have, and had, a wide variety of reactions to the term "Finlandization". Some have perceived the term as blunt criticism,^{[citation needed]} stemming from an inability to understand the practicalities of how a small nation needs to deal with an adjacent superpower without losing its sovereignty. These practicalities existed primarily because of the lingering effect of Russian rule in the time before the Finns first gained sovereignty; and because of the precarious power balance eastwards, springing from a geographically extended yet sparsely populated state with a traditionally imperialist superpower right across the border.

The reason Finland engaged in Finlandization was primarily Realpolitik: to survive. On the other hand, the threat of the Soviet Union was also used in Finland's domestic politics in a way that possibly deepened Finlandization (playing the so-called idänkortti, 'east card'). Finland made such a deal with Joseph Stalin's government in the late 1940s, and it was largely respected by both parties—and to the gain of both parties—until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. While the Finnish political and intellectual elite mostly understood the term to refer more to the foreign policy problems of other countries, and meant mostly for domestic consumption in the speaker's own country, many ordinary Finns considered the term highly offensive.^{[citation needed]} The Finnish political cartoonist Kari Suomalainen once explained Finlandization as "the art of bowing to the East without mooning the West".