By Daniel McGroarty
GeoPolicy Editor
What’s the happiest country on Earth? The data is in: Finland. So says the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Solutions Network in its new report. Yes, it’s really a thing.
But Finland’s happy news comes as others speculate about an inarguably unhappy scenario – that Russia may be scoping Finland for its next military foray. That’s the prediction in a new piece at Foreign Policy, by Mikheil Saakashvili, who knows a thing or two about Russia’s appetite for expansion, as former President of Georgia during the Russian invasion of 2008. In contrast to the much-discussed Russian threat to the Baltic nations – who, as NATO members, enjoy the Treaty’s Article 5 promise of an alliance-wide military response — Saakashvili writes:
“…who would go to war over a… piece of Finland’s tundra? NATO wouldn’t, but Putin would—because the stakes are higher for him.”
And just what would Vladimir Putin want with a frozen piece of Finnish tundra? History offers one answer: The Winter War of 1939, in which the Soviet Union seized 11 percent of Finland, giving the USSR better means of fortifying Leningrad – now St. Petersburg – from attack. But that was southern Finland, not north, and it was won only after a bloody conflict in which the Finns fought ferociously.
But it won’t take a 21st Century Winter War to exploit European angst with yet another Russian aggression – this time not against a former vassal state of the USSR, but against a member of the EU. Today, the Russian path of least resistance would likely be further north, along Finland’s 833-mile largely-unpopulated border with Russia – plenty of opportunities for little green men to creepy-crawl into the Happy Kingdom.
As for motive, consider a twist on the Kremlin’s Ukraine refrain of coming to the aid of ethnic Russians. Though a tiny fraction of the Finnish population, 30,000 Finns of Russian-ethnic origin already hold Russian citizenship, and Finland in recent years has seen a spate of fake news stories ranging from tales of Finnish pedophiles preying on adopted Russian children to Finnish government agencies “abducting” children from Russo-Finnish families during child custody disputes. While their origins are murky, these stories are of a piece with the Kremlin confections that stir up Russian ethnic resentments in Ukraine and Germany.
With this undercurrent of Russian agitation, credit Finland’s defense forces with a level of threat awareness sufficient to allow their countrymen, women and children to pursue happiness with world-leading abandon. Finland’s military was among the first to recognize the Russian roots of the little green men visiting Ukraine, and is on alert for the electronic signals jamming reported by civilian and military aircraft that is happening more frequently along the northern Russia-Finnish border. Call it the Finnish version of Orwell’s stern reminder: “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” Like peace, the price of happiness may require eternal vigilance.
And now, back to that Happiness Index: Russia dropped eight spots, to #68 on the list. When Russians are unhappy, Vladimir Putin gets uneasy. During his reign, he’s found that one of the best ways to boost his standing is to demonstrate Russia’s strength against a smaller and weaker neighbor.
It’s enough to harsh any nation’s mellow. As it happens, previous Russian targets Georgia (#119) and Ukraine (#133) are Europe’s unhappiest nations.
As the earworm phrase goes, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” This week’s UN report aside, Finland may want to take some time from being happy to worry about its neighbor to the East.
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Daniel McGroarty, TES editor of GeoPolicy, served in senior positions in the White House and Department of Defense.