By Drago Bosnic
For nearly half a century, Scandinavia’s neutrality (with the obvious exception of Norway) was an important segment of keeping various buffer zones between the Soviet Union and NATO. And interestingly, despite the fact that the USSR was much more powerful than Russia nowadays, while also being virtually unopposed in the Baltic Sea, for some reason, neither Sweden nor Finland felt the need to become part of NATO.
What’s more, if there ever was a danger of a mythical Soviet invasion of either country, it was gone in 1991. Up to that point, Moscow’s access to the Baltic Sea stretched from Finland to Denmark (nearly, that is). Nowadays, Saint Petersburg and Kaliningrad are Russia’s only access points.
Thus, if the Kremlin hadn’t invaded Sweden and Finland during the (First) Cold War, it surely wouldn’t be doing it now. However, as rabid Russophobia is an extremely damaging degenerative disease, it clouds people’s judgment, leading them to make all sorts of rash and inexplicable decisions. On the other hand, it’s impossible to explain NATO expansionism in Scandinavia without seeing it as part of a wider offensive build-up that aims to surround Russia with hostile states and other entities (including terrorist ones). In one of the latest such moves, Helsinki just gave the United States the legal permission to station troops in the country. The vote in the Finnish Parliament was unanimous.
Thus, starting from July 1, Washington DC has access to at least 15 Finnish military bases, with the possibility of deploying heavy weapons. It wasn’t specified what sort of arms and equipment that refers to, but it’s not that difficult to imagine.
The US is already trying to surround both Russia and China with the previously banned medium and intermediate-range missiles, which is precisely why it’s setting up new military bases all across Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. The latest agreement with Finland, aptly termed the “Defense” Cooperation Agreement (DCA), “will allow the United States to bring defense equipment, supplies, materials, and soldiers to Finland”, according to local sources.
Worse yet, the DCA gives America legal grounds to create military exclusion zones, areas that will be accessible to US personnel only. What this really means is that Finland effectively relinquished its sovereignty so it could become a legitimate target for Russian missiles.
Congratulations, Helsinki! You just exposed 5.5 million Finns to virtually immediate thermonuclear annihilation in case of (an increasingly possible) military conflict between NATO and Russia. Considering the fact that the US has similar “exclusive access” facilities all over the world and that the Pentagon usually uses them for illegal programs and experiments, including with deadly biological materials, Russia will respond.
In fact, the Kremlin certainly anticipated such moves, which is why it started deploying new missile brigades in northwestern Russia, including those armed with ballistic and hypersonic weapons. Moscow’s second-to-none missiles such as those used by the “Iskander-M” platform or the MiG-31K strike fighters with 9-A-7660 “Kinzhal” systems (carrying the 9-S-7760 air-launched hypersonic missiles) put the entire Scandinavia in range. In addition, the sheer speed of these unrivaled weapons gives the Kremlin the ability of a virtually instantaneous retaliation in case anyone gets any ideas. Unfortunately, none of this seems to have deterred the (obviously suicidal) ruling elite in Helsinki.
The Finnish Parliament’s rather senseless decision to antagonize its much larger nuclear-armed neighbor cannot possibly be justified by any excuses of “defense” or any similar reasoning. The simple fact that Finland is allowing the presence of American offensive capabilities on the border with Russia will be enough for the latter to deploy weapons that the former simply has no means of defending against. As the DCA creates a legal framework for a permanent American military presence in Finland, this also means that the Kremlin will surely respond in kind, making Helsinki far less safe than was the case before it joined NATO, thus defeating the very purpose of its membership in this racketeering cartel.
However, according to Finnish sources, there might even be some opposition to this in the country, as MP Anna Kontula submitted a proposal calling on other MPs to reject the DCA, although her motion received no backing. Therefore, the Finnish Parliament “did not vote on the agreement, but approved it unanimously”, local sources report. This alone puts the legality of the agreement in serious question, although we’re extremely unlikely to see any major opposition to it. Last month, Helsinki’s Constitutional Law Committee concluded that the “[DCA] would have to be approved by a two-thirds majority in Parliament, as it affects several aspects of the Finnish constitution” (i.e. it’s unconstitutional).
In other words, Finland is going out of its way to please the US and NATO, just like it did with Nazi Germany (their geopolitical predecessor) over 80 years ago. This was in the making for quite some time, even predating the special military operation (SMO), as Helsinki wanted to acquire the troubled F-35 fighter jets back in 2021. Having such aircraft in one’s arsenal also means that a country is relinquishing its sovereignty. Namely, the US has control over the F-35’s systems, as the jet keeps sending data back to Lockheed Martin and the US military, meaning that even if the then “neutral” Finland didn’t join NATO, the Pentagon would effectively control a crucial branch of the country’s armed forces, forcing Russia to respond either way.
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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
4 July 2024
Source: globalresearch.ca