Janne M. KorhonenFeb 6
And the same pic of the OG hipster with alt text I forgot to paste. This is the look of someone who had just been able to say “nah, I don’t wanna campaign for a presidency anymore” - and 5/6ths of the parliament votes to extend his term by 5 years. That’s #finlandization for you.

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:l5qgtdxd462q6cz5hbt25edk/post/3me6ieqyn6k24
Show threadJanne M. KorhonenNov 28
2025-11-03: A thread illustrating #Finlandization with an example from the history of computer #gaming in the 1980s. bsky.app/profile/jmko...

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:l5qgtdxd462q6cz5hbt25edk/post/3m4ptlmfh3k2b
Show threadJanne M. KorhonenNov 28
2022-04-19: An illustrative example of Finnish #ColdWar political maneuvering, whose #1 goal was to avoid Soviet occupation or Soviet-sponsored Communist takeover. And #Finlandization. President Koivisto was much sneakier operator than his public image suggested. bsky.app/profile/jmko...

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:yxj5dhr6fys4ots3wifc3t6n/post/3lcafqqpil32b
Janne M. KorhonenNov 18
Upping this for visibility, as I think it is a great encapsulation of many reasons why #finlandization is AT BEST a desperate survival strategy. Not anything to celebrate, let alone emulate!

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:l5qgtdxd462q6cz5hbt25edk/post/3m4rzhcz4rs2s
Janne M. KorhonenNov 4
One more observation about what #Finlandization was in practice: it was a foreign minister of #Finland recommending to a foreign power - in his official reply to a demarche, no less! - that foreign #intelligence services should covertly influence, pressure and manipulate Finnish media.

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:l5qgtdxd462q6cz5hbt25edk/post/3m4ptm32b2d2b
Show threadJanne M. KorhonenNov 3
THAT is why most Finns who know more what #finlandization was in practice are so much against it. Yes, Finland survived. But not without paying a price. And then only barely, more due to luck than anything else. Had the #ColdWar continued, Finnish #democracy might well have died out.
Show threadJanne M. KorhonenNov 3
But it did illustrate very nicely how #finlandization worked. It wasn't the Soviets directly who tried to curb Finnish freedoms. Finns did that to gain advantage over their own political foes. Here, too, the Soviets might have let things slide if the Communists hadn't raised a "moral panic."
Show threadJanne M. KorhonenNov 3
It is CERTAIN that similar dynamics would arise in other cases of #finlandization. Opportunists and those genuinely concerned would compete with each other to prove their loyalty and sabotage their rivals. At the cost of increasing double-speak and loss of democratic freedoms.
Show threadJanne M. KorhonenNov 3
The next year, the government did ban an "anti-Soviet" Finnish film "Born American" by one Renny Harlin - because it could do so under the legislation covering film and print media. But in the end, the episode may have been a turning point in #finlandization. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_Am...

Born American - Wikipedia
Born American - Wikipedia

Show threadJanne M. KorhonenNov 3
To someone who doesn't really know what #finlandization was, and/or thinks that small countries and their inhabitants don't have agency in the Great Game, it may sound like a decent solution for "buffer states" (notice the lack of agency) like #Ukraine. After all, #Finland survived. Even prospered.