The Lusts of Vlad the Impaler

Good Luck with Finland

It has been reported that Vlad the Impaler has his eyes on restoring Russia's borders to the 1917 status quo.  In Vlad's mind, international law and treaties are null and void after that year. This, from the NZ Herald:

After annexing Crimea and with troops massed on the border of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin will not stop trying to expand Russia until he has "conquered" Belarus, the Baltic states and Finland, one of his closest former advisers has said.  According to Andrej Illarionov, the President's chief economic adviser from 2000 to 2005, Mr Putin seeks to create "historical justice" with a return to the days of the last Tsar, Nicholas II, and the Soviet Union under Stalin.

Speaking to the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, Mr Illarionov warned that Russia will argue that the granting of independence to Finland in 1917 was an act of "treason against national interests".  "Putin's view is that he protects what belongs to him and his predecessors," Mr Illarionov said.  "Parts of Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic States and Finland are states where Putin claims to have ownership."

Let's think about Finland.
  It is a small country when considered from the metric of population, but has a long border with Russia (1300km).  It turns out that the Finns, like the Swiss, take national defence seriously.  According to Wikipedia:

Finland is the only non-NATO EU country bordering Russia. Finland's official policy states that the 350,000 reservists with mostly ground weaponry are a sufficient deterrent. The army consists of a highly mobile field army backed up by local defence units. The army defends the national territory and its military strategy employs the use of the heavily forested terrain and numerous lakes to wear down an aggressor, instead of attempting to hold the attacking army on the frontier.  Finland's defence budget equals about 2 billion euro or 1.4-1.6 percent of the GDP. The voluntary overseas service is highly popular and troops serve around the world in UN, NATO and EU missions. Homeland defence willingness stands at around 80%, one of the highest rates in Europe.

If Russia were to invade, it would be like putting a pudgy hand into a wasp's nest.  Good luck with that.  Full marks to the Finnish people for being prepared to take homeland defence seriously, and being willing to pay the price.  A homeland defence willingness of 80% must be up there with Israel.

We wonder how New Zealand would fare in a survey of "homeland defence willingness".  Pretty low, we would imagine.

Driven by Vlad's antediluvian world view, the stupid illegalities of Russia, which rip up treaties and international agreements in a vain attempt to re-create the past, are serious if one happens to be a neighbouring country.  But it serves to underscore the need of all countries to take their own defence seriously.  Those that don't, live in a dream-world.  Countries unwilling to pay the price of their own defence, risk ending up paying the price of invasion and control by tyrants.  Countries that attempt to slough off their own defence responsibilities--which are the price of independence--to other countries by means of treaties and agreements are already servile in one measure or other.  Good on the Finns for taking the opposite, and correct, view.  Good on them for believing that defence is the responsibility of every grown adult in the country.

Putin's recklessness is doomed to failure.  The worst case scenario is that the Russian bear extends its paw to swipe through the Baltic states, the Ukraine, and so on, in a vainglorious attempt to restore the borders back to 1917.  Within a generation it will have collapsed in a ruin far worse than communism's implosion.  What Vlad has not worked out yet is that the best thing for Russia's long term interests is to be surrounded by free, independent states with whom they can trade on a willing, open and fair basis, without pressure or threat, implied or actual.  Vlad is an anachronism.  He will have deserved the mausoleum of mockery history will bestow upon him. 

The biggest risk is not Vlad, but that the West, in its own manifestation of Putinesque vainglory, will come to believe it needs to interfere militarily.  World wars have begun that way.  

Oh, and in case you had not heard, Vlad recently was interviewed on national TV in the United States.