https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/09/ukraines-best-security-guarantee-is-finlandization.html
'Security guarantees' in form of weapon deliveries or weapon production within Ukraine are not sustainable.
The only real 'security guarantee' Ukraine can get is through a piece agreement with Russia. This will require Ukraine to give up on land, to commit to neutrality and to behave well.
President Alexander Stubb of Finland argues in the Economist that Ukraine should follow his country's (previous) model:
What Finland could teach Ukraine about war and peace (archived) - Economist
President Alexander Stubb argues Ukraine can repeat Finland’s success
Finland’s experience has been cited from the start of the war in Ukraine—both as a model to avoid and one perhaps to follow. Mannerheim’s speech was circulated in President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office in the first months of the war, but was put to one side.The peace that was imposed on Finland in 1944 was hardly just. But it could have been worse. Finland handed over 10% of its territory, including Karelia and half of Lake Ladoga. Its army was restricted, as was its ability to join NATO. It was forced to let Russia lease a naval base on Porkkala, a peninsula in the Gulf of Finland just 30km from the capital. And, because it had joined forces with Hitler, it was forced to pay reparations to the Soviet Union which had attacked it five years earlier.
To much of the world, this was a defeat. To Mr Stubb, whose father was born in the territory annexed by the Soviet Union, and whose summer house stands in Porkkala, back in Finnish hands since the 1950s, it looks different.
The simple secret of living peacefully next to a mighty neighbor, Finland had found, was to behave well:
Lacking any security guarantees from the West or anyone else, Finland exercised this independence not by turning anti-Russian—which would almost certainly have resulted in another invasion—but by building one of the most successful countries in Europe. “People didn’t wait for perfect conditions. They worked with what they had,” Risto Penttilä, a foreign-policy expert, explains.In politics and in the media Finland carefully avoided anything that could anger Moscow. To most outsiders, what became known as “Finlandisation” was a servile form of appeasement. To Mr Stubb and most of his countrymen, “it was the definition of realpolitik at a time when we did not have a choice.” It allowed Finland to stick to its core values: universal education, social welfare and the rule of law.
The 'Finlandization' of Ukraine, if done seriously, would satisfy major Russian demands - neutrality, demilitarization and denazification. It is a realistic base for successful peace talks.
I am encourage that the Economist, as a major mainstream outlet, has picked up on this.
For the idea to ripen it will have to wait until the powers-that-be have recognized that all other variants of 'security guarantees', be they troops on the ground or weapon-fabrications, are rather pipe-dreams than serious plans.
Posted by b on September 3, 2025 at 15:11
