Finland, Russia, and the NATO Question: An Interview with Risto Penttilä

“I think that we are, as always, pragmatic idealists.”

Editor’s note: This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

On January 12th, Merion West’s Henri Mattila was joined by Risto Penttilä, the CEO and co-founder of the premier global affairs consultancy and think tank Nordic West Office. Dr. Penttilä is a former member of the Finnish parliament, CEO of Finland Chamber of Commerce, and Secretary-General of the European Business Leaders’ Convention. He received his B.A. at Yale University and earned his Ph.D. at the University of Oxford. During the conversation, Dr. Penttilä sheds light on Finland’s geopolitical situation as the Ukraine-Russia security crisis unfolds.

Finland is not in NATO, which many Americans find surprising since the country seems to tick all the right boxes for membership. Why is that?

The reason is that we missed the opportunity to join in the 1990s when the Soviet Union collapsed and Finland quickly joined the European Union. We’ve always been a Western country, but we were influenced by the Soviet Union quite a bit. And then, at that time, if Finland had decided to join NATO, nobody would have noticed because Yeltsin was busy doing other things, and, really, that was the way of the world. Yet we didn’t join then, probably because the political leaders at the time thought that this would be a bridge too far. Ever since, we’ve thought that for the sake of stability—in the Baltic region, where we, of course, are neighbored by Russia—the argument has been that Finland and Sweden should stay outside of NATO to keep NATO forces and Russian forces separated in order to create a zone of stability. That has been the argument.