Comment on Pertti Joenniemi

In Ny Tid 5/15, pp.33-35, there was an article by Pertti Joenniemi which was titled ”Nordisk fred och dagens konflikter”. I thought the article rather interesting and developed a wish to comment on it, but was unable to find it in the web edition of Ny Tid (which could well be due to my clumsiness in dealing with electronic media – I AM of the pre-electronic generation). In this situation, I decided to write my comment in the blog of Tigern. Here goes:

About the reasons for the very peaceful relations between the Nordic countries, Pertti Joenniemi may well be right. Nor would he be the first one to think in that direction – I remember a Danish professor who developed similar ideas in the early 1970ies. His interpretation of Russia’s attitude and his according advice to Russia, though, seems to me to go very badly wrong. ”… Norden uppfattas i Ryssland som någonting positivt, så varför inte också den nordiska freden? Vi har gjort oss av med den klassiska maktpolitiken … . Det är också vad ryssarna behöver.” Well, very nice. Unluckily, the conflict is not (yet?) between Russia and the Nordic countries but between Russia and the USA and its willing European vassals. And we know that also in, e.g., Finland and Sweden at least the military has never stopped seeing Russia as THE enemy, that in both countries there are rather big political parties who would like to join NATO better today than tomorrow, and that the mainstream media are very busy blackpainting anything Russian (e.g. always referring to Russian long-range reconnaissance planes as nuclear bombers …). – The fact that Finland is visited by rather many Russian tourists (which would make a Nordic peace between Finland and Russia in fact possible) does not change anything about the tendencies of Kokoomus and SFP or of the Finnish media.

About the tendencies of the non-Scandinavian European countries we know – one just should remember that Evo Morales’ plane was hindered from flying home to Bolivia because some people were suspecting that he might have Edward Snowden on board (on whom the US system would so very much want to have its revenge) and that anyway Edward Snowden could presumably not even risk to accept an offer of political asylum in some Western country (if he were kidnapped from the street by the CIA the Western country in question would at most file a diplomatic protest, which nobody would take very serious nor take as a reason to hinder business with the USA).

The Nordic method of having many people visiting neighbouring Nordic countries and that way dissolving enemy clichés is already for geographical reasons and distances not applicable to the relation between Russia and the USA. About the beliefs of large parts of the US population concerning anything ”un-American” we know, as well about the tendencies of very many US media (who are at any time willing to whip up and ride on waves of patriotism). To my mind comes a US politician who publicly said that God created the USA to lead the world … . Further, it has been scientifically established (by profs Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page – can be googled) that the wishes of the US population do anyway not have any bigger influence on the actual US politics. I.e. the political decisions have in the past (during e.g. the presidency of G. W. Bush) obviously made in very closely knit groups of decision makers and in the interest of the group members. Such can any time happen again. And we also remember how very much the then US government was insisting that other Western nations should join in realizing those decisions, e.g. in the invasion of the Iraq.

Altogether, the problem seems to be that it would be necessary to establish a Nordic peace between Russia and the USA, for which the preconditions simply are not there, neither geographically nor mentally. Thus, Russia will (with good reason) go on strengthening its ideological backbone by means of propaganda and building up its military power. And this will go on as long as the countries of Western Europe continue to be so very willing to follow the lead of the USA.