Finland is in the process of finalizing its bid to join NATO. In the process, they are leaving behind their neighbors in Sweden, whose application to join continues to be held up by disagreements with Turkey. So what is the first thing you do when you join an alliance against Russian expansion but you share an 830-mile border with Russia? You build a wall, of course! Okay… it’s not technically a “wall.” It’s really more of a fence. But the message is the same. ‘We’re with the other team now, so stay out.’ But the primary reason the Finnish government is offering is a smart one and we could use a bit more thinking along those lines in Washington. (The Guardian)
Finland has started construction of a fence along parts of its 1,340km (830-mile) border with Russia to boost security and tackle any attempt by Moscow to weaponise mass migration as a result of its invasion of Ukraine.
Finland announced the start of construction on Tuesday. Terrain work would begin “with forest clearance and will proceed in such a way that road construction and fence installation can be started in March”, the Finnish Border Guard said in a statement.
Fearing that Moscow could use mass migration to exert political pressure on Helsinki, Nato candidate Finland in July passed new amendments to its Border Guard Act to facilitate the building of sturdier fences.
As noted in the excerpt above, Finland’s government is concerned that Russia may try to “weaponize mass migration” in response to the invasion of Ukraine. It’s a valid concern since they’ve already seen a surge in Russian migrants crossing their border rather than being conscripted to go fight in Ukraine.
The fence project may be more symbolic than serious, unfortunately. The first stage is being described as a pilot project and it will only cover a stretch of three kilometers. The fence will be 10 feet tall with barbed wire at the top. It sounds as if any aspiring Russian migrants with a pair of wire cutters might be able to thwart it. But in “sensitive areas” there will be lights and motion detectors installed.
Does the concept of “weaponized mass migration” sound familiar to you? It should, particularly if you’ve been paying any attention to the Mexican border. Just imagine if we had people in Washington who realized the potential value of a border barrier. But I digress.
They’re hoping to cover another 43 miles with fencing by 2025. Of course, I’m sure that everyone is hoping that the war will be over before then. The end goal is to fence off 125 miles of the border, but it’s not known how long that will take. But that still leaves 700 miles without new fencing. Most of the existing fences along the border are described as being “light wooden fences, mainly designed to stop livestock from wandering to the wrong side.”
One immediate concern is the possibility that Vladimir Putin will interpret this as a “provocation.” And that’s a fairly safe bet since the madman of Moscow sees almost everything as a provocation these days. So what does he do if a neighbor starts tossing up barriers along his border? You can see how he might interpret that as a “dare” to have him march across.
Hopefully, that won’t turn out to be a concern, however. Russia has its hands full with Ukraine at the moment and they’ve lost well over 100,000 troops. There are also persistent rumors that they are running out of missiles and they’ve lost a majority of their tanks. They’re sending troops into battle with little or no training and outdated weapons. You would need to be seriously deranged to open up a second front in that war under these conditions, particularly if you’re doing so in an unprompted fashion.
The final area of concern brings us back to the NATO question. If Finland’s application is finalized this week, it’s expected to receive expedited approval, unlike Sweden. So if that happens and Putin somehow feels “triggered” by this fence construction project and does something rash, we’re right back to Article 5 territory. ‘An attack on one is an attack on all.’ (Even if the “one” was only made a member a few weeks earlier.) And that brings us back to world war 3. But don’t worry. Pretty much everything seems to be a crisis these days. This is just one more log on the bonfire.
