ABSTRACT
The first empirical chapter focuses on ships of national importance. It examines the state–industry interaction and the role of influential politicians in relation to certain ship projects that emerged as objects in the Finnish foreign relations: The entrance of the Finnish shipbuilding industry into the Soviet polar icebreaker market; the icebreaker diplomacy between Finland and the United States that employed Finnish icebreakers as diplomatic tools to address Finnish–American relations without damaging Finland’s policy of neutrality; the Finnish–Soviet nuclear icebreaker project that was moulded by a private company to enact state-level goals of peaceful coexistence; and Finnish–American controversy over deep-sea submersibles that captured Finland’s position as being simultaneously insider and outsider of the Western technology embargo CoCom. None of the ships in this chapter was a naval vessel, at least not officially, but the state leaders used them to articulate meanings over national security and national prestige in international affairs.
