ABSTRACT
This introductory chapter discusses Finland’s strategic adaptation following its accession to NATO in April 2023, situating it within the broader context of European security after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Finland’s transition from military neutrality to NATO membership represents both continuity and change in its grand strategic orientation. As a small state, historically positioned between East and West, it has prioritised national survival through a comprehensive approach to security and societal resilience. As a NATO member, Finland now assumes a pivotal role in strengthening the Alliance’s northern flank with significant military capabilities. While Finland’s (and Sweden’s) full integration into NATO creates strategic depth for the purposes of collective defence, traditional Finnish defence thinking based on the logic of total war may bring further benefits in terms of the Alliance’s overall military preparedness when facing threats below the threshold of Article V. This chapter also identifies several gaps in the existing literature on Finnish security policy, noting that most prior analyses were written in Finnish and targeted to domestic audiences. Therefore, the book assembles 15 scholarly and practitioner-led analyses to open this discussion to a wider international readership by offering a rich and varied analysis of Finland’s grand and military strategy through the ends-ways-means framework.
