HELSINKI — Finland joined NATO just over three years ago, expecting to walk into an efficient and well-funded defensive alliance capable of warding off its belligerent Russian neighbors.Finnish government leaders are not afraid to admit that they found NATO to be much more disorganized and underfunded than they hoped, echoing recent complaints from President Donald Trump.But as Trump threatens to walk away from an alliance that he says has “done absolutely nothing to help” with the Iran war, Finland is pleading for the United States not to blow up the defense network just as its fellow European members are beginning to pull their weight.
Finland President Alexander Stubb speaking at a NATO summit in Washington, D.C. on July 11, 2024. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP)
“We have exactly the same position as President Trump in the sense that we think that NATO is not at its full potential yet because most of the European countries have not invested enough in the past years in defense and deterrence,” Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen said in a private meeting with American journalists, including the Washington Examiner, in Helsinki last month.
Finland feels the heat from Russian aggression far more sharply than Western European countries because of its shared land border, watching its neighbor with weary concern for decades. It prioritized national security but hoped to remain militarily neutral. The outbreak of the war with Ukraine ultimately showed Finnish leaders that it was foolish to expect Russia to change course.
