Finnish Government cripples Finnish Defense Force with cost cut´s.

[PanzerJaeger]

Finlandization was a cold war process. Bit different then direct occupation and placing a puppet regime in place like happened in most of Eastern Europe. Finnish foreign policies of cold war were necessity in order to survive, but still Finland during cold war remained a democracy and for example communist party never even made to government in Finland. Maybe you would like to point out what other way Finland could have taken?

I'm not faulting Finland. The nation's leadership did what had to be done to remain internally independent. I'm simply disputing the notion that Finland remained fully independent due to its vaunted military. The country had to cede quite a lot to keep Russia out.

A lot of people seem to think Finland won those wars when, in fact, they only lost them less severely than they could have. There's this idea that the Finns gloriously routed the Soviets with impunity during the Winter War, and while they did perform well and certainly stymied the Russian plans, their position became increasingly precarious as the conflict dragged on. They were on a slow path to defeat simply do to resource constraints.

Still for some odd reason Finland never joined the Warsaw pact and even transmitted intelligence information to West trough out the cold war. If there is any lesson learnt from History is that only ones who will take care of us will be us and todays proposal of the Government is not making it any easier.

I completely agree, and I disagree with Sarmation's conclusion about small countries and military expenditure. A capable military certainly does not guarantee a small nation security against a superpower, but it does give it options. In 1940, Finland's military could not have held out against Russia, but it did extract enough blood to bring Russia to the negotiating table. Instead of annexation, Russia settled on only 10% of the nation.

There is a definite value in a strong national defense for small nations. Even authoritarian regimes face wartime pressures. A nation that can exacerbate those pressures is much better off than one that cannot.

And just how do you arrive to that conclusion? If Sarmatian dos not even know that Continuation War happened. How can he know his military history? Also what does 1945 has to do with anything as Finland was not at war with Soviet Union durig 45? If Soviet Plan was to take Finland in three weeks during 1939. How did Stalin get what he wanted and what more pressing priorities Soviet Union had at 1940 as they were not at war with any other country aside Finland?

-I'm sure that he knows what the Continuation War was. I think that may have been a misstatement.

-1945 was , of course, the end of WW2, when Russia created the various Eastern European satellites. With Germany defeated, Russia could have easily defeated Finland if Finland had not acceded to all of Russia's demands.

-I'm sure that Stalin would have loved to have conquered all of Finland during the Winter War, but the main goal of the effort was to create a buffer for Leningrad. This was accomplished through the negotiations. If Finland hadn't agreed, Russia would have eventually defeated her.