Will US defend Finland militarily? Trump admin has ‘strong’ commitment, President Stubb tells Firstpost

In an exclusive interview with Firstpost’s Managing Editor Palki Sharma, Finland’s President Alexander Stubb said he is confident about the American commitment to his country’s defence under the collective defence principle that underpins the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato).

In an interview in the Finnish capital of Helsinki, Stubb said that US President Donald Trump has conveyed a “strong commitment” to Nato.

“From all the signs that I have heard from the Trump administration, including the president himself, there is a very strong commitment to the alliance. It’s been there actually since its foundation over 75 years ago,” said Stubb.

Instead of being merely the beneficiary of security guarantees under Nato’s umbrella, Stubb said that Finland has been a security provider, particularly in the Arctic region. Multilaterally as well as bilaterally, he said, the US-Finland cooperation stands closer than ever.

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Stubb said, “Finland, of course, has one of the largest militaries in Europe together with Turkey, Ukraine, and Poland. And that means that we’re also taking care of the backyard of the United States up here in the Arctic. And defence cooperation between Finland and the United States, not only inside the alliance but bilaterally, is closer than ever before. So, I don’t have any doubts about the American commitment to Article 5 in in the Alliance.”

For years, Trump has been a critic of Nato and has accused allies of not doing enough. At his prodding, Nato members have pledged to raise their defence spending to 5 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) by 2035.

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Is Finland worried about Russian attack? ‘There’s no imminent threat', President Stubb tells Firstpost

Stubb suggested that Trump’s prodding has, in fact, been helpful.

“As far as American commitment to Nato is concerned, remember, not a year and a half ago, we were struggling of having defence expenditure, 2 per cent of GDP. Because of Trump and because the external threat coming from Russia, we’re now moving up to 5 per cent. So, that shows, I think close commitment,” said Stubb.

‘We joined Nato because we wanted to protect ourselves’

Finland is among the newest members of Nato. The public opinion and the stand of the government shifted in favour of membership after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The next year, Finland joined Nato, followed by Sweden the next year. But critics have said the decision was rushed.

Stubb, however, said the decision was three decades late. He said Finland should have joined Nato in 1990s.

Finland joined Nato not because we were against someone, but because we wanted to protect ourselves, said Stubb.

“I think it should have happened 30 years ago. I was in a distinct minority who said that we should have joined 1995 at the same time when we joined the European Union (EU). But, at the time, there was this sort of innate belief that we had witnessed the moment of end of history when all 200 nation states in the world would revert to some kind of a combination of liberal democracy, social market economy, and globalisation, and this idea that interdependence would bring us together,” said Stubb.

Under this belief, the world believed Russia would adopt democracy and embrace globalisation, but that’s not what happened, according to Stubb.

“I think there was a lot of that belief about Russia as well at the time up until about 2000. But ever since it has unfortunately withered away. We live in a very different world. Having said that, Finland would not have joined Nato had not Russia attacked Ukraine. That’s when the moment momentum shifted,” said Stubb.