Preparation is hard, and it doesn’t offer many political advantages. The benefits, after all, always seem to be further down the road.
But that’s not how the people of Finland see it, particularly when it comes to national security.
Last month, I spent a week in Finland reporting the cover story in the July 21 issue of the Monitor Weekly. I came back with the strong impression that preparation is something of an antidote to the spiraling hyperpolarization we see in many countries, particularly in the United States.
In Finland’s case, it is preparation for war with its neighbor Russia. The Ukraine war might have come as a shock to the rest of the world. But Finns have been expecting something of the sort since World War II, when the Soviet Union came within a whisker of conquering them.
The last 80 years have been spent in preparation.
That has meant sacrifice. Most obviously, there is conscription for males 18 years old, who then serve in a reserve unit for decades. But it also means taxes on fuel and electricity to allow the state to maintain large reserves, making the country less vulnerable if Russia were to attack.
Yet the most interesting “tax” is the absolute necessity for cooperation. Finns know that if everyone in a nation of 5.5 million people doesn’t work together seamlessly, then they have no hope against a threat like Russia. This forces them all – businesses, government agencies, the military, and civil society – to put one common calculation above all others: national safety.
The result is a shared purpose and a sense of mutual trust that felt (to this American, at least) almost like stepping into a time machine. The United States hasn’t experienced similar levels of trust since the Cold War, when President Ronald Reagan was able to unify the country against a Soviet threat.
Today, Finland shows how the benefits of vigilance go far beyond strategic preparation. Preparedness demands the sacrifices of self that are the fuel for healthy democracies. Working with a common goal often has a unifying effect.
Finland would certainly rather not have a menacing neighbor. But that has played a part in helping it ward off the most toxic elements of partisanship now undermining effective governance across the West.
The question for Democracy 2.0, it seems, is how to create this shared purpose without needing an enemy to do it for you.
This column first appeared in the July 21 issue of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly. Subscribe today to receive future issues of the Monitor Weekly magazine delivered to your home.
