Week 39: Serious Finnish Security
Finding a comfortable place at the Helsinki Security Forum, and wrapping up my week in London
Over the past few days I have been in Helsinki for the Helsinki Security Forum. This was the second iteration of the conference, and I attended last year as well. Yet at this year’s event I felt a little more comfortable than previously. Primarily this was an issue of attire. International Relations loves a suit, and I do not own a suit. At forums such at this they are a signal of seriousness and belonging. Last year I felt I had neither, and so was limited in my interaction with other attendees. This year, however, I felt a little more confident. I had business cards from AP4D to hand out – another signal of seriousness – and also felt a little more assured that I belonged at such a forum intellectually (confident my mouth could make up for my lack of jacket and tie).
This year there was also a panel that made me feel more on top of the content. Last year there was almost no discussion about Asia, bar a few passing mentions of China, so a session titled Reverberations In The Indo-Pacific Of The War In Ukraine, was a welcome addition. This panel also featured Euan Graham, from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, who I had met several times previously, and whose wife, Jay Song, I used to be a research assistant for at the University of Melbourne. The Australian Embassy in Stockholm also sent over a representative, and it was nice to have a good chat with her, given that Sweden is my second home at the moment.
The forum hosts – the Finnish Institute of International Affairs – also organised some excursions during the conference, and so I was able to go on a tour of Helsinki’s Civilian Defence Shelters. The Finns are nothing if not organised, and sharing a long border with a belligerent neighbour has led them to invest heavily in planning for the worst. Underneath Helsinki is a network of tunnels and bunkers that are able to quickly accommodate the entire population of the city, with the ability to withstand both conventional bombings, as well as gas and chemical attacks.
Yet rather than be stagnant aspects of the city, the tunnels and bunkers are active parts of it. They are in constant use as indoor sporting facilitates, there are children’s playgrounds underground, and the city’s metro system also forms part of the network. The constant use means they are also under constant maintenance. Bunkers that lie dormant may find themselves in states of dangerous disrepair in the event they might be needed.
Prior to Helsinki I was in London, reacquainting myself with the city and feeling very keen to move back there. This seems unlikely in the near term, but when I’m back in Europe next year I will undoubted by spending a lot more time there.
While in London I had a good chat with Baroness Arminka Helić, who is a former advisor to the UK’s foreign secretary and is now, obviously by her title, in the House of Lords. Alongside her expertise in foreign affairs, Arminka (being Australian I’ll dispense with the formalities) has a keen interest in domestic violence, understanding that we cannot solve state-level violence without addressing individual level violence. How this is essential to understanding the psychology of violence. Something I have written about in Our Reckoning With Machismo.
It is worth reading her contribution to the UK’s Domestic Violence bill from 2021 in Hansard. This one sentence stands out - “I come to this issue from my work on preventing sexual violence in conflict. That taught me what happens to women in war, but nothing prepared me for the horror of what happens, predominantly to women, in conditions of peace.”
Also while in London I managed to grab a beer with John Pollock from Chatham House. John was the founder of the publication 9 Dash Line, which has become an important source of analysis for issues in the Indo-Pacific. It was fun to have a drink at an off-Whitehall pub and talk shit about both international and domestic politics. Surrounded by similar self-important clowns doing the very same.
This Week’s Reading and Listening:
What Difference Can Australian Development Assistance Make?
Grant Wyeth – The Diplomat
“In her address to the United Nations General Assembly last week, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong spoke extensively about development assistance. She spoke of the displaced and hungry, of those affected by climate change-induced extreme weather events, and how the COVID-19 pandemic had pushed over 100 million people back into poverty. The speech was designed to project the image of Australia as a responsible international actor, one that recognises the most pressing global problems and is willing and able to assist with solutions.
Wong quite rightly stated that “Australia’s investments are a statement of our belief that social and economic progress are preconditions for peace.” Yet there is one glaring detail that contrasts with the content and tone of Wong’s speech – among OECD countries Australia has one of the lowest contributions to development assistance as a percentage of GDP. The money Australia is willing to spend on development assistance doesn’t match the country’s rhetoric.”
Kaja Kallas and the Five Traps of Russia
Grant Wyeth - International Blue
“One of the motifs that has emerged from Russia’s escalation of its invasion of Ukraine last year has been the clear-eyed approach of the Baltic states. These are countries that were occupied and subjugated by Russia during the 20th Century, and they have emerged from this period with an intimate understanding of Russian thinking and how its nefarious behaviour needs to be handled.
Estonia has especially been forthright in its assessments of Russia, and why a firm and united front against it needs to be maintained. At the Helsinki Security Forum today, Estonian prime minister, Kaja Kallas, laid out five traps that we can all fall into when engaging with Russia.
The core message from Kallas is that if belligerence exists, then deterrence is legitimate. Deterrence is only “hawkish” if you sympathise with violent bullies.”
Aurelian Craiutu – American Purpose
“The political vision undergirding moderation is often neglected or misunderstood. Moderates are inspired by a few big ideas such as pluralism, solidarity in diversity, trimming, eclecticism, and dialogue across political differences. They seek to enlarge public sympathy for the common good and help solve deep disagreements in a civil and peaceful manner. As eclectic spirits performing a balancing act, moderates do not seek to serve the agenda of any party. Frustrated with the dogmatism, hyper-polarization, and immoderation that dominate the public and political scene, they try to see “not differently, but farther than parties,” to use Tocqueville’s words.
That is truer today perhaps than ever before. Parties are concerned with maintaining their influence or gaining power tomorrow. Moderates are concerned about the long-term future and refuse to think ideologically. Moderation is not a party platform that defines a single (best) way as a panacea for our social and political problems. But it can be a fighting creed, based on the firm belief that we cannot afford to bargain away the values of the liberal democracy and open society we have inherited from our forefathers. Instead, we must be prepared to courageously fight for their principles when they are endangered by the rise of extremism and fanaticism.”
Robert Gates - Foreign Affairs
“Rebuilding support at home for that responsibility is essential to rebuilding trust among allies and awareness among adversaries that the United States will fulfill its commitments. Because of domestic divisions, mixed messages, and political leaders’ ambivalence about the United States’ role in the world, there is significant doubt abroad about American reliability. Both friends and adversaries wonder whether Biden’s engagement and alliance-building is a return to normal or whether Trump’s “America first” disdain for allies will be the dominant thread in American policy in the future. Even the closest of allies are hedging their bets about America. In a world where Russia and China are on the prowl, that is particularly dangerous.
Restoring public support for U.S. global leadership is the highest priority, but the United States must take other steps to actually exercise that role. First, it needs to go beyond “pivoting” to Asia. Strengthening relationships with Australia, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and other countries in the region is necessary but not sufficient. China and Russia are working together against U.S. interests on every continent. Washington needs a strategy for dealing with the entire world—particularly in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East, where the Russians and the Chinese are fast outpacing the United States in developing security and economic relationships.”
Jan-Werner Müller – Foreign Affairs
“What is today sometimes described as an “illiberal turn” or “populist wave” is also an elite, rather than grassroots, phenomenon. As political scientist Larry Bartels has shown in an important recent book, Democracy Erodes from the Top, public opinion on issues such as refugees and the European Union has hardly shifted in Europe in recent years. What has changed is the behavior of elite actors: Established conservative forces are now willing to enter coalitions with the far right; implement far-right demands; or, at the very least, copy the far right’s rhetoric. The current British government, especially Home Secretary Suella Braverman, is a prime example of this, as is the de facto capitulation of more established Republicans to Trump.
Where citizens have developed more illiberal views—namely Hungary and Poland—the causal arrow does not point from grassroots to government, but down from aspiring autocrats at the top subjecting their populations to relentless propaganda for the sake of building what Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has infamously called an “illiberal democracy.”
Where the New Identity Politics Went Wrong
Yasha Mounk – The Atlantic
“Much of today’s progressive politics is a popularised version of what I call the “identity synthesis.” To a remarkable extent, the ideas, norms, and practices that have become so prevalent on social media and in corporate diversity trainings owe a debt to these four thinkers in particular. They are rooted in a deep skepticism about objective truth inspired by Foucault, the use of discourse analysis for explicitly political ends taken from Said, an embrace of essentialist categories of identity derived from Spivak, and a preference for public policies that explicitly tie the treatment a person receives to their group identity, as advocated by Bell.
The identity-synthesis advocates are driven by a noble ambition: to remedy the historic injustices that scar every country, including America. These injustices are and remain real. Although social movements and legislative reforms can help address them, the practice of politics, as the sociologist Max Weber famously wrote, is the “strong and slow boring of hard boards.” It rarely provides remedies as quickly or as comprehensively as hoped—leading some to conclude that a more radical break with the status quo is needed.
But these ideas will fail to deliver on their promises. For all their good intentions, they undermine progress toward genuine equality among members of different groups. Despite its allure, the identity synthesis turns out to be a trap.
The lure of the identity synthesis to so many people is a desire to overcome persistent injustices and create a society of genuine equals. But the likely outcome of uncritically accepting this ideology is a society that places an unremitting emphasis on our differences. The effect is to pit rigidly defined identity groups against one another in a zero-sum battle for resources and recognition.”
The Coming Attack on an Essential Element of Women’s Freedom
Kimberly Wehle – The Atlantic
“No-fault divorce managed to meaningfully shift the power balance in marriage relationships: Women now had the option of leaving without their husband’s permission. From 1976 to 1985, states that adopted no-fault divorce saw their overall domestic-violence rates plummet by a quarter to one-half, including in relationships that did not end in divorce. The number of women murdered by “intimates” declined by 10 percent. Female suicide rates also fell immediately in states that moved to unilateral divorce, a downward trend that continued for the next decade. Researchers have theorized that many women “derive a life-preserving benefit from divorce,” because under the threat of divorce, “the husband … behaves himself, thereby reducing the incidence of domestic violence and spousal homicide.”
I have argued previously that the legal ruse of “parental alienation” came as a reaction to no-fault divorce laws in the 1970s. But rather than being tricky, male supremacists (and the Republican Party) are now just being explicit about their worldviews.
Rory Stewart & Alastair Campbell
Over on The Rest Is Politics’s sister podcast, Leading, there is a good interview with New Zealand prime minister, Christ Hipkins. There is a NZ election in a couple of weeks, which polls indicate Labour most likely will lose. But Hipkins, or “Chippy” as he is known, was upbeat nonetheless.
There’s no playlist again this week, but last week I linked to a new single from my friends Prue and Zac – aka Popular Music – and this week they’ve released an incredible clip for the song. It is made on a Fairlight Computer Video Instrument – first released in 1984. It is a video sister technology to the Fairlight Computer Music Instrument, which became ubiquitous during the early to mid-1980s, especially used by Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush. Fairlight is also an example of Australian innovation that we as a country have seem to have lost. We’re far too comfortable – and complacent – just digging stuff up and shipping it overseas to make cool shit anymore.
Anyway, enjoy the clip: