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      When Will We Know the Bleeding Truth?

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      In an article for Bloomberg, British historian Niall Ferguson expresses his strategic insight into the real motives of the Biden administration concerning the course of the war in Ukraine. Officially, the US claims to be acting in the interest of Ukraine’s defense in an effort to support democracy and reaffirm the principle of sovereignty that permits any country to join an antiquated military alliance directed by the United States, on the other side of a distant ocean.

      Less officially, President Joe Biden has been emphasizing the emotional side of US motivation when he wants to turn Russia into a “pariah,” while branding its president as a “war criminal” and a “murderer.” Biden’s rhetoric indicates clearly that whatever purely legal and moral point the United States cites to justify its massive financial engagement in the war, its true motivation reflects a vigilante mindset focused on regime change.

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      The administration denies it has regime change on its mind. But Ferguson cites a senior administration official who privately confided that Biden’s “end game now … is the end of Putin regime.” The historian concludes that rather than seek a negotiated end to the war, the US “intends to keep this war going.”

      As usual in foreign policy matters, Ferguson notes a certain convergence of viewpoint from his own government. He quotes an anonymous source affirming that the United Kingdom’s “No. 1 option is for the conflict to be extended and thereby bleed Putin.” A little later in the article, Ferguson qualifies as “archetypal Realpolitik” the American intent “to allow the carnage in Ukraine to continue; to sit back and watch the heroic Ukrainians ‘bleed Russia dry.’”

      Today’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Bleed (a country):

      To encourage and prolong an unnecessary and unjustified conflict in the interest of sucking the life out of the political establishment of a declared enemy, a process that usually automatically implies sucking the life out of at least one other country, including eventually one’s own

      Contextual Note

      Ferguson dares to question the dominant belief in the US that bleeding Russia is a recipe for success. “Prolonging the war runs the risk not just of leaving tens of thousands of Ukrainians dead and millions homeless, but also of handing Putin something that he can plausibly present at home as victory,” he writes.

      Embed from Getty Images

      When the focus is both on bleeding and prolonging the combat, there is a strong likelihood that the bleeding will be shared. If a boxer sees a cut over his opponent’s eye, he may strategically focus all his punches on the opponent’s face hoping for a technical knockout. But, by focusing on the loss of blood, he may drop his guard with the risk of getting knocked out or opening his own bleeding wound.

      “I fail to see in current Western strategizing any real recognition of how badly this war could go for Ukraine in the coming weeks,” Ferguson observes. The reason may simply be that the hyperreal moment the Western world is now living through is proving too enjoyable to critique, at least for the media. The more horror stories of assaults on innocent civilians make their way into the headlines, the more the media can play the morally satisfying game of: here’s one more reason to hate Vladimir Putin.

      If the White House is focused, as it now appears, not on saving Ukrainian democracy but on bleeding Russia, all the stories of Russian abuse of brave civilians are designed with the purpose of prolonging the war, in the hope that, discredited by Putin’s failure to break Ukraine’s resistance, Russians will revolt and depose the evil dictator. In the meantime, those Ukrainians who manage to survive are being asked to play the supporting role of watching their country reduced to ruins.

      Ferguson speculates that US strategists have come to “think of the conflict as a mere sub-plot in Cold War II, a struggle in which China is our real opponent.” That would be an ambitious plan, riddled with complexity. But the Biden administration has demonstrated its incapacity to deal effectively even with straightforward issues, from passing the Build Back Better framework in the US to managing a pandemic.

      The Ukraine situation involves geopolitics, the global economy and, even more profoundly, the changing image of US power felt by populations and governments across the globe. At the end of his article, the historian describes this as an example of dangerous overreach, claiming that “the Biden administration is making a colossal mistake in thinking that it can protract the war in Ukraine, bleed Russia dry, topple Putin and signal to China to keep its hands off Taiwan.”

      Historical Note

      One salient truth about Americans’ perception of the Ukraine War should be evident to everyone. Today’s media thoroughly understands the American public’s insatiable appetite for the right kind of misinformation. Niall Ferguson makes the point that the US government may nevertheless be inept in providing it. The history of misinformation in times of war over the past century should provide some clues.

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      In 1935, Major General Smedley Butler wrote a book describing the logic behind his own service on several continents. Its title was “War Is a Racket.” He described the American vision of war as a quest for corporate profit. He tried to warn the nation of the inhumanity of such an approach to the use of military force. He manifestly failed because he was late to the game. Back in 1917, Edward Bernays, the “father of Public Relations,” seduced the American public into believing that the only motive for the nation’s invasions and wars is the spreading of democracy. It was Bernays who provided Woodrow Wilson with the slogan “make the world safe for democracy.”

      For the rest of his life, Bernays not only helped private companies boost their brands, he also consulted on foreign policy to justify regime change when it threatened a customer’s racket. In 1953, working for United Fruit, he collaborated with President Dwight Eisenhower’s secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, and his brother, CIA Director Allen Dulles, to overthrow Jacobo Arbenz, the elected president of Guatemala. Arbenz had a plan to redistribute to the country’s impoverished peasants “unused land” monopolized by United Fruit. In a 2007 article for the Financial Times, Peter Chapman recounted that both Dulles brothers were “legal advisers” to United Fruit. Chapman notes that the company was also involved in the 1961 CIA-led Bay of Pigs invasion.

      In other words, concerning their impact on the American psyche, Bernays the PR man defeated Butler, celebrated at the time as America’s greatest living war hero. His fame was such that a group of powerful fascist-leaning businessmen tried to recruit him to overthrow President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the infamous 1933 “Business Plot.”

      Americans continue to rally around Bernays’ genius for reducing a suspect ideology to a catchy slogan. American interventions abroad are framed as noble efforts to support democracy and promote American business (Butler called them rackets). It’s a population of avid consumers of the media’s plentiful supply of misinformation.

      There are nevertheless odd moments when real information breaks through, though it rarely leaves much lasting impact. Last week, the Pentagon leaked news contradicting the narrative the State Department, the intelligence community and US media have unanimously adopted and promoted. In the Defense Department’s view, Russia’s invasion is not an example of unrestrained sadism toward the Ukrainian people. “As destructive as the Ukraine war is,” Newsweek reports, “Russia is causing less damage and killing fewer civilians than it could, U.S. intelligence experts say.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      The US military establishment calls it the “Russian leader’s strategic balancing act,” observing that Russia has acted with restraint. It realistically assesses that, far from seeking to subdue and conquer Ukraine, Putin’s “goal is to take enough territory on the ground to have something to negotiate with, while putting the government of Ukraine in a position where they have to negotiate.”

      Ferguson has gleaned his own evidence concerning US and UK strategy that “helps explain, among other things, the lack of any diplomatic effort by the U.S. to secure a cease-fire. It also explains the readiness of President Joe Biden to call Putin a war criminal.” Peace is no objective. Punishment is. This is a case where the Pentagon has received the message of Smedley Butler and dares to contradict an administration guided by the logic of Edward Bernays.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Fair Observer Devil’s Dictionary.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Ivanka Trump is helping Ukrainian refugees – it’s a far cry from her days palling around with oligarchs | Arwa Mahdawi

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      Ivanka Trump is helping Ukrainian refugees – it’s a far cry from her days palling around with oligarchsArwa MahdawiThe former president’s daughter has announced she helped deliver more than a million meals to Ukrainian refugees in Poland. How things have changed since the Abramovich party days Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s Ivanka Trump swooping in to save Ukraine. Nato may not be giving Volodymyr Zelenskiy the no-fly zone he wants, but he can at least take solace in the fact that he has the full force of Saint Ivanka by his side.If you haven’t heard about the former first daughter’s latest selfless humanitarian exertions, it’s not because she has been modest about them. Ivanka has kept a low profile since her father lost the 2020 election, but has recently stepped back into the spotlight to ensure her good deeds don’t go unnoticed. On Friday, Ivanka updated her Instagram account for the first time since January with a post trumpeting the fact that she has helped deliver more than a million meals to Ukrainian refugees in Poland. Fox News also published a long puff piece full of adoring quotes from anonymous sources and a Florida pastor she is working with about how a plane full of food destined for refugees would never have got off the ground “if it weren’t for [Ivanka’s] immediate involvement”.Don’t get me wrong, helping refugees should always be applauded. Hurrah Ivanka! But it’s easy to be cynical about a Trump’s charity; quid pro quo seems to be the family motto. Donald Trump withheld congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine in 2019, 90 minutes after a phone call with Zelenskiy in which Trump seems to have pressured him for a favour – the subject of Trump’s first impeachment. Weirdly, I don’t recall Ivanka being quite so concerned about the Ukrainian people back then. She was, after all, busy palling around with oligarchs in Vladmir Putin’s inner circle, such as Roman Abramovich.People change, of course. I’ll be the first to admit that Ivanka is a very different person now to how she was when Dad was in power. She’s in the middle of fighting a fraud case for one thing and, very embarrassingly and inconveniently, Trump can’t prevent himself from calling Putin “smart”. There’s nothing like clinging to a crisis to help whitewash your image.TopicsIvanka TrumpOpinionUS politicsUkraineEuropefeaturesReuse this content More

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      Ending the War in Ukraine

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      Vladimir Putin has a very clear strategy for ending his war in Ukraine. He intends to wipe the country off the map.

      Initially, he’d hoped to do so by seizing Kyiv, replacing the government and absorbing as much of Ukrainian territory into Russia as he thought feasible. Now, after the resistance of the Ukrainians, he is looking to eliminate their country by a different method. He will bomb it into submission from the air and depopulate the country by turning millions of its citizens into refugees.

      Is Peace Possible in Ukraine?

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      The outflow of Ukrainians has the additional benefit, from Putin’s point of view, of putting pressure on the rest of Europe and sowing discord among NATO members. Putin saw how effective Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko was last year in using several thousand desperate migrants from the Middle East as a weapon to provoke European countries. Putin is calculating that a wave of refugees several orders of magnitude larger will swell the anti-immigrant sentiment that has strengthened far-right parties and put the European project at risk.

      So far, neither of these strategies is working. With a few exceptions, the European far right has abandoned Putin, and the EU has embraced a double standard on immigration by extending a welcome to Ukrainians that few countries were willing to offer to those fleeing from Afghanistan or Syria.

      Meanwhile, NATO is emerging from this crisis with greater cohesion. Putin has forgotten an elemental lesson of geopolitics: a common threat serves as the glue that holds alliances together.

      Embed from Getty Images

      For all of these reasons, Putin is not interested in ending his war in Ukraine. Simply put, as Russian spokesman Dmitry Peskov recently verified, the Russian president has not yet achieved his aims. But he might be forced to end his war for other reasons.

      The View from Kyiv

      Volodymyr Zelensky has a very clear strategy for ending the war in his country. The Ukrainian president is mobilizing his defenses at home and his supporters abroad. He hopes he can achieve a stalemate on the ground and force Russia to compromise at the negotiating table.

      So far, in the first month of the war, both strategies have met with success. The Ukrainian military has blocked the Russian advance on all the major cities, forcing the Kremlin to rely more heavily on an increasingly indiscriminate air war.

      The Russian military has expanded its control over the Donbas region in the east. It has taken one major city, Kherson, in the south. But it has not been able to overcome the defenders of Mariupol, a port that represents the last major obstacle to connecting the Crimean peninsula by land to Russia proper.

      According to Western intelligence estimates, the Russian army has so far lost at least 7,000 soldiers while 20,000 more have been wounded, which would mean that Russian forces inside Ukraine have been reduced by a third. Unless the Kremlin can send in a lot of reinforcements — Belarussians, Syrians — it will have difficulty taking any major Ukrainian cities, much less hold on to them for any period of time. Ukrainians are returning to the country to take up arms, and volunteers are signing up to fight alongside Ukrainian soldiers, so David is starting to bulk up against Goliath.

      Meanwhile, on the international front, the sanctions have attracted widespread support, although some powerful countries like China and India continue to support Putin economically. Some of the sanctions target the lifestyles of the rich and powerful, such as asset freezes and travel bans for top officials. Other measures are beginning to affect ordinary Russians, such as all the job losses from Western businesses like UpWork and Starbucks pulling out of the country.

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      However, a number of companies are suspending operations in a manner that tries to avoid hurting their Russian staff, like McDonald’s continuing to pay their employees even if the restaurants are closed. Also, the sanctions do not target essentials like medicines. Still, the sanctions are expected to drive Russia into a significant recession, with the economy shrinking by as much as 7%. In 2020, the Russian economy contracted by 3 percent as a result of the COVID shutdowns, which at the time was considered a major setback.

      Losses on the battlefield and in the global economy are what’s likely to force Putin to end his war before he gets what he wants. No diplomatic solution is possible without this kind of pressure.

      Terms on the Table

      The major issue going into the war will likely be the major compromise coming out of the war: Ukraine’s status in the European security system.

      Putin not only wants NATO membership off the table for Ukraine, he would like to see the security alliance rewind the clock to 1997 before it expanded into Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. However bone-headed NATO expansion was — and it truly was a major blunder on the part of the West — Putin is not going to be able to negotiate a significant drawdown of the alliance’s footprint. Indeed, as a result of the invasion of Ukraine, NATO may well expand to include Finland and Sweden, for starters.

      Ukrainian neutrality, on the other hand, is very much a possibility. A report last week about a 15-point draft of a preliminary deal included “Kyiv renouncing its ambitions to join NATO and swear off hosting foreign military bases or weaponry in exchange for security guarantees from countries such as Britain, the United States or Turkey.”

      Security guarantees? That’s precisely what NATO membership is supposed to provide. And it’s difficult to envision any of the countries mentioned agreeing to come to Ukraine’s defense in the case of a subsequent Russian attack. They are quite clearly not doing so now. Still, if renouncing NATO membership gets Russia to pull back and stop its air attacks, it would be a worthwhile quid pro quo to pursue.

      Embed from Getty Images

      But then the other major sticking point enters the picture: territory. How much would Russia actually pull back? Would it give up the gains it has made so far in the war? Would it stop championing independence for Donetsk and Luhansk? Would it give back Crimea?

      Ukraine to date has refused to acknowledge even the loss of Crimea, so compromise will be challenging. But Zelensky has hinted at the potential of rethinking Ukraine’s borders, contingent on a referendum on the necessary constitutional changes. Perhaps an agreement to return to the status quo ante — with some strategic ambiguity about the final status of Crimea and the Donbas — might be a feasible interim agreement.

      The last major question is the composition of the Ukrainian government. Putin has called for the “de-Nazification” of Ukraine. In the best-case scenario, he might be willing to accept some restrictions on the participation of the Azov Battalion in the military. In the worst-case scenario, Putin will not stop until he has installed a “friendly” government in Kyiv.

      The threat of Russian influence in Ukraine was a main motivation for Zelensky recently to ban 11 political parties, including the largest opposition party, the pro-Russian Opposition Platform for Life. On the one hand, Ukraine’s democracy is one of its main selling points, so any restrictions on that democracy tarnishes its image. On the other hand, Putin has no qualms about exploiting divisions within Ukrainian society and would rely on these opposition parties to staff any future “friendly” government. Some democratic governments like Germany and Spain have banned political parties that pose a national security threat to their democratic governance.

      Zelensky is also well aware of the three foiled assassination plots on his life, all sponsored by Russia. The likelihood that anti-war elements within Russia’s own intelligence services tipped off the Ukrainians suggests that Putin has as much to worry about hostile elements within his political ranks as Zelensky does.

      Getting to Yes

      The various peace deals that are leaked to the press could signify combat fatigue, particularly on the Russian side. Or it could be a ploy by Putin to lull his interlocutors into thinking that because they’re dealing with a reasonable negotiating partner it’s important to hold off on another round of sanctions or arms sales.

      Embed from Getty Images

      While I have no illusions about Putin — I think he’s a ruthless fascist — it’s still important to offer him diplomatic off-ramps. There’s nothing more dangerous than a cornered dictator with nuclear weapons.

      The goal must be to stop the war and preserve what’s left of Ukrainian sovereignty. Russian troops must leave; the Ukrainian people must decide their leadership, not the Kremlin. Meanwhile, it’s likely that the vast majority of Ukrainian refugees want to return home and rebuild their country, just as the bulk of Kosovars did after the end of the war with Serbia in 1999. The West must be at least as generous with resettlement and reconstruction funds as it has been with arms deliveries.

      The Kosovo case is instructive for another reason. Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic, a communist apparatchik turned political opportunist who became a vehement nationalist when circumstances propelled him in that direction, over-reached in 1999 in an effort to prevent Kosovo from becoming independent. His military campaign failed, and the very next year, the opposition swept him from power in elections. By 2001, he was arrested in Serbia and then delivered to the war crimes tribunal in the Hague. He died in disgrace.

      Putin certainly wants to avoid that fate. Megalomania, however, has nudged him in that direction. So, now begins the challenge of peeling away Putin’s sense of his own invincibility—first in Ukraine, then in Russian politics, and finally in the court of international law.

      *[This article was originally published by FPIF.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Biden seeks to reassure Europe as he walks tightrope over Ukraine crisis

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      Biden seeks to reassure Europe as he walks tightrope over Ukraine crisisPresident reiterated his message to Brussels that America is back, while he promises to impose sanctions on 300 members of the Russian parliament He did not shove the prime minister of Montenegro at a photo-op, he did not call the British prime minister and German chancellor “losers” and he did not deride Nato as a bunch of grifters looking for a free lunch.So low was the bar set by former US president Donald Trump that, merely by condemning Russia’s Vladimir Putin rather than gushing over his biceps, Joe Biden earned good will on his unity and resolve tour of Europe.The president came to Brussels on Thursday with promises to accept up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees fleeing the month-long Russian invasion, give $1bn in new humanitarian aid and impose sanctions on 300 members of the Russian parliament.It was an attempt to project reassurance that Biden, born during the second world war, can emulate President Franklin Roosevelt’s “great arsenal of democracy” without stumbling into a third.US expands Russian sanctions and plans to accept 100,000 Ukrainian refugeesRead moreBut the 79-year-old’s handshakes and whispers with France’s Emmanuel Macron and others at the Nato, G7 and European Council summits may put the seal on the Obama paradox: an American president more popular abroad than at home.Gallup surveys conducted before Russia invaded Ukraine showed the image of US leadership making a significant recovery from the Trump era. “Between 2020 and 2021, American leadership saw double-digit gains in 20 of the 27 Nato members surveyed both years,” the polling firm said.That stands in vivid contrast with Biden’s approval rating within the US, which this week fell to a new low of 40%, according to a Reuters/ Ipsos opinion poll. The survey found that 54% of Americans disapprove of his job performance as the country struggles with high inflation.Biden’s approval rating matched Trump’s at this point in his presidency: both stood at 40% in mid-March in their second year in office. The relief of western allies at having America back at the table is unlikely to be reflected by domestic voters in the midterm elections in November.That is why Republicans are hammering away at Biden by urging him to do more for Ukraine though with few specific details and, more loudly and convincingly to the electorate, by blaming him for soaring gas prices at home. They intend to prove the old adage that all politics is local.The point was illustrated on prime time cable news television on Wednesday night. CNN’s Anderson Cooper opened his show with coverage of the war in Ukraine; Tucker Carlson, on the conservative Fox News channel, talked instead about supreme court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson declining to offer a definition of “woman” during her Senate confirmation hearing.CNN’s Reliable Sources newsletter noted: “As Cooper showed horrifying drone footage of the widespread devastation in Mariupol, Carlson showed his audience a sex-ed type graphic of the female reproductive system.”It observed: “Four weeks after the war commenced, there are signs that fatigue is setting in. TV news ratings, for instance, have started to fall back to reality after ballooning early on. And perhaps another sign is the return of culture idiocy that is once again saturating channels like Fox and social media feeds.”It is a further reminder to be grateful that Trump no longer has his finger on the Twitter button – or the nuclear one. The man who once posed the biggest threat to global democracy has been replaced in that role by Putin. Biden beat one and must now thwart the other.So far that has meant a “Goldilocks” approach – not too hot, not too cold, not too weak, not too provocative. This received a boost on Thursday when Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy delivered a video address to Nato from Kyiv that did not, according to White House officials, include calls for a no-fly zone or Nato membership, giving Biden some breathing room.Still, Zelinskiy naturally urged Nato to stiffen its spine and do more, and it remains unclear how Biden will respond if an increasingly desperate Putin resorts to biological, chemical or even nuclear weapons. Western unity will be tested as the costs of war bite into the global economy.The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, dismissed calls to follow the US by boycotting Russian energy supplies, warning: “To do so from one day to the next would mean plunging our country and all of Europe into recession.”The president who made a contest between democracy and autocracy the guiding principle of his foreign policy will also be aware that Thursday’s meetings are being watched closely by China, which has sent mixed signals about the invasion and may yet give Putin military support.China’s decisive turning point: will it side with Russia and divide the world?Read moreNato’s determined response, and the underperformance of the bogged down Russian army, may serve as a warning to Chinese president Xi Jinping and scramble his calculus for an assault on Taiwan. Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution thinktank in Palo Alto, California, told reporters this week: “Xi is pissed as hell because it completely changes the timeline and the dynamics of the situation.“The most fascinating dimension of this crisis right now is to watch Xi Jinping be completely tied up in knots over what to do about this. He and the senior Chinese leadership are clearly struggling for a narrative and a response.”Standing against a blue backdrop dotted with Nato logos, Biden addressed the issue of Chinese intervention at a press conference. He recalled that, in a recent call with Xi, he pointed out that many US and foreign corporations have left Russia. “I indicated that he would be putting himself in significant jeopardy. I think that China understands that its economic futures are much more closely tied to the west than it is to Russia. So I’m hopeful that he does not get engaged.”He reiterated his message to Brussels that America is back. But towards the end of the question and answer session, someone raised European concerns that Trump might get re-elected in 2024 – raising the spectre of a return to the uncertainty, insults and Putin-praise singing.The president replied: “One of the things I take some solace from is I don’t think you’ll find any European leader who thinks that I am not up to the job… I don’t criticise anybody for asking that question. But the next election, I’d be very fortunate if I had that same man running against me.”Steeped in foreign policy after decades as a senator and vice-president, Biden is likely to be thinking about geopolitical questions in terms of decades. Unfortunately for him, his political legacy could be decided by Tucker Carlson and viewers’ demand for instant gratification.TopicsNatoJoe BidenUS foreign policyUS politicsVladimir PutinRussiaUkrainefeaturesReuse this content More

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      The State of Press Freedom in Finland

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      A decision to prosecute three journalists at Finland’s largest newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, has called into question its status as one of the world’s leading countries for press freedom. Investigative journalists Laura Halminen and Tuomo Pietilainen, along with their supervisor, Kalle Silfverberg, are accused of disclosing and attempting to disclose state secrets. All three deny the charges.

      The case concerns a series of investigative articles about a military intelligence research center operated by the Finnish defense forces. If found guilty, the journalists face up to four years in prison, with a minimum sentence of four months.

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      Despite Finland’s status as a leading example for freedom of the press, it has not been problem-free, particularly with targeted harassment of journalists. However, the case against Helsingin Sanomat’s journalists has opened up an entirely new front for defenders of press freedom. It has also raised uncomfortable issues from Finland’s past, which the country is still grappling with.

      A Small Country With a Large Neighbor

      Finland, with a population of 5.5 million, shares a border of more than 800 miles with Russia and its population of more than 144 million. For Finnish leaders, this has meant taking a realist approach to foreign policy. In particular, the Winter War of 1939-40, when Finland resisted an attack by the Soviet Union, is one of the defining events in the country’s history.

      The decades that followed World War II were challenging for Finland, a small country ravaged by war. Maintaining good relations with the Soviet Union during the Cold War was a necessity. Finland successfully avoided Soviet occupation and remained a democracy, but it paid the price in the form of “Finlandization,” which meant strict political neutrality and not challenging the influence of the Soviet Union.

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      Finland’s national security strategy is founded on conscription, a trained reserve, defense of the entire country and a willingness to defend it from attack. The aim is to make it an unappealing target for a would-be aggressor state.

      A recent decision to renew Finland’s aging fleet of Hornets with 64 Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II fighter jets, popular with NATO countries, forms part of the strategy. Maintaining good international relations and participating in international military crisis management are other key elements. Finland is not a member of NATO, but it joined the European Union in 1995. Polls indicate that support for NATO membership has grown significantly following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

      Prosecution Before Publication

      The case against the three journalists was triggered by an article that Helsingin Sanomat published in 2017. Legislative changes that aimed to extend the information-gathering powers of the security services were underway at the time. The newspaper’s representatives have argued that there were strong public interest reasons for publishing the story.

      The police investigation included a raid on one journalist’s home and left them stuck in limbo for four years. The decision to prosecute, announced in late October 2021, concerns the article published five years ago and material for a series of unpublished articles. The prosecution based on unpublished material has understandably raised concerns.

      There are currently limited facts available about the basis for the prosecution or the details of the case, but more information is expected to become public at a later stage. Based on the available information, it appears likely that one of the central questions in the case will hinge on when an investigative journalist’s research potentially crosses the line into an attempt to disclose state secrets.

      The Finnish Union of Journalists has raised strong concerns about the case, pointing out that it could set a precedent and mean that a journalist’s unpublished notes might result in a conviction. The union and the Council for Mass Media, the independent media regulator, have called for openness in the legal proceedings.

      Embed from Getty Images

      While not taking a position on the case, the council has expressed concerns that it could result in restrictions on freedom of expression on grounds that may remain secret. The council has emphasized the need for clarity about the circumstances in which considering material for publication or finalizing material, without actually publishing it, could constitute a crime.

      The issues raised by the Council for Mass Media include concerns about the risk of self-censorship. This is a sensitive historical issue, as the era of “Finlandization” included heavy self-censorship in the media and in publishing. Writing about the case for Politiikasta, academic scholars Anu Koivunen and Johanna Vuorelma warn against the risk of a return to a Cold War-era media environment, where every decision to publish was assessed from a security perspective.

      Welcome to the Land of Free Press

      In 2018, hundreds of billboards commissioned by Helsingin Sanomat famously greeted Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin on their visit to Helsinki with messages such as, “Mr. President, welcome to the land of free press.” The case against Helsingin Sanomat’s journalists may test whether Finland still is that land of a free press.

      Whatever the outcome of the case, it has given Finland, the world’s happiest country, cause for serious self-reflection.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      US ‘will not entertain’ UK trade deal that risks Good Friday agreement

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      US ‘will not entertain’ UK trade deal that risks Good Friday agreement US congressman Richard Neal says peace deal must not be held ‘hostage over domestic politics’ A bilateral trade deal between the US and the UK is “desirable” but will not progress while the Northern Ireland peace deal is being used for domestic political purposes, one of the most powerful American congressmen has warned.Richard Neal, the chairman of the ways and means committee, has told the Guardian: “We will not entertain a trade agreement if there is any jeopardy to the Good Friday agreement.TopicsNorthern IrelandBrexitEuropeIrelandForeign policyEuropean UnionUS politicsnewsReuse this content More