Select Case Study Findings on Interstate Conflicts: Europe and the Middle East

Abstract

Finland made several strategic and important tactical decisions during this conflict with its great power, later superpower, neighbor, Russia-USSR (1919–1961). The first two Finland decisions occurred within the first year of this interstate conflict (1919). One was to participate in the Western Powers’ military intervention in Northern Russia, in support of the ‘White Russian’ opponents of the Bolshevik regime. The second, near-simultaneous, decision was to dispatch Finnish ‘Volunteers’ to ‘liberate’ Eastern Karelia, a predominantly ethnic Finnish majority population that was an integral part of Tsarist Russia and its Communist successor. The first decision was only partly implemented because its primary advocate, then General, later Marshal, Mannerheim, acting as Regent of Finland in 1918–1919, was replaced by a moderate elected president, and because the ‘White Russians’, the intended beneficiary of that intervention, refused to recognize Finland’s independence. The second decision, like all subsequent attempts to secure control of East Karelia, failed; in fact, Finland was compelled to abandon its claim to that disputed territory in the 1920 Soviet Union-imposed Peace of Tartu, the third Finland decision in that initial phase of their conflict. There were no Finland decisions in the inter-World War period, the second peaceful phase (end 1920–beginning 1939).