Finnish Military Quotes

The blitzkrieg, in short, had been perfected for a sleek, hard-muscled, superbly trained, and passionately motivated army, such as the German General Staff had fashioned during the decades between the wars. It was quite unsuited for a ponderous, top-heavy army of ill-trained soldiers led by timid officers, overseen by inexperienced party ideologues, and sent forth to conquer a country whose terrain consists of practically nothing but natural obstacles to military operations.

Three scholars illustrate the role of intelligence in a data set of Finnish investors in which they have IQ information from prior (mandatory) military service.8 They find that the high IQ investors’ portfolios outperform the low IQ investors by 4.9 percent per year. This higher return stems from the higher IQ investors exhibiting better market timing and stock picking. In addition, they are less prone to the disposition effect and the sentiment of other investors.

To maximize Finland’s bargaining power, the military strategy would be to hold on to every inch of Finnish soil and to inflict maximum casualties on the enemy—to present Stalin with such a butcher’s bill that he, too, would be eager for negotiations.

conventional, professional, military skills, the fiber of their discipline, the worthiness of their commanders—and above all else, on the depth and stubbornness of their sisu. That bristling little word was once the most famous Finnish idiom ever to become part of the outside world’s vocabulary. It can be translated as “guts” or “spunk” or “grit” or “balls,” or as a combination of all those words together. The word in Finnish has nuances that resist easy translation.

Indeed, trust is central to democracy and these processes have already damaged trust considerably, and will continue to disenfranchise citizens to the point that they may increasingly lose faith in democracy, regarding it as corrupt and a waste of time. They will vote for political parties that are suspicious of democracy, at least when the country is ruled by those whom they perceive to be enemies. Depending on their perspective, these parties will be of the far right or far left by current standards. Movements not unlike the Lapua Movement will gain traction in circumstances like this, as will groups from the extreme left. And the kind of generally wealthy people who become involved in Finnish politics – in Finland individual candidates must fund their own campaigns – will be increasingly distrusted and perceived as, essentially, ‘other;’ as not part of the in-group. This will, unfortunately, have ramifications for their safety, especially as people begin to blame those who advocated and enforced Multiculturalism for its future consequences.    This distrust will start to spread, like a disease, to other organs of the Finnish state. The police will be increasingly perceived – especially if they are seen to enforce unpopular policies with regard to not being allowed to criticise immigration – not as protectors of the Finnish people but as ‘enemies of the people.’ Distrust of the police, will result in the establishment of para-military forces of the kind that have been so prevalent in the recent history of Northern Ireland. This can already be observed with patrols in Finland by the Soldiers of Odin. If this seems too far fetched, it should be remembered that in the 1970s, trust in the police in strongly Catholic parts of Northern Ireland was so low that the British state simply had no control in many of these areas.

It is rather amazing that the Finns appeared not to have realized that their refusal to participate in operations against the Soviet Union after they had secured the lost territories at East Karelia that the achievement of their own goals was totally dependent on Germany achieving its goal of destroying the Soviet Union. Germany’s failure to do so, either because of a military defeat or because of a negotiated settlement would jeopardize Finland’s position. If Germany lost the war, the very existence of Finland came into question. It therefore made virtually no difference what the Finnish war aims were as they were intrinsically linked to those of Germany. It is nevertheless extraordinary that the Germans did not press the Finns for more definite answers regarding their participation in achieving the two main German objectives: operations against Leningrad, and the cutting of the Murmansk railroad. The failure to do so became a major bone of contention and should have been anticipated. Carl von Clausewitz wrote: ‘no war is begun, or at least no war should begin, if people acted wisely without first finding the answer to the question: what is to be attained by and in war?