Thirst for Power - His only Goal in EU

French president Nicolas Sarkozy claims in a recent interview, that the real presidency in Euro country issues belongs to him and Angela Merkel of Germany.


With decades of effort we have managed to build up a union of the European countries; aiming to form a wider than one-nation understanding. And then comes up something like Sarkozy with his 19th century views of international policy, and apparently with little understanding of what EU is about. All he seems to pursuit in EU, is national and personal influence and power.

I wonder if Sarkozy thinks he is Napoleon reborn? Is he perhaps secretly dreaming of leading France to a new glorious position as the ruler of all Europe? With him as the emperor? - Well, together with Angela Merkel, if absolutely unavoidable.

But What About USA?

My recent posts have been mainly about Finnish traffic, police inefficiency, and Russia. Yet when originally starting this blog, I thought that USA would probably be one of my main interests. After all, my topic is the incomprehensibly unreal reality that our leaders force us to live in.

The presidential seal was changed by President Truman in 1945:
The eagle's head was turned toward the olive branch (symbol of peace instead of the symbol of war)

So, never fear; have some patience: we will eventually proceed to the sad story how president Bush with his league lured the American people to think that a war was necessary, and that French fries just had to be boycotted.

Russians back in Finnish airspace

Just a few days after the Finnish Defence Minister gave his speech in USA, stating that Russia is the major security challenge for Finland, Russians proved him right: an Ilyushin IL-76 strategic airlifter of the Russian Armed Forces violated the Finnish airspace. - One just can not imagine any other state having their airplanes flying unauthorized in the Finnish airspace.

Ilyushin IL-76 on the Antarctic in 2003.
Photo by Mika Kalakoski.

The plane flew 4,5 km deep on Finnish territory, for a few minutes. A Boeing F-18 Hornet of the Finnish Air Force was sent out to guide it back to the international airspace. The incident was instantly reported an accident, and Russia has promised to investigate it.

Russian planes frequented Finnish airspace in 2005 until Finland sent a note to Russia, informing that from thereon all violations would be published internationally.

Russia is now living a phase of new bullying, and Russians have themselves admitted that Russian negotiation strategy is to intimidate. If the opposite party is easily scared, they will only be despised. But if they show some backbone, they might even earn some respect from the Russians. - This is something that the Finns have never really understood.

The Finnish Prime Minister has a bad habit of trying to keep unfinished business under cover, even though Finland officially is an open country, where discussion should supposedly be valued. He has now expressed his futile hope that no connection should be made between the Defence Minister's speech, and the airspace violation. He shows no understanding of the Russian character, or even of the Finnish character. And has he really forgotten that the former violations got stopped only after the note from the Finnish government?


But have you thought about this: If it is not the Russian government that allows airspace violations when 'needed', who is it then? Are the Russian Armed Forces perhaps not in the control of the Russian government after all?

What can you say about Russia

There is a rather vivid political discussion going on in Finland. The right wing politicians want finally to say aloud, what every Finn has always known, that Russia is Finland's major security issue. - Not 'threat', mind you, but 'issue'.

We have a long history of Russian invasions, from the dawn of our recorded history: Novgorodians, Muscovites, Russians, Soviets, you name it. They all have made attacks to Finland, and some of them have even managed to occupy Finland. - Just read your history book.

Finnish-Russian border during the history
(from 'History of Karelia')

The Finnish leftists want to maintain lower profile in the discussion. And they might actually be right: why irritate the slumbering Russian bear. Russia is far more powerful than Finland, and - as already said - they have a certain history of treating Finland. We do not want also Putin to adopt Bush's policy: 'You're either with us, or against us'.


For a while we thought we really might learn to be friends with Russia. But should we be cynically realistic: Isn't it far wiser to keep repeating the soviet era political liturgy of 'good and friendly relations', that everybody knew to be false, and just settle back to the safety of the good old Finlandisierung. Why stretch your muscles when you have a neighbor with so much more muscle; and tendency to use them?

Or could the right wing politicians be right, after all: Shouldn't we join forces to tell Russia, that bullying just no longer is accepted by the international community. We want co-operation, not oppressing, and certainly not again another war. - You might also want to remember that we Finns did rather well in the last few wars...

Russia back to making enemies

I've written a couple of times of the missile conflict in Georgia (see 'Russian or not - the fighter bomber?' and 'Russian fighter bomber - Follow up'). We do not yet know the truth of the missile incident, but the undeniably grown aggressiveness of Russian foreign policy has led Georgia to decide to join the NATO radar system.

In the near future NATO shall receive real time information on all incidents in the Georgian airspace. By her own bullying policy Russia keeps pushing her neighbors to join forces with the west. After a long period of positive development, Russia is again actively growing international tension, and taking distance from the unifying world.

Russia does not seem to want international harmony. Instead they prefer being a big and strong and respected nation. But once again I must repeat, that instead of gaining the respect, their policy will end up only in making enemies.

Blinkers on:
Putin and Bush wanting to take their different turns.

Welcome back cold war. Welcome back bi-polar world. - It appears that the old Finnish slogan is true after all: "Russian will be Russian, even if you fried him in butter".