Miks demokraatia Soomet ei päästnud? Ühendkuningriigi-Soome sõda ja demokraatliku rahu teooria [Why did democracy not save Finland? The war between the United Kingdom and Finland, and the democratic peace proposition]

• Published in: Ajalooline Ajakiri. The Estonian Historical Journal
• Main Author: Raudsepp, Ago
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: University of Tartu Press 2015
• Subjects: Murmansk; Northern Finland
• Online Access: https://ojs.utlib.ee/index.php/EAA/article/view/AA.2015.1-2.03; https://doi.org/10.12697/AA.2015.1-2.03

In 1941 on Finland’s Independence Day, the 6th of December, the United Kingdom declared war on Finland. The question whether it was a war at all between those two countries cannot be raised (at least in the legal sense), because if there was a need to conclude Peace Treaty in 1947 then there must have been a war. There was a war in the military sense, but in a peculiar way it did not follow but rather preceded the declaration of war. In July 1941, British bombers attacked Petsamo in Northern Finland, and in September-October 1941 British fighters stationed in Murmansk fought air battles and attacked land targets in northern Finland. We can call these episodes a war between the United Kingdom and Finland – a rare occurrence of war between two democracies and a well-known exception in the democratic peace proposition. The power to avoid wars is usually attributed to three specific characteristics of democracy that prevent leaders of a state from deciding in favour of war, particularly during conflicts with other democracies: (1) public opinion, (2) democratic institutions, (3) democratic culture. There are many examples of when public opinion has not been very peaceful, and even towards other democracies – like in 1898 during the Fashoda Crisis. Institutions, though important, are only tools that cannot have an influence on their own – at least not the selective influence that works on other democracies. (Selective influence includes politicians who make institutions work in one direction or another.) If we want to find out what gives democracy the power to avoid wars, we must first and foremost focus on democratic culture, which is something described by Bruce Russett as an attitude: “it is not somehow right to fight another democracy”. We can call it the democracy argument. On the other hand, the main goal of every state is to survive, and especially during crisis the leaders of the state must take into account considerations that help their country to stay alive – or as Kenneth Waltz has put it: “the states ...