Lettert to FT Editor

choi

James H Mittelman, Letter to Editor: Military Globalisation Has Non-American Dimensions Too. Financial Times (FT), Dec 5, 2011.

My comment:
(a) The letter is short, but interesting.
(b) Quote from the short letter, which replies to Robert Kaplan, The US Navy Fostered Globalisation: We still need it, FT, Nov 30, 2011 (op-ed)--which I chose not to introduce to you because I did not think it was good enough.

"Also he fails to mention a network of more than 700 US military bases abroad. By comparison, Britain in 1898, at the pinnacle of its imperial era, had 36 bases.

"Mr Kaplan wants a muscular world-order buoyed by US naval and air power in th eIndo-Pacific. In his scenario, without this military might, 'Finlandisation by China and [sic; should be "of"] countries in South China Sea' could develop. But history shows that Finland, a poor nation defeated in the second world war, soon became an affluent nation and a western ally. Helsinki embarked on multilateralism and peacemeaking, and its former president, Martti Ahtisaari, won a Nobel Peace Prize.

(i) World War II
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II
(Axis co-belligerents include  Finland (1941–44))

Quote:

"In August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, a non-aggression treaty with a secret protocol. The parties gave each other rights, 'in the event of a territorial and political rearrangement,' to 'spheres of influence' (western Poland and Lithuania for Germany, and eastern Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Bessarabia for the USSR).

"Following the invasion of Poland and a German-Soviet treaty governing Lithuania, the Soviet Union forced the Baltic countries to allow it to station Soviet troops in their countries under pacts of 'mutual assistance.'  Finland rejected territorial demands and was invaded by the Soviet Union in November 1939. The resulting conflict ended in March 1940 with Finnish concessions. France and the United Kingdom, treating the Soviet attack on Finland as tantamount to entering the war on the side of the Germans, responded to the Soviet invasion by supporting the USSR's expulsion from the League of Nations.

"On 22 June 1941, Germany, along with other European Axis members and Finland, invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa.

(ii) Finland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finland

Quote:

"Finland was historically a part of Sweden [c 1150-1809 when Sweden lost the 1808-1809 Finnish War and ceded Finland], and from 1809–1917 was an autonomous Grand Duchy within the Russian Empire. The Finnish Declaration of Independence from Russia in 1917 was followed by a civil war in which the leftist side was defeated with German support.

"Finland was a relative latecomer to industrialisation, remaining a largely agrarian country until the 1950s.

(iii) Martti Ahtisaari
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martti_Ahtisaari
(1937-  ;  President of Finland  1994–2000)

The Nobel Peace Prize 2008
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_ ... tes/2008/index.html