Finland and Finlandization

The term ‘Finlandization’ coined by the German political scientist Richard Lowenthal in 1961 in the wake of the Berlin crisis. He used it to warn about the Soviet Union's efforts to gain influence in Europe by the same oppressive methods they used on Finland. The term has since been used in a generalisable and even 'hysterical' connotation reflecting Western anxieties over the shift in the world balance of power feared to follow from the Soviets dealing bilaterally with any given West European country which does not belong to NATO or otherwise does not fall under American protection. In this application Finlandization entails a gloomy prospect of a future 'when West European nations may discover themselves militarily surrounded, economically beleaguered and psychologically isolated... having to draw the consequences', as Walter Hahn has put it.