"Gentle hawk" Tomas Ries to take up new job in Sweden

print this

By Helena Kinnunen
     
      Tomas Ries, a researcher for the National Defence Academy, really loves Finland and is not afraid to say it. Still, he is leaving for Stockholm to lead the Swedish Institute of International Affairs after a six-year stretch of work in Helsinki.
      At 50, Ries is a citizen of two countries - Finland and the USA. The work of his American father took Ries’ family from one European country to another. They stayed in Germany and Switzerland the longest.
      Ries’ mother is from Turku and speaks both Finnish and Swedish.
     
“Finland was always home when the countries of my residence changed. We came to Finland every summer to see relatives and to spend time at our summer cottage in Nauvo."
      Ries learned Swedish as his mother tongue, but immediately took a course in Finnish when he moved to Helsinki. His Finnish is already rather good, but not quite fluent enough for primary use in work. His new job in Stockholm is for four years, and Ries intends to keep up his Finnish by taking private lessons.
     
Ries came into the public eye in 1988 with his book Cold Will.
      “The topic was so sensitive that reporters asked, who was behind the book, the CIA or the forces of revanchism, and who funded it. This was the first time that anyone openly praised the Finnish Defence Forces. In those days even the war veterans were given the cold shoulder.”
     
Now he reveals that behind the book was Lasse Lehtinen, the press secretary at the Finnish Embassy in London.
      “He had noticed the same thing I had: Finnish national defence was not understood at all in the rest of the world. And if something was understood, it was maliciously misunderstood.”
      Lehtinen caught the interest of Brasseys, a British publisher which publishes works related to defence issues. They gave the go-ahead to Ries, who is an expert on the subject. Funding was taken care of in the usual fashion on a commercial basis, and the book sold quite well, Ries says.
      At that time he was doing research in Norway and put his heart and soul into the project on his free time.
     
After moving to Finland, Ries was the first to study yet another delicate matter: how Finland should respond to NATO. He concluded his research on November 30. 1999, 50 years after the start of the Winter War, he says.
      “I tried to be as objective as I could. I was still very cautious at the time and drew the conclusion that Finland had possibly better join NATO.”
      “Helsingin Sanomat had a good cartoon on the subject. In it all the doors led to NATO. And that is how it is,” he says now.
      The “young American researcher” was branded as an advertising man for NATO.
     
Nowadays, Ries is absolutely convinced about the issue.
      “All of the important countries are there, and even Russia half-way inside.”
      Quite a large group of people is already publicly supporting Finland’s NATO membership.
      Ries attends different kinds of events almost every week telling people why Finland should join NATO.
      The arguments are generally familiar: Finland should not shut itself out of Europe’s most important defence forum when it is participating in everything it does anyway.
      Another reason is Russia, and here Ries quotes the view frequently expressed by Max Jakobson. If the situation in Russia deteriorates and it gets shut out from the rest of the world and its relationship with the EU gets worse, only NATO will be large enough a force to protect Finland.
     
“Many believe that Finland is the kind of lone dog that always survives on its own. But it would not have survived the previous wars, had it not received aid from the West,” Ries says.
      A certain observer referred to Ries as a “gentle hawk”. A hawk symbolises tough measures and war. Ries ponders the words and is delighted.
      “Both are necessary, gentleness, soft measures, but sometimes war is the only option, as the Winter War was for Finland.”
      Ries says that he is familiar with Taoism, and teaches tai-chi at Helsinki’s Swedish language workers’ institute Arbis, and also in Tervasaari near his home in Kruununhaka.
      He says that Taoism has also influenced his research on defence policy.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 10.9.2004


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Former Chief of Defence sees NATO as solution to shortage of military funds (9.9.2004)
  Centre Party discusses possible NATO membership at party congress (21.6.2004)
  New National Coalition Party chairman wants to activate NATO option (7.6.2004)
  US Senator Richard Lugar says NATO membership would be good for Finland and NATO (13.4.2004)

HELENA KINNUNEN / Helsingin Sanomat
helena.kinnunen@hs.fi