Russia has failed in Finland before
Finland might have been neutral for decades, but it owes its existence as an independent nation to its mastery of asymmetric warfare and, in particular, arctic combat.
Independent since 1917, Finland and its modern attitude to war were forged during the Soviet invasion of 1939, dubbed the Winter War.
Some 400,000 Soviet troops poured across the border into a country of just 3.5 million people. The Red Army brought with it 2,500 tanks, while the Finns had just 32 obsolete Renault FTs.
Yet rather than succumbing to the red tide, the Finnish Army made use of the advantage of fighting on home turf and turned the Soviet’s lack of experience in winter warfare to its advantage.
Mobile units of light infantry travelled around on skis, allowing them to glide across Finland’s thousands of frozen lakes and slip through its vast forests with ease to outflank and outmanoeuvre the Red Army.
As in Ukraine, long Soviet columns were restricted to roads and unable to disperse when Finnish troops emerged from the woods to strike them.
The road-bound Soviet forces were encircled and chopped into manageable chunks, which could be taken out systematically. The Finns dubbed this motti, the Finnish for a block of wood.
Armed with Molotov cocktails (first coined by the Finns during this war) and explosives, these highly mobile troops targeted weak spots in Russian tanks and armoured vehicles to disable or destroy them, taking out more than 350 tanks.
When isolating a convoy, troops would take out the lead and last vehicle to trap it and then pick off its remaining members with mortars and grenades.
Those troops could then ski off into the woods before Soviet reinforcements or artillery could pin them down.
The war would not persist in this manner. During the brutal cold of January, Soviet forces regrouped and reinforced. In February a force of 750,000 men was sent to finish the job.
This was a less mobile phase of the war and Finland survived by sending its reserves into grim conventional battles.
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Russia's current bluster lacks substance as its forces are bogged down and losing in Ukraine. It brought Finland joining NATO on itself with its invasion of Ukraine. The Russian's threats against Poland also look like bluster.
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