You Can't Plan For That! - Or Can You?
It is very cold. It is one of those Baltic Countries. I don’t know if it is a nice place to visit, but I know I wouldn’t want to live there.
The happiest place on earth? No, not Disneyland, Finland!
There is a whole lot of information, new to me, in this article, including:.
Finland has a border with Russia, more than 800 miles long
Finland has fought more than 30 wars with Russia, they won some, they lost some
Finland, a country of 5 and a half million people, has 900 thousand reservists
Finland has developed a system wherein it can quickly marshal all aspects of society to handle a national emergency
What if the United States, all 50 states, had Finland’s foresight? How differently would we have handled the Covid-19 crisis? Admittedly they have the advantage of being, more or less, one tribe.
But, it hasn’t been all sweetness and light. They have the disadvantage of having a stagnant, ageing population. And, they have made mistakes at the national level so serious that the elected leadership resigned just three years ago. When I hear “government official resigns”, I think corruption, fraud, sexual mischief. But the top Finns resigned because they failed to achieve their publicly stated goals! So, even in failure, they taught the rest of the world a lesson in responsible governance.
We can’t directly translate the Finland experience to a country 60 times bigger with a far more diverse population. But their approach to planning, in words and action, seem translatable. Having quarterly preparedness discussions at the national level with the participation of private companies in commerce, industry and media, stands out as one particularly good idea. I am going to send this article to my representatives in the House and Senate, and to the Governor’s office, with the suggestion that they look at what the Finns have been doing regarding crisis preparedness.
And, regarding Russia, I don’t think that Finland will be Putin’s next target, not if he has any common sense left.
OttoPolitico