24-03-2025
Russia and the US Both Want to Finlandize the World
As president of the United States, Joe Biden kept using a peculiar phrase that showed two of the many ways in which he was a foil for his successor, Donald Trump: The 46th president was a bad communicator but a good geopolitical strategist; the 47th is the opposite.
Over and over again, Biden all but gloated that Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted 'the Finlandization of NATO' but instead got 'the NATOization of Finland.' Finlandization and NATOization each have five syllables and mean little to ordinary Americans, who might have pictured generals and admirals spending more time in the sauna. You won't hear such stilted oratory from Trump, who prefers punchy monosyllabic Anglo-Saxon words. As a way of communicating grand strategy to voters, Biden's phrase failed.
