As conflicts between great powers come to a head across the Middle East and Europe, it seems inevitable that smaller states will find themselves caught up as collateral damage. But political theorist Kristi Raik argues small states are more resilient than we give them credit for. From Ukraine to Finland and the Baltics, she shows how times of rupture reveal small states not as victims, but as strategic actors capable of shaping their own survival – and what this means for the international order now taking shape. When the Baltic states declared independence during the final year of World War I, few world leaders believed they would survive as sovereign nations. The UK provided critical support to Estonia in the early days of independence, including the shipment of twenty cannons, approximately seven hundred machine guns, twenty-six thousand five hundred rifles, thirty-one thousand cannon shells, thirty million bullets, vehicles, telephones, coal, oil, petrol and five hundred and fifty tons of wheat, to help the meagre Estonian army stem the spread of communism. But the larger goal of British involvement was to support the counter-revolutionary White forces of Russia, who were just as keen as the Bolsheviks to keep the Baltic countries under Russian rule.In the case of Finland, Lenin endorsed the country’s independence, declared on December 6th 1917, in the expectation that it was a temporary phenomenon. He assumed it would soon be overridden by the broadening of the Bolshevik revolution that would return the country under the control of Russians: now Red instead of White. (Later, though, the Finns used Lenin’s support to their independence as an argument to push back relentless Soviet efforts to constrain their sovereignty.) The Finns themselves had concerns about the viability of their newly established independence, which they tried to alleviate by inviting a German king to rule the country—a plan that soon faced a humiliating collapse with Germany’s defeat in World War I.___Small states cannot take their existence for granted and are often willing to take risks in order to make any attempt to subjugate them prohibitively costly for larger powers.___During World War II, Finland allied with Nazi Germany to push back the Soviet invasion, while the Baltic states were occupied first by the Soviets in 1940, then by the Germans from 1941 to 1944, followed by Soviet occupation from 1944 to 1991. Tony Judt describes in Post-War how the Baltic states remained “only half-digested” by the Soviet system, open to “foreign influence and example”, and were quick to seize the opportunity to reclaim their sovereignty when Moscow’s grip loosened.These examples illustrate how, at each major rupture of European and global order in the twentieth century—the two world wars and the end of the Cold War—the fate of many smaller nations became the object of great-power competition. Yet the outcomes of these contests cannot be explained solely by the will of great powers, or by the structural conditions that shaped a new balance of power between them. Rather, Europe’s modern history shows that the agency of smaller nations during times of international upheaval is crucial for their own destiny, while also shaping the new order that emerges from the ruins of the old.For small nations, unlike large ones, this agency is of existential importance—without it, they would never have emerged as independent states and would not have survived against all odds. Great powers may experience the rise and fall of regimes and even empires, but since the birth of the modern nation-state, the survival of large countries such as Germany, Russia, China, or Japan has never been under severe threat. Small states cannot take their existence for granted and are often willing to take risks in order to make any attempt to subjugate them prohibitively costly for larger powers. Survival strategies of Russia’s neighborsThe successes and failures of Finland and the Baltic states in the 20th century offer relevant lessons for small states navigating today’s geopolitical landscape. The survival strategies of small nations often entail seeking shelter from larger states. These choices can be morally painful. Support from Nazi Germany was a critical factor enabling Finland to avoid defeat by the Soviet Union in the final stages of the Continuation War of 1941–1944. President Risto Ryti, who committed Finland to an alliance with Germany in June 1944, stepped down less than two months later in order to allow the country to conclude a peace agreement with the Soviet Union. As part of the peace conditions dictated by the Soviets, Ryti was imprisoned in 1946, but he remained a national hero.During the Cold War, the Soviet Union would not accept Finland aligning with Western countries, so the Finns adopted a policy of neutrality. Closer integration with the West was pursued step by step after the collapse of the Soviet Union, with NATO membership being the final step—taken in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which convinced the Finns that maximum shelter from the West was necessary.
SUGGESTED READING
NATO doesn’t need the US to defend Europe
By Rajan Menon
The Baltic states tried a policy of neutrality at the outset of the Second World War, with tragic consequences—declaring neutrality offered no protection against occupation. Having learned the lesson, they pursued the closest possible integration with the West after restoring independence in 1991. The path towards membership in Western organizations opened in August 1994, when Russian troops were finally withdrawn from Estonia and Latvia following tense negotiations and diplomatic pressure from the US and Germany on Russian President Boris Yeltsin.Even more important than the shelter of great powers, however, is small states’ own defense capability and will. Here, again, the comparison between Finland and the Baltic states is illuminating. Finland chose to fight for its independence in 1939, while the Baltic states submitted to Soviet demands. During the Winter War of 1939–1940, Finland received almost no help from Western countries, although Western publics were sympathetic to its struggle against Soviet invasion.A third key element of small-state strategy is making oneself indigestible to great powers. At best, this means the ability to deter an attack when the potential invader calculates that the losses outweigh the gains. Deterrence clearly failed for Russia’s neighbors during World War II, but Finland reportedly warned Stalin not to underestimate its will to fight. In the words of the Finnish statesman JK Paasikivi: “We will shoot from behind every stone and tree and continue shooting for fifty years. We are not Czechs. We are not Dutch. We will fight tooth and nail behind every rock and across every lake’s ice.”In the Baltic states, partisan groups known as the Forest Brothers continued resistance to Soviet occupation from 1944 to 1956, aiming to destabilize Soviet rule and morale through ambush and sabotage. Preserving national identity and resisting Russification were equally essential. Surprisingly, Moscow allowed the Baltic states to maintain their tradition of song festivals during occupation—a concession that helped fuel the Singing Revolution of 1988. Ukraine’s fight for existenceThe most powerful—and most tragic—contemporary example of a smaller nation refusing to be bound by the will of the strong is Ukraine. Vladimir Putin has made it clear that he does not acknowledge Ukraine’s existence as a nation. This attitude continues a long history of Russian attempts to subsume Ukrainian identity through measures such as banning Ukrainian-language publications in the late 19th century, or the Holodomor, the man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine that killed millions in the 1930s.Western perceptions of Ukraine have been strongly shaped by the Russian narrative that denies Ukraine’s separate existence. Yet, as historian Sergei Plokhy describes, Ukraine’s aspirations for independence have always had a European orientation, rooted in Ukraine’s distinct history at the “gates of Europe” (the title of Plokhy’s book on Ukraine’s history). Ukraine’s first attempt to establish an independent state followed the collapse of old empires in World War I, just like in Estonia, Finland, and many other smaller European nations. However, unlike the Baltic states and Finland, Ukraine could not avoid falling under Soviet control in its War of Independence from 1917 to 1921.___If it were for Putin and Trump to decide, the war in Ukraine would be over by now—and so would Ukraine’s existence as an independent nation.___The crumbling of the Soviet Union presented Ukraine with a new opportunity to claim its right to self-determination. Ukraine’s independence was endorsed by the leaders of Russia, the UK and the US in the Budapest memorandum of 1994. Although the document later offered little protection from Russia’s invasion, it remains a signpost of Ukraine’s aspiration to chart its own course.When Russia’s war against Ukraine began in 2014, Western countries supported Ukraine in a conflict that marked the first violent change of borders in post-WWII Europe. However, Western support came in small, cautious steps. When Russia escalated to full-scale invasion in February 2022, few Western leaders believed that Ukraine could maintain its sovereignty against a major power with overwhelming military superiority. Ukraine’s unexpected resistance led to a gradual increase in US and European support, including lethal military aid that most countries had avoided before 2022.A new shift came with Trump’s second administration, which practically stopped military assistance to Ukraine in 2025 and adopted the position of a neutral mediator while tilting towards Russian demands. During the past year, President Trump has indicated willingness not only to recognize the occupied territories of Ukraine as Russian but even to accept the Kremlin’s demand for additional Ukrainian territory, namely the remaining parts of the Donbas region that Russia has been unable to conquer. Support to Ukraine is now left in the hands of Europeans, who have taken responsibility for funding and delivering military aid (with the exception of intelligence, which the US continues to share).The US is still willing to decide on European matters—to divide up Ukraine with Russia, claim a part of the territory of Denmark, and even intervene in domestic politics and help ideologically like-minded political groups across Europe to gain power. It is treating Europe as a vassal with no independent agency. Russia has been keen to seize the opportunity to negotiate on Ukraine’s and Europe’s future bilaterally with the US, leaving Europeans to guess what exactly has been agreed in their talks, including a high-profile summit between Putin and Trump in Anchorage in August 2025. Squeezed by these geopolitical currents, Ukrainians have nevertheless continued to fight attempts by major powers to determine Ukraine’s and Europe’s fate. If it were for Putin and Trump to decide, the war in Ukraine would be over by now—and so would Ukraine’s existence as an independent nation.
SUGGESTED READING
The battle for global domination
By Joseph Nye
It is Ukraine’s refusal to accept the terms dictated by Moscow and Washington that has prevented a peace deal from emerging—a “peace” that Ukrainians know would be followed by violent oppression in occupied territories and likely renewed aggression. The agency of Ukraine, with all the human and material sacrifices it has required, has ensured Ukraine’s survival and even strengthening as a nation, contrary to the will of the big powers to strike a compromise at the cost of its sovereignty. With negotiations between the US, Russia and Ukraine ongoing, the possibility of a painful compromise deal being reached cannot be excluded. However, it should be clear to Europeans that this would not end a conflict shaped by Russia’s desire to redefine European security in line with its imperial ambitions, or the US’s willingness to collude. Northern Europeans leading by exampleThe full-scale war in Ukraine caused existential anxiety in other small states neighboring Russia. During the last week of February 2022, many people in Finland, the Baltic states and Poland discussed escape routes for families and decided to buy property in Southern Europe, fearing that their country might be next. The worst fears faded with Ukraine’s persisting resistance, but it is well understood in these countries that Russia has not abandoned its goals far beyond Ukraine, and that it aims to restore its sphere of influence and curb NATO’s military presence in the Alliance’s eastern member states.___The history of countries bordering Russia proves that the agency of smaller nations matters. Finland, the Baltic states, Poland, and Ukraine would simply not exist without their own determination to choose their path as independent nations.___Another wave of anxiety followed the fundamental shift in the US approach to Europe ushered in by the second Trump administration. The humiliation of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office in February 2025, followed by the warm welcome given by Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin in Anchorage later that year, created widespread concern in countries with historical memories of Russian aggression and great power deals.As Europeans struggle to fill the gap left by the US withdrawal of aid to Ukraine, the Nordic and Baltic states stand out as the leading per capita contributors. Ukraine’s survival is vital for their values, principles, security, and very existence. Like Ukraine, these countries have shown determination to resist the return of spheres of influence and to defend the core principles of international security that Russia is violating. They are also investing seriously in defense, both to prevent war from reaching their shores and, in the worst case, to repel invasion from the first moment. They wish to be seen as hedgehogs: small nations capable of inflicting painful costs on a much larger adversary, aiming to shape Russia’s strategic calculus in a way that deters attack.Even the Baltic states, while being the most vulnerable members of NATO, are in a much stronger position today than during the three breaking points of 20th-century Europe. This time, the UK leads NATO’s enhanced forward presence in Estonia together with other allies, while Canada holds a similar position in Latvia. An astonishing example of a new era of European defense can be observed in Lithuania, where German troops were warmly greeted as they established their first long-term military presence abroad since World War II in May 2025. What is even more important than the presence of allies is the national will and readiness of the Baltic states to defend themselves “in any event and against any threat, […] however overwhelming the adversary,” as Estonia’s national security strategy puts it. The lesson from WWII has been learned. The latest investments in Estonia’s national capability include the strengthening of long-range strike capability that will enable the country to “take the fight onto the aggressor’s territory” in response to attempted invasion, as envisioned by the commander of the Estonian Defense Forces Andrus Merilo.The Nordic and Baltic states are working towards Ukraine’s integration to Europe, guided by the strategic understanding that an independent and democratic Ukraine on the side of Europe will be essential for building a credible European deterrence against Russia. In the longer term, a free Ukraine might even be the best way to influence the trajectory of Russia away from autocracy and imperialism, as the prominent Polish-American diplomat Zbigniew Brzezinski suggested in the 1990s.The history of countries bordering Russia proves that the agency of smaller nations matters. Finland, the Baltic states, Poland, and Ukraine would simply not exist without their own determination to choose their path as independent nations. Their survival strategies include national defense capability but also seeking shelter from large Western countries, making themselves impossible to digest by foreign invaders, and showing solidarity to each other based on their shared experience.Europe’s past shows that major powers try to ignore the will of the smaller ones at their own peril. Like the three radical reorderings of Europe and the world in the 20th century, the current rupture—as the Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has termed it—presents a moment of existential danger, but also an opportunity for decisive action by nations squeezed between great power tensions. The leaders of the US, China and Russia may dominate the headlines and seek to divide the world in accordance with their imperial ambitions and relative power, but while small nations do not always prevail, their agency cannot simply be wished away. Major powers may try to settle the fate of smaller nations across a summit table. They have never yet succeeded in making it stick.
