Book Reviews : Finlandization: Towards a General Theory of Adaptive Politics by Hans Mouritzon. Aldershot: Avebury, 1988. 463pp. £35.00. Cold Will: The Defence of Finland by Tomas Ries. London: Brassey's Defence Publishers, 1988. 394pp. £29.95
| Date | 01 May 1989 |
| DOI | 10.1177/004711788900900514 |
| Published date | 01 May 1989 |
| Author | Clive Archer |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
461
into
saying
that
’Europeans’ -
rather
than
European
naval
officers -
’will
tend
to
support
the
ideas
of
the
Maritime
Strategy’.
Admiral
Eberle’s
early
comment
that
the
Maritime
Strategy
was
’more
likely
to
be
welcomed
in
Europe
by
naval
officers
than ...
by
political
leaders’
seems
so
far
to
have been
confirmed
by
the
passage
of time.
Robert
van
Tol
includes
many
detailed
tables
in
his
informative
article
’A
Naval
Force
Comparison
in
Northern
and
Atlantic
Waters’,
but
it
is
obvious
from
the
foot-
notes
that
his
statistics
are
years
out
of date.
As
the
editor,
Clive
Archer
has
been
able
to
narrow
the
time
gap
in
’The
Nordic
Response
to
the
Soviet
Presence’,
but he
wrote
too
soon
to
take
account
of
the
recent
Danish
political
crisis
over
nuclear
armed
warships.
A
more
surprising
omission
is
the
continuing
saga
of
Soviet
submarines
in
Swedish
waters,
but
Archer
is
only
one
of
many
writers
who
find
it
difficult
to
grasp
x he
subtleties
of
the
Finnish
diplomatic
and
political
stance.
The
Soviet
Union
and
Northern
Waters
is
a
book
of
great
potential
utility
to
anyone
wishing
to
write
about
any
of
the
subjects
it
covers.
It
brings
together
in
a
single
volume
a
broad
swathe
of
factual
information,
which
would
have
been
still
more
valuable
if
the
process
of
publication
had.been
less
protracted.
Some
of
the
articles -
particularly
Ries
on
Soviet
strategy
and
Miller
on
American -
are
well
worth
reading
and
Miller’s
footnotes
offer
an
unusually
comprehensive
guide
to
further
study.
But
it
is
not
a
book
for
the
general
reader.
The
main
fault
is
that
for
which
Winston
Churchill
once
blamed
his
pudding:
it
lacks
a
theme.
There
is
a
geographical
framework,
but
no
central
line
of
argument
to
entice
a
willing
reader
from
beginning
to
satisfyingly
conclusive
end.
Overlapping
on
some
issues
does
not
compensate
for
a
lack
of
balanced
argument
on
others.
Perhaps
these
are
the
inevitable
results
of
packaging
contributions -
probably
conceived
for
a
different
purpose -
from
so
many
authors.
Specialists
will
nevertheless
find
the
plums
they
want
and
the
suet
can
always
be
left
on
the
plate.
SIR JAMES
CABLE
Finlandization:
Towards
a
General
Theory
of
Adaptive
Politics
by
Hans
Mouritzon.
Aldershot:
Avebury,
1988.
463pp.
£35.00.
Cold
Will:
The
Defence
of
Finland
by
Tomas
Ries.
London:
Brassey’s
Defence
Publishers,
1988.
394pp.
£29.95.
Hans
Mouritzon’s
excellent
book
is
perhaps
misnamed,
as
its
case
studies
concern
mainly
Denmark
and
Sweden
during
the
Second
World
War.
However,
the
phenom-
enon
examined -
that
of
adaptive
acquiescence -
is
one
often
associated
with
post-War
Finnish
policy
and,
indeed,
the
author
does devote
some
space
to
Finland.
Adaptive
acquiescence
occurs
when
the
regime
in
a
country
accepts
a
continuous
infringement
on
its
values
in
order
to
defend
and
preserve
the
core
of
those
values;
the
government
involved
is
trying
to
’make
the best
out
of
a
difficult
situation’.
The
first
part
of
Mouritzon’s
book
places
the
concept
of
adaptive
acquiescence
in
the
context
of
the
range
of
relations
between
governments
(or
regimes,
in
the
author’s
more
precise
terminology)
of various
states.
In
this,
he
carefully
follows
the
literature -
espe-
cially
that
by
Rosenau -
but
in
Chapter
5
he
also
makes
his
own
contribution.
Mouritzon
identifies
some
fundamental
types
of
adaptive
acquiescence,
making
the
distinction
between
that
performed
vis-iz-vis
an
actor
and
that
aimed
more
impersonally,
and
between
examples
where
concessions
are
made
directly
to
the
’threatening’
actor
and
where
they
are
made
indirectly
to
an
ally.
The
interest
of
this
book
is
in
the
cases
where
concessions
are
made
directly
to
a
particular
international
actor.
The
types
of
strategy
that
might
be used
to
carry
out
adaptive
acquiescence
are
also
discussed,
in
Chapter
9.
The
major
case
study
is
that
of
Denmark
during
the
period
from
1935
to
1943
(when
Nazi
Germany
took
over
its
government),
divided
into
the
pre-invasion
era
of
1935-40
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