Intelligence Estimates of the British Joint Intelligence Committee on Cold War Finland, 1948–1956
Main funder
Funds granted by main funder (€)
- 24 250,00
Project timetable
Project start date: 01/06/2024
Project end date: 31/03/2025
Summary
The early Cold War years are one of the most researched periods in Finnish history. However, there is one area of research that has been understudied in the past, namely the Cold War secret intelligence. There is even surprisingly little research considering the fact that Finland is often seen as one of the hotspots for secret intelligence conducted by the great powers of the East and West during the Cold War. In particular, little is known about the British secret intelligence in Finland. Internationally, however, the British intelligence has been studied extensively, but there is only little research focusing on Finland during the Cold War. My dissertation aims to address this gap by focusing on the British intelligence assessments of Finland. In this dissertation, I research how Britain’s highest intelligence, the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), evaluated Finland in the early stages of the Cold War between 1948 and 1956.
Being Britain’s highest intelligence body, the JIC has been responsible for producing strategic assessments and final intelligence reports for political decision-makers. In this research, I examine the position of Finland in the strategic framework of British intelligence in accordance with the JIC’s function. The research task is therefore to find out: 1) How did Britain’s highest intelligence assess Finland’s security political position? 2) How did the British see Finland as part of their wider geopolitical and strategic framework? 3) How did the perception of Finland affect the policies driven by the British government towards the country?
Since most of the archives of the British secret intelligence services are still classified, the research of the history of intelligence must be based on a multi-archival method in which, instead of the closed archives of the intelligence organisations, the focus of research is on the open archives of the British state administration. The main source of archival material is the British National Archives in London. The research material is collected from the archives of various British administrative branches which had access to the intelligence reports provided by the JIC. As supplementary material, I use the British and American diplomatic correspondence and the electronic archive of the United States Central Intelligence Agency that are openly available. As an analysis method, I employ close reading and adopt a source-critical and contextualising research approach typical in historical research.
Traditionally, the research of secret intelligence has focused on espionage. My dissertation raises the analysis of intelligence to the highest level, whereby the research focuses on the impact of the intelligence in relation to political decision-making. The research thus reveals what kind of information foreign policy decision-making was based on, and how Finland’s position was seen in the scenes behind the public political discourse. This dissertation provides important new insights into a previously understudied field of history and significantly deepens the historical understanding of Finland’s security political status and the development of relations between Finland and the Western powers. Understanding this relationship is even more important now that Finland is joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Britain has also become one of Finland’s most important allies, and therefore it is essential to understand how Britain has assessed Finland’s geopolitical position in the long term.
Being Britain’s highest intelligence body, the JIC has been responsible for producing strategic assessments and final intelligence reports for political decision-makers. In this research, I examine the position of Finland in the strategic framework of British intelligence in accordance with the JIC’s function. The research task is therefore to find out: 1) How did Britain’s highest intelligence assess Finland’s security political position? 2) How did the British see Finland as part of their wider geopolitical and strategic framework? 3) How did the perception of Finland affect the policies driven by the British government towards the country?
Since most of the archives of the British secret intelligence services are still classified, the research of the history of intelligence must be based on a multi-archival method in which, instead of the closed archives of the intelligence organisations, the focus of research is on the open archives of the British state administration. The main source of archival material is the British National Archives in London. The research material is collected from the archives of various British administrative branches which had access to the intelligence reports provided by the JIC. As supplementary material, I use the British and American diplomatic correspondence and the electronic archive of the United States Central Intelligence Agency that are openly available. As an analysis method, I employ close reading and adopt a source-critical and contextualising research approach typical in historical research.
Traditionally, the research of secret intelligence has focused on espionage. My dissertation raises the analysis of intelligence to the highest level, whereby the research focuses on the impact of the intelligence in relation to political decision-making. The research thus reveals what kind of information foreign policy decision-making was based on, and how Finland’s position was seen in the scenes behind the public political discourse. This dissertation provides important new insights into a previously understudied field of history and significantly deepens the historical understanding of Finland’s security political status and the development of relations between Finland and the Western powers. Understanding this relationship is even more important now that Finland is joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Britain has also become one of Finland’s most important allies, and therefore it is essential to understand how Britain has assessed Finland’s geopolitical position in the long term.
