Three days of keynotes, education sessions, networking, and corporate festivities came to the city of Orlando this week with the opening of this year’s Global Security Exchange (GSX) conference.
The Orange County Convention Center welcomed its first keynote speaker with drumline fanfare, flashing strobe lights, and an introduction from ASIS International’s new President and CEO, Cy Oatridge and Bill Tenney.
That speaker was Sanna Marin, Finland’s former Prime Minister and the youngest globally at the time of her appointment in 2019. At 34 years of age, Marin guided Finland through a highly turbulent geopolitical landscape, including the country’s induction into NATO following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rapidly encroaching consequences of climate change.
“I’m going to start by talking about the Western mindset that has become the framework we use to narrow down our understanding of security,” Marin begins. “To do this, we need to remember the ideas and beliefs that have dominated the thinking of many European countries for a long time.”
Marin outlines this with the concept of “the end of history,” which is author Francis Fukuyama’s argument for why liberal democracy and capitalism were recognized as the universally preferred governmental and economic models following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Regardless of regional conflicts, Marin says, market-based capitalism, free trade, individual rights and democratic values saw widespread favor. Establishing economic connections with other nations spreads these values and encourages world leaders to prioritize prosperity through trade.
“This also applies to how we understand and define security threats,” says Marin. “We thought that these priorities would give way to trade and growth, but we were wrong. We’ve grown comfortable with the idea that all governments seek the economic well-being of their people. We thought this would be the case for Russia.”
Understanding this philosophy can be helpful when understanding the stance of nations like Russia and Finland’s position in relation to it, she continues. As a bordering country with a long history of experience of aggression from its eastern neighbor, Finland has worked toward avoiding risk in supply security and independence to prevent dependence on Russia in terms of trade and infrastructure.
“We have for decades invested in our own defense and security more than many other European countries,” Marin says, “Until the 24th of February 2022.”
Finland’s stance on the issue was as Marin described — that the system of free trade would function as a barrier to Russia’s incitement of another war on its border. On this, Marin elaborates: “After that night, two years ago, we came to realize that we — and the entire West — had been naïve.”
According to Marin, security is often defined too narrowly, which often results in the failure to foresee critical security risks. In not accepting this logic, many Western nations have become dependent on authoritarian regimes for resources, including minerals and medical equipment.
“By doing this, we have created new security risks we did not think would matter,” she says. “In our minds, nobody would ever choose to deprioritize international trade based on national identity.”
Supply Chain Risks
Marin first awoke to this reality during her term as Prime Minister of Finland amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. After implementing the first pandemic lockdowns, she was faced with the challenges that accompanied them, including acquiring critical medical equipment and mass vaccine production.
“Almost all of this production has been outsourced to countries beyond our reach in a time of global crisis,” she explains. “By doing this, we are giving other countries the power to control the production of things we urgently need, and our rules and trade agreements may not be followed in a time of crisis.”
Russia is relied on by many European nations to supply energy for critical infrastructure, Marin says, and the ideology that allowed this to happen is outlined well in “the end of history.” Many leaders believed that economic interdependence would result in stabilization, but for Russia, this was not the case.
Russia’s reduction of gas deliveries and the spiking of energy prices caused widespread inflation across Europe, among other serious economic consequences.
“Many European citizens feel the indirect consequences of the war in their everyday lives,” Marin continues. “This is also a political effort to use our belief in European trade to weaken public support for Ukraine, which has been effective in many countries.”
While civilians often continue business as usual in the face of negative events that impact their lives — a phenomenon Marin refers to as “normalcy bias” — she emphasizes that they cannot afford to do so. “In the current geopolitical climate, it’s biased to think that our dependencies on other countries will not be used against us.”
Normalcy bias, she says, leads to the inability to identify new security threats ahead of time. Nations need to take their foreign dependencies more seriously to sufficiently cover these major vulnerabilities.
The first of these vulnerabilities is the reliance Western democracies have on non-democratic nations, particularly in the development of advanced technologies like artificial intelligence (AI).
“In order to avoid creating new dependencies, it is critical that we shift our focus inward and invest in our own people, education, and research and development,” Marin says. “If we rely on non-democratic countries for these innovations, we risk falling behind in the global technology race. This not only limits our ability to be at the forefront of technological advancement but also makes it more difficult to combat climate change with real innovation.”
She also advocates for investing in a sustainable and self-reliant ecosystem and domestic development to have better control over regulatory and ethical standards.
AI’s Implications
AI, for example, has had profound implications for security and privacy since its inception, and developing these powerful technologies in democratic frameworks helps cement individual rights and values, she says. This is to say nothing of the economic benefits that come from in-house development, including the creation of high-skilled jobs.
Marin’s second vulnerability is the dependence on critical minerals. Decarbonizing the economy to combat climate change through smart farms, solar panels, and electric vehicles is a critical step, but much of the critical minerals needed to fuel these technologies are supplied by countries with high political risk.
“With a reliance on a limited amount of sources, we might be indirectly supporting practices that go against our values, like poor environmental standards or questionable labor practices,” Marin says. “In the end, it is more than just about the minerals — it’s about making sure that our future is in our own hands.”
The third vulnerability involves personal data. While AI and digitization have led to leaps and bounds in technological innovation, they promote access to information, including democratic participation in elections.
“The internet is being used for both citizen control and external manipulation simultaneously,” Marin says. “Business logic pushes platforms to promote polarizing stories, and in other regimes, the internet is heavily controlled and used to survey and limit the actions of citizens.”
Social media has served as a valuable tool for these regimes to interfere in the free democratic elections of their neighbors. Leaders need to understand that social media platforms are now an integral aspect of geopolitics, Marin comments, with Slovakia’s recent election campaign falling victim to misinformation campaigns in line with Russian manipulation tactics.
“We must be aware that Russia’s relentless pursuit of geopolitical interest by influencing foreign elections is already shaping the landscape of neighboring countries,” she says.
Marin’s keynote rounds out with a call to action. “It is critical for us to be independent of the political choices made by other countries. If we don’t take control of these issues and set some rules, somebody else is going to do that for us.”
