This is the script for my video posted on September 3, 2026. Watch it on TikTok.
Tucked between Finland and Sweden is an archipelago called Aland. It belongs to Finland and is strategically critical because it commands the entrance to the Gulf of Bothnia, but it is autonomous and unexpectedly demilitarized. So why aren’t there military forces in Aland, and will that change amid threats from Russia?
Aland comprises 6757 islands of at least a quarter hectare and about 20k smaller islands and rocky outcroppings.
Only 60-80 islands actually have people, and 90% of the region’s population lives on the main island of Fasta Aland.
The region has some fascinating history. Before 1809, Aland was part of Sweden, but the Treaty of Fredrikshamn that ended the Finnish War saw Sweden cede both Finland and Aland to the Russian Empire. Aland became Russia's westernmost outpost, a forward position pointed straight at Sweden.
Starting in the 1830s, Russia fortified the islands, building the Bomarsund fortress as part of a defensive line to shield St. Petersburg. It was designed for four to five thousand troops but never finished construction. In 1854, during the Crimean War, a British and French expeditionary force besieged it, forced its surrender, and blew it up.
Then in 1856, Britain, France, and Russia signed the Convention on the Demilitarization of the Aland Islands, an annex of the Treaty of Paris that obliged Russia not to fortify Aland. This was a condition of peace, but Russia also wasn’t happy about it.
Russia started refortifying Aland in 1915 and 1916, and Britain and France let it happen because while they’d imposed the ban, they’d become Russia’s wartime allies.
Finland declared independence in 1917, while the war was still on, and Aland petitioned overwhelmingly to reunify with Sweden. In 1918, Sweden landed troops in the region, framing it as a humanitarian mission to protect the Swedish-speaking population from the chaos of the Finnish Civil War. Swedish forces pulled out a month later when German troops arrived.
Finland passed a unilateral Autonomy Act in 1920, Aland rejected it, and the dispute went to the League of Nations. In 1921 the League ruled that Aland was incontestably Finnish, while guaranteeing its autonomy and the protection of its culture and language.
A separate convention signed in Geneva that October by ten states reconfirmed demilitarization and added neutralization, which is a different thing. Demilitarized means no forces or fortifications, while neutralized means the territory has to stay out of any war, and the convention obliges Finland to protect that. Soviet Russia was not a party, partly because the Western powers did not recognize the Bolshevik government.
As fears of German and Soviet escalation grew in the late 1930s, Finland and Sweden jointly sought to fortify the southern part of the archipelago. The 1921 signatories largely went along with it, including Germany, but the two governments also wanted League of Nations endorsement and Soviet consent.
The Soviets refused, even though they had never been a party to the 1921 convention in the first place. Without unanimity, and facing direct Soviet pressure, Sweden withdrew its bill in mid-1939, leaving the islands legally demilitarized when the Winter War broke out that November.
Finland mined the waters and evacuated civilians anyway. When the Winter War ended, rather than fight over the islands, Finland and the Soviet Union negotiated a return to demilitarization. Finland destroyed gun emplacements, withdrew its forces, and allowed a Soviet consulate at Mariehamn to monitor compliance.
That 1940 agreement is the direct origin of today's Russian consulate, because Russia is the Soviet Union's legal successor. Finland then remilitarized Aland anyway in 1941 during the Continuation War and arrested the Soviet consul, but the 1947 Paris Peace Treaty put the demilitarization back in place, and it held throughout the Cold War.
Aland is in a weird spot. Its autonomy can only be changed by a joint decision of the Finnish and Aland parliaments, which gives Aland an effective veto, and that’s important because Aland holds just one seat out of 200 in the Finnish parliament. But the demilitarization is different. That rests on international treaties that Aland is not a party to, so Aland cannot lift it on its own, and neither can Finland, legally at least, without dealing with the other signatories.
But Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 changed things. The fact is, while Aland is autonomous, Finland is responsible for the region’s defense and foreign policy, and it has an obligation to defend Aland if its neutrality is imperilled. Since 1995, Aland has also been part of the EU, and with Finland’s accession to NATO in 2023, Aland is a part of the alliance too.
The thing is, if Aland were to fall into Russian hands, hypothetically they could control the Gulf of Bothnia and cover the central Baltic with shore-based air defenses that might otherwise not be possible. This is hugely important in part because Aland sits near three NATO capitals and a region critical for NATO military operations.
Interestingly, Finland has kept the Russian consulate in Mariehamn open because of those treaty constraints, even while shutting down Russia's consulate in Turku. Meanwhile, over 95% of Finland's foreign trade by tonnage moves by sea, and around 96% of it runs through sea lanes near Aland, which is why many want the demilitarization gone. Whether remilitarizing the islands would actually secure those routes is contested.
One workaround is that the 1921 convention does not prohibit Finnish border guard and police presence, radar coverage from outside the zone, maritime patrol aircraft, or mine-laying if war reaches the Baltic. Some analysts argue that unlike a century ago, forces don't really need to be stationed on the islands to defend them. Others counter that this invites a fait accompli, that an adversary could grab Aland faster than Finland could reinforce it.
Meanwhile, GPS jamming attributed to Russia has surged in the Baltic. Estonia estimates that at least 85% of flights in its airspace are affected. On top of that, shadow fleet tankers leaving Russian Baltic ports have been tied to a string of damaged undersea cables. Aland's own power and data cables to Sweden and Finland have not been hit, but they run through the same area. And Aland is NATO territory now, so an attack on it is an attack on Finland, neutralized status or not.
Aland is held up as proof that autonomy, demilitarization, and neutralization can keep the peace between rival powers, and the model gets cited as an option for places like Kashmir, Kosovo, and Nagorno-Karabakh. But Aland has unique conditions: A tiny homogeneous population, no resources worth fighting over, and two stable Nordic democracies on either side. Aland can serve as a source of inspiration, but every territory needs its own bespoke solution.
Keep reading
- Why would the US want to take Greenland when it already operates freely there?
- Why is Iceland a NATO member if it lacks a military?
- How does Russia’s Kaliningrad survive surrounded by NATO?
I’m writing a book called Groundwork about the buried history beneath geopolitics. Join the waitlist to hear when it has a publisher, a cover, and a release date.