Inside the Most Prepared Country on Earth

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 10:50:06 +0000

Why Finland is Preparing for war with Russia
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I traveled to Finland to train for arctic warfare and to learn what compelled the Finns to join NATO after decades of neutrality. I also visited the Finland-Russian border to understand how Finland’s relationship with its long-time neighbor and former occupier has changed.

Additional supplemental footage was provided by the Finnish Defense Forces: https://youtube.com/@puolustusvoimat

Check out all my sources for this video here: https://docs.google.com/docume....nt/d/1NqTrfxeJzrW7K5

Special thanks to:
- Finnish Defence Forces: Guard Jaeger Regiment
- Embassy of Finland in Washington D.C.
- CPT Felix Saranen & CPT Jarmo Salmi
- Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen
- Deputy Director General of Foreign Affairs Mikael Antell
- Maria Hietajärvi & Ari Vallin
- & everyone in Finland who shared their perspectives with us

Map Data from:
- MAP DATA - Natural Earth
- NASA
- National Snow and Ice Data Center
- CShapes

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All the music for this video was created by our in-house composer Tom Fox and is available to license or just to listen to on our music channel Chromatic. Here's the soundtrack to this video: https://youtu.be/MBfMILOxx7Q

Get access to behind-the-scenes vlogs, my scripts, and extended interviews over at https://www.patreon.com/johnnyharris

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-- VIDEO CHAPTERS --
0:00 Intro
2:28 Arriving on Base
5:17 Arctic Forge
7:28 Arctic Survival Training
10:43 The Battle Begins
22:30 History
26:16 Impact of History
28:51 Back on the Battlefield
31:55 History II Cold War
34:43 From Neutral to NATO
38:11 The Border
43:15 The Bunkers
49:38 Conclusion

AI Disclosure: Occasionally, we use AI to create some of the imagery in our videos, which our (very talented) animators then spend weeks developing into what you see in the final video. When AI is used to generate any imagery that may appear onscreen, we'll add this to the video description. We're learning as we go about AI usage and transparency, and appreciate your thoughts.

About:
Johnny Harris is an Emmy-winning independent journalist and contributor to the New York Times. Based in Washington, DC, Harris reports on interesting trends and stories domestically and around the globe, publishing to his audience of over 5 million on Youtube. Harris produced and hosted the twice Emmy-nominated series Borders for Vox Media. His visual style blends motion graphics with cinematic videography to create content that explains complex issues in relatable ways.

- press -
NYTimes: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/1....1/09/opinion/democra
NYTimes: https://www.nytimes.com/video/....opinion/100000007358
Vox Borders: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLrFyjGZ9NU
NPR Planet Money: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1072164745

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