Written and photographed by Oona de Carvalho
On Monday 31 March, President of Finland Alexander Stubb spoke at LSE for a public event organised by LSE’s European Institute. The talk was held in the Shaw Library and chaired by LSE President and Vice Chancellor Larry Kramer.
Stubb is an LSE alumnus, having graduated with a PhD in International Relations in 1999.
Stubb spoke about the changing global political landscape and his upcoming book entitled The Triangle of Power: Rebalancing the New World Order.
He opened the talk by advising students on the importance of combining theory and practice. “In academia, you get a really good theoretical framework of what the world might look like… but when you are in civil service, or politics and international relations, you get a taste of what the world is actually like.”
“There are those moments in history when you really feel that an order is changing,” he continued, “and I think we are in the midst of one of those moments.”
Once a “firm believer” in Fukuyama’s ‘end of history’ thesis and the triumph of liberal democracy, Stubb shared how for him, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 marked the end of the old world order.
“Especially as a Finn, this was a big moment when I realised that now the basic tenets of the international order were violated.”
He argued that the new world order will be characterised by multipolarity and multilateralism. He described it as a “triangle of power” between the Global West, the Global East, and the Global South.
The Global South “will decide the new world order,” he shared. “If the Global West wants to preserve remnants of the current world order, then it needs to reach out to the Global South.”
He underlined the importance of “values-based realism and dignified foreign policy”, whereby states should stay “true to [their] values” while cooperating with others to tackle global challenges.
“We need cooperation and the simple reason is self-interest…Right now, when the world is in flux, I hope that we can sort of come back to the mode of cooperation again.”
Stubb believes that the new world order will emerge in the next decade and last until the end of the century.
He advised the audience to not be deterministic. “I stress agency. You can’t detach yourself from the realities that we are in right now; you can only try to impact it.”
Stubb further spoke about European security. He reiterated his message to President Trump, with whom he met the weekend prior, that a ceasefire with a set deadline is needed in Ukraine. He believes April 20 would be an ideal deadline as it coincides with Easter and Trump’s three months in office.
He described US pressure on European states to increase their defence expenditures and capabilities as a “good thing”. “As a Finn having a 1,340km border with Russia, the more we spend around Europe, I think the better,” he stated.
“I feel very good about the place Finland is in right now in terms of being a security provider, not a security consumer,” Stubb commented about his country’s membership in NATO.
Reflecting on his golfing outing with Trump, Stubb emphasised the growing importance of private diplomacy. “[Any] activity outside of a negotiating room is very useful.”
Ojas, a third-year Politics and Data Science student who attended the event, told The Beaver: “It was interesting to hear how President Stubb played golf with President Trump. He talked about public and private diplomacy, and this was diplomacy at its best to bridge the transatlantic divide.”
The talk was followed by a private reception for LSE students.
