---
title: "Security policy, the euro and NATO | Vesa Kanniainen | Negotiator 33"
summary: "Vesa Kanniainen, emeritus professor of economics, examines Finland's permanent security deficit and why he considers EU membership one of the most significant post-war security decisions the country has made — even though he is best known as a euro critic. The episode covers a game-theoretic reading of the YYA treaty, the NATO option and the price of exercising it as shared responsibility for the Baltics, the costs of the common currency and the parallel-currency idea, and Kanniainen's work at the boundary of morality and economics from Adam Smith to Vernon Smith."
datePublished: 2020-08-24
dateModified: 2020-08-24
originalLang: en
section: society
sections: ["society","economy"]
authors: ["Sami Miettinen"]
tags: []
canonical: https://ai.neuvottelija.com/ep33-turvallisuuspolitiikka-euro-ja-nato-vesa-kanniainen/
---
# Security policy, the euro and NATO | Vesa Kanniainen | Negotiator 33

# Security policy, the euro and NATO | Vesa Kanniainen | Negotiator 33

> **Summary:**
> Vesa Kanniainen, emeritus professor of economics, examines Finland's permanent security deficit and why he considers EU membership one of the most significant post-war security decisions the country has made — even though he is best known as a euro critic. The episode covers a game-theoretic reading of the YYA treaty, the NATO option and the price of exercising it as shared responsibility for the Baltics, the costs of the common currency and the parallel-currency idea, and Kanniainen's work at the boundary of morality and economics from Adam Smith to Vernon Smith.

---

## Key Themes

* **NATO needs Finland more than Finland needs NATO:** Discussed from 00:00 onward.
* **The security review and a game-theoretic reading of the YYA treaty:** Discussed from 02:00 onward.
* **Federation theory and fiscal federalism:** Discussed from 04:00 onward.
* **Good institutions as a precondition for federation:** Discussed from 06:00 onward.
* **Euro-scepticism and EU support are two different things:** Discussed from 08:00 onward.
* **Finland's security deficit and the scale of the EU:** Discussed from 10:00 onward.
* **Conscription and defence spending as a share of GDP:** Discussed from 12:00 onward.
* **Is NATO membership still a big step:** Discussed from 14:00 onward.
* **Shared responsibility for the Baltics as the price of membership:** Discussed from 16:00 onward.
* **The NATO option and the case for not exercising it:** Discussed from 18:00 onward.
* **The costs of the common currency and floating rates:** Discussed from 20:00 onward.
* **Returning to national currencies is not easy:** Discussed from 22:00 onward.
* **Poland and Sweden manage with their own currencies:** Discussed from 24:00 onward.
* **A constitution, institutions and defining power in the EU:** Discussed from 26:00 onward.
* **Poland and Hungary as recipients of the recovery package:** Discussed from 28:00 onward.
* **Where the work on morality started: the ethics of layoffs:** Discussed from 30:00 onward.
* **Evolutionary background, altruism and cooperation:** Discussed from 32:00 onward.
* **Adam Smith and Vernon Smith — two Smiths:** Discussed from 34:00 onward.
* **The institutional layer and a deepening model of the human being:** Discussed from 36:00 onward.