How to Navigate the Shifting International Order

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

President Stubb, so thrilled to have you on the podcast. And we were thrilled as well to have in our January-February issue an important and incisive essay by you called “The West’s Last Chance: How to Build a New Global Order Before It’s Too Late.”

ALEXANDER STUBB

Well, thanks for having me. I really enjoy listening to your podcast over the air. So it’s good to be on it for once.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

Well, very happy to hear that. You are the rare president of a small state—Finland’s population is about five million, if I have right, five to six million—who is also a pretty central geopolitical player at a very interesting moment in geopolitics, to put it mildly. So there’s a lot that’s been in the headlines that I want to talk about. But you are also the rare head of any state who has a PhD in international relations. So I also want to talk about some of the deeper forces that have gotten us to this moment, which you, of course, consider in the essay in Foreign Affairs.

And so, to start, I’m interested in how you interpret the shifts in U.S. foreign policy over the last several years and the underlying view, which—certainly central to the Trump and MAGA view of the world, but I think also to a much broader swath of the U.S. political and foreign policy crowd—the view that the international order of the last several decades has been bad for the United States, that we Americans have been exploited or disadvantaged by it. Another senior allied official put it to me last year, “This system has been very good for the United States, and on some level, we just can’t understand why you don’t see it.” What do you make of that American sense and the shift that it has helped drive?

ALEXANDER STUBB

Well, I think we’ve lived very much in an American century, and I would actually like to thank the United States for having established the world order that we have right after World War II, which was basically the liberal international world order based on rules, norms, and international institutions. And I think it’s actually been rather advantageous for the United States. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be the sole superpower in the world.

I think the shift in U.S. foreign policy, it always oscillates. It goes from a little bit of isolation to a lot of isolation to strong engagement. And I think the best way to describe the medium to short term is to perhaps read the National Security Strategy of October 2022 versus the National Security Strategy of November 2025. And there are obvious differences in language, in tone, in structure, and in claims.

The way in which I tried to explain it to my European friends is that current U.S. American foreign policy is based on two pillars. One of them is ideological. That’s the MAGA stuff. So that’s anti-international liberal order. It’s quite condescending towards Europe because Europe is seen as sort of a bastion of liberalism to a certain extent. And then the other one is the policy side of things, and that’s “America first.” And there you have a clear pecking order geographically. Number one is the Western Hemisphere. Number two is the Indo-Pacific. Number three is Europe. Number four is the Middle East. And number five is Africa.

And my take on all of this, as someone who is pro-European, pro-American, and therefore, by definition, a pro-transatlanticist, is: deal with the world as it is. Don’t deal with it as you would expect or want it to be. And this is a type of foreign policy balance that we’re working on with the United States. right now. So, I sort of always, I’m cautious. I ask people to calm down. “Don’t overreact or react to everything that happens. We’ll get through this.”

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

It makes me wonder what you thought of the speech that [Canadian Prime Minister] Mark Carney gave at Davos a couple weeks ago. You were, of course, there. Carney described, quite famously at this point, “a rupture in world order.” He also cited the concept of values-based realism that you articulate in the Foreign Affairs essay. Do you agree with Carney’s characterization? As I listen to you and as I read your piece, I see you as a greater both supporter of the liberal order, but also that you have more faith that it can be saved, that it can be preserved.

ALEXANDER STUBB

Yeah, I mean, definitely. So, Mark and I work closely together, and I, of course, appreciate the fact that he used values-based realism as an instrument of foreign policy in this world. The difference that Mark and I probably have is that he talks about a rupture. I talk about transition. And the difference is that I am in the European Union. Mark is not. So, in that sense, I still have a strong belief in international institutions, such as those that are portrayed in the European Union, because I have a lot of protection to a certain extent. So, when I’m threatened by tariffs, I say, “Listen, biggest economic area in the world, please give it a try.” Or when I’m told that “Well, we can’t do free trade agreements,” I say, “Well, as a matter of fact, the European Union has over 40 of them with over 70 countries in the world. So you put the EU on top of that, that’s 100 countries, that’s half the world.” So, there is a difference. So, he talks about this rupture. I talk about transition.

The other difference perhaps is, and I’m going to talk about this with Mark in Munich, because we want to sort of iterate the process and see where we’re going, I try to give a solution, in other words, reform the international institutions as they stand, whereas Mark sort of parks that aside and says, “We need to deal with middle powers.” I say, “Middle powers are basically going to decide where the world goes, and I want them to decide for international institutions and multilateralism rather than multipolarity.”

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

That’s a fascinating difference. I’m curious how you would describe the reality as you see it now. I think the Carney description was a harsh reality where geopolitics is submitted to no limits, no constraints. How would you describe this reality?

ALEXANDER STUBB

I would probably be a little bit softer and say that the international world order has never been perfect. The United States’ rules have never been respected to 100 percent, but at least there has been engagement. So I wouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

And the way in which I define it is that if this was a binary battle, you have one group of countries that support multipolarity. And multipolarity, of course, is about transaction. It’s about deals and quite often about spheres of interest, those that we saw, say, in the 1800s, in the nineteenth century. And then there’s another group, to which I belong, that believes in multilateralism. And that means international rules, norms, and institutions, and cooperation. I think we need to reform the multilateral institutions. And I’ve talked about in my UN speech, in my book, and in my Foreign Affairs article about doubling the size of the UN Security Council, to bring in at least one country from Latin America, two from Africa, and two from Asia. Why? Because I think that the countries that were not part of creating the world order that America built post-World War II, they don’t feel that they have enough agency. So you need to give agency and power to them. And I think actually this benefits not only smaller players like myself but also big players like the United States, or China, for that matter.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

It’s striking to me that you, as the president of a relatively small country, are warning of the dangers of multipolarity at a moment when you have senior members of the U.S. administration, including the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, talking about multipolarity with some sense of welcoming it. What do you think explains that difference? And as you highlight the risks of multipolarity, including to your American colleagues, what do you think they’re missing?

ALEXANDER STUBB

Well, the difference here is that the United States can afford to choose between multipolarity and multilateralism, whereas for Finland, we fully understand that multilateralism benefits us. Essentially, multilateralism is about pooling sovereignty, about finding cooperative structures to deal with the world’s most pressing problems, say, climate change, technology, energy development, economic growth, you name it. And I think it has benefited the world to deal and work on the basis of this multilateral world for over 80 years, and especially the United States.

But there could be an ideological difference, which I think people quite often underestimate, that the foreign policy that the American government right now drives is very ideological. There is this sort of MAGA undercurrent to it. And I’m not making a judgment. I just think it’s a fact. And I think if you read the National Security Strategy as well, there are elements of it which are strongly ideological, as I noted a second ago.

But this doesn’t mean that there should be some kind of a rupture between Europe and the United States, the transatlantic alliance, which, after all, is the strongest alliance in the world. So I keep on saying that there are things where we work with America. They have to do with defense. They have to do with NATO. In the Finnish case, it’s got to do with the icebreaker, it’s got to do with technology. There’s so many things that we can work on together. And then there are things that we can respectfully disagree. I think climate change is a threat. And I understand the U.S. administration doesn’t believe that. So, it’s just an argument that we can have and discuss. But this doesn’t mean that we need to stop cooperating with the United States. But yeah, I’m very much in the multilateral camp.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

I want to dig into the transatlantic relationship and those icebreakers as well in a moment. But just to linger on the liberal international order, there’s been a lot of thinking and work by you and other policymakers in Europe, especially in the last year, trying to figure out how the liberal international order works without the United States, with a U.S. administration that is, at best, disinterested and, in some ways, quite hostile to that order. Do you think that the order does survive without active participation from Washington?

ALEXANDER STUBB

No, I mean, we do need the United States. I think everyone understands that. You don’t have to have a PhD in international relations to draw that conclusion in the world in 2026. Certainly, we need the United States, much like the United States was needed to create the current order in San Francisco and in Brussels and elsewhere over the years.

But I think the basic starting point has to be a question to the United States. How will the United States maximize its impact in the world, right? And what I fear, as a transatlanticist, is that if the United States withdraws from all the international institutions, like it just did from, I think, 66, like it’s done from the [International Criminal Court] and many others, then who is going to fill that vacuum? Who’s going to fill that space? And I think China is going to do that. And obviously, it’s absolutely clear, and I don’t have a problem with this, countries like India are going to do a lot. South Africa, Nigeria, Brazil. I talk about this both in the piece and in my book, The Triangle of Power: Rebalancing the New World Order, but these guys are not about to give up multilateralism.

So, I went to the G20 meeting, not because Finland is a member of G20, would be G30 or something like that, but because I was invited. And the sense that I had from that meeting in Johannesburg was that all of these middle powers or swing states or emerging big powers, they actually want to deal in a multilateral framework rather than a multipolar one. And I would like for the United States to lead this, not for it to withdraw from it. But a lot of work, I have to admit, to be done here.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

I’m fascinated by the notion that there’s a real kind of ideological component to American foreign policy. How do you understand that ideology and what kind of world it’s trying to make to the extent that that’s the ideological underpinning?

ALEXANDER STUBB

Well, in the big picture, U.S. foreign policy previously, when you had Democrats in power, you sort of knew what you would get. When you had Republicans in power, you sort of knew what you would get. I mean, there were hawkish Republicans and then perhaps less hawkish, but there was this international engagement. And there was this drive also for democracy, right? I mean, if you look at what the United States stood for in the Cold War, which is bipolar and strongly ideological, with communist, authoritarian Soviet Union versus democratic, free-market, capitalist United States, there was an engagement that we want to win this. And when the United States won the Cold War, pretty much, I’d say, hands down, then there was a bit of a shift, there was humming and hawing between George Bush the older to Clinton, to George W. Bush, to Obama, to Biden.

But now the foreign policy is different. And the ideology that I see in it is, obviously, nationalistic. And I don’t blame that. A lot of us are driven by national interest, which you then link into nationalism as well. I don’t call the foreign policy isolationist because, as a matter of fact, if you just look at the first month of the year, the U.S. foreign policy was everything but isolationist. It was very engaging, whether you like it or not, in Venezuela, in Iran, in the Middle East, in Ukraine, and in Greenland as well. So, there is this sort of notion of engagement.

So, if I were to sort of give a snapshot of U.S. foreign policy right now, it’s “America first,” it’s Make America Great Again, it’s engaging. But then there is this sort of rather conservative, perhaps right-wing ideology behind it as well, which you can see in the way in which the United States. engages with some European governments, say, Hungary or the like. And this is just a reality that we deal with. Then there are smaller guys like myself who the administration knows that we come from probably a different ideological perspective, even though I myself, before I became president, I was part of a center-right government or party here in Finland. But that is seen sort of as not conservative enough. So, there is this ideological undertone in what the Trump administration does. And, of course, we respect that and then we deal with it.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

You’ve helped the transatlantic relationship through a number of crises over the past year. Greenland was the most recent one. You just noted this. It dominated all of Davos, from what I can tell, over the course of a couple weeks ago. I’m interested in how you saw the European strategy as that crisis unfolded, when you saw this as reaching a kind of acute phase, as Trump’s threats were escalating. And you’ve described the European response as “escalate to de-escalate.” How did that play out and how do you see where we ended up? Has the kind of crisis passed, or do you expect further rounds of this?

ALEXANDER STUBB:

Well, I mean, if we just sort of rewind for the first year of the Trump administration, I think engagement has been the key word and we’ve engaged a lot with the United States And I personally, as president of Finland, have had the privilege to engage quite often with President Trump, played golf, et cetera, et cetera. But I by no means want to inflate my role. I just have a channel to interpret, say, [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky to Trump, Trump to Zelensky, and both of them to European friends.

So, I think we’ve engaged a lot on defense. NATO, five percent of GDP go into defense. I think part of it is due to circumstance, but part of it is pressure coming from President Trump. And I think that was a raving success, what we did in The Hague summit last summer. We’ve engaged a lot on peace mediation in Ukraine, and we’ve done that. It’s been a pendulum going back and forth. But if you look at the way in which the U.S. administration, especially [President Trump’s son-in-law] Jared Kushner and [Special Envoy] Steve Witkoff, have advanced the negotiations in, say, the past three months from Geneva right after the G20 meeting to our Berlin mini-summit with European leaders and the U.S. administration, and then the Paris Coalition of the Willing, we’ve advanced.

Now, Greenland was probably the most complicated issue so far, and it did take a lot of oxygen in Davos, where I hope that we would have been dealing more with Ukraine. Be that as it may, two observations on that. The first one was, I think there were three scenarios, good, bad, and ugly, right? So, the good was, we de-escalate and we find a process that is focused on Arctic security. And I come from an Arctic country. We have trained one million soldiers in Arctic circumstances. So for me, that’s a given. Second scenario was a bad one whereby we would have gone into a trade war and escalated the tariffs. And the third one was an ugly one where the threat of a military intervention would still have been there. And I think we were able to de-escalate scenario three and scenario two. This doesn’t mean that they won’t come back. There’s always a possibility of that if we don’t manage scenario number one, the good one, the process, well.

My second point. You had two schools of thought, I think, in Europe. One was to de-escalate, and the other one was to escalate to de-escalate. And we probably did a bit of both. So you had a gang of people like myself and [NATO Secretary-General] Mark Rutte and others who worked a lot with American senators for the escalatory measures. And at the same time, you had a group of people who warned about the possibility of escalation through different types of instruments that Europe could use. And our instruments are actually, they’re bazookas with trade. I mean, if you look at American financial markets, if you look at bonds, et cetera, Europe is in there with 15 percent. That’s a lot. So, even though we didn’t mention this, it sort of loomed like a cloud over the head of the U.S. administration. And then at the end of the day, we’re able to deal with this amicably. But I would be lying if I said, “Oh, this was really comfortable,” or “Oh, this didn’t do anything to damage transatlantic relations.” It wasn’t comfortable, and it sure did. But these kinds of things happen among friends sometimes, I’m afraid.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

And in addition to the economic leverage, you did, along with a number of other European countries, send some troops to Greenland. I understand that there was an exercise there, but the symbolism was very clear, which seemed to be part of this equation.

ALEXANDER STUBB

Yeah. That was a bit of a misunderstanding. I mean, it was basically a reconnaissance mission that we had agreed to together with the Americans and the alliances. And somewhere there was a broken telephone here. I mean, it’s not exactly like the United States. is going to get scared if Finland sends two troops, two soldiers to check out the situation in Greenland. And what they were doing was basically preparing a military exercise. I think it was called Arctic Endurance, which is eight different training components of how we basically defend Greenland. And the first one is with real American engagement. So, that was a misunderstanding, which then was cleared up. But in today’s world, these things happen.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

As you look at the Arctic security picture, kind of leaving the Greenland imbroglio aside, where do you think the big gaps still lie as you look at Russian and Chinese threats in the Arctic?

ALEXANDER STUBB

Well, first of all, if I just look at things from a Finnish perspective, a Swedish perspective, or a Norwegian perspective, which, after all, is taking care of the security of the northeastern part of Europe, of which basically half of our countries are in the Arctic region. As I mentioned, in Finland, we have conscription or obligatory military service. And we have trained over one million men and women in Arctic circumstances to defend the country. So our Arctic know-how is top-notch. There’s a reason why there are thousands and thousands of American soldiers who want to come annually to practice warfare in Arctic conditions. And, of course, our whole defense composure is not there to defend us from the west, in other words, from Sweden, but to defend us from an attack on the east. So, we can stave off an attack, land, air, and sea, from the east. I’m not saying no problem. But believe me, as commander-in-chief, I’m the one who sees all the operative plans. We’re good. Don’t worry about it.

But then I have to look at it from the U.S. perspective. So, what is the United States most worried about when it comes to Arctic security? It’s not only the waterways that are open or not open. It is Russian nuclear armaments in the Kola Peninsula up northeast and also in Murmansk. And then the United States has to ask itself the question, “What is the best way to defend against that?” Well, that means that there needs to be hip-to-hip integration and cooperation with Arctic allies, such as Norway, Sweden, and Finland. And, of course, we are seven Arctic countries in NATO, including then, on top of what I just said, Denmark and Canada.

So, there is a lot of stuff that we can do together. And I think when you look at U.S. defense strategy or composure in general, I think we’re going to do a lot of work together. And I hope that as we move toward the Ankara summit, NATO summit in July, we start working at some kind of a bigger package on Arctic security, because we certainly need it. And a country like Finland with huge Arctic know-how in the defense sector, we’ll be more than glad to help.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

As you look at this set of crises and the occasional threats from Washington, how do you see the long-term effects on the transatlantic relationship? You’ve been notably, I think, less hysterical when it comes to reacting to some of these than some of your counterparts. But you have also talked about hedging and de-risking from the United States. How does that affect the relationship over time?

ALEXANDER STUBB

So, I approach things as a Finn. And when you have 1,340 kilometers of border with Russia, which is over 800 miles, you sort of have a tendency to be quite realistic, cool, calm, and collected. When the shit hits the fan, if I’m allowed to use that term, we go to the sauna, we take ice baths, and we reflect on how we’re going to deal with it. And I’m quite, I can’t say relaxed, but I’m quite confident because our sort of concept of comprehensive security is impeccable on all parts of it. And then I look at the big picture.

So, the reason I react calmly is not only because I’m pro-European and pro-American, but I think we can always solve all kinds of problems. So you have to look at the silver line. Okay, so what’s the Trump administration trying to tell us? It’s trying to tell us that you need to take care of your own security more in the future. And I think he is absolutely right on that. So, if then he pushes NATO defense expenditure to five percent, I want to make sure that the five percent is there and the capabilities of our European friends will be met.

So, instead of sort of screaming and shouting about it or getting upset or overreacting, I think what you need to do is, “Okay, what can I do to improve the situation?” And then for me, the key is, I want to have a good bilateral relationship with the United States, including on defense. And then I want to make sure that we develop things in NATO. And then we understand that the world is changing. But I still want to believe, without any kind of nostalgia, that even though some of the ideology is different between the United States and European states right now, the basic values still remain the same. And that’s what binds us.

And my final point is that, you see, I think foreign policy is based on three pillars. It’s values, interests, and power. Now, American values have shifted a little bit, sort of right from left. Interests have shifted probably from pure geopolitics to some financial interests, as we can see in the foreign policy. We have to be realistic about that. And then finally, the way in which America projects power is different. And now we need to work on these three elements and see where we find common landing zones and just stay calm about it, be more Finnish.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

When you look at Ukraine, how do you see those shifting elements, the values, interests, and power, reshaping U.S. policy?

ALEXANDER STUBB

Well, I’m actually quite optimistic of what I see on the Ukraine side, in the sense that a year ago, if someone would have told me that we’re in a place where we basically have five documents around which a comprehensive peace plan could be agreed, and that the Russians and the Ukrainians are now, for the first time since the beginning of the war, sitting around the same negotiating table, and especially military-to-military, I would have taken it.

So, I like to kind of divide it into two. On the peace process, so the 20-point plan, the security guarantees, and the prosperity package, I think we’re moving in the right direction. And then America has been instrumental on this. Yes, the negotiating tactics are sometimes tough, but I think they’re getting resolved. But my second point is more substantive. And this is especially for our American audience. We in Finland, we know Russia, right? We have our intelligence. We see what’s happening. And let’s just reflect. Let’s be honest about what’s going on. Three points.

Point number one, Putin has failed in all of his strategic aims in this war. He tried to Russify Ukraine. It is going to become a member of the European Union. He tried to prevent the enlargement of NATO. He got Finland and Sweden and doubled NATO’s border with Russia. And he tried to keep our defense expenditure and, therefore, capabilities down. And we’ve now lifted to five percent. So, from a strategic perspective, total failure. Second, militarily. This is what people don’t understand. In the beginning of the war, 12 years ago, right in the beginning of the war, they got 12 percent of Ukraine’s territory, including the Crimean Peninsula. Since then, in 12 years, eight percent. In the past 2 years, one percentage point of Ukrainian territory. They are not winning the war. On the contrary, they’re losing the war. Why? Because in December, 34,000 Russian soldiers were killed, 80 percent of them actually with Russian drones with virtually no collateral damage. The worst days, there was one Ukrainian soldier killed to 25 Russian soldiers. And for the first time, Russia is not able to recruit as many soldiers as are dying on the battlefield. And how much are they advancing? We’re talking about millimeters per day. So we’re talking basically about a military strategy which is not working. And then finally, thirdly, on the economic side, Russia is not doing well because of the sanctions and other things. Zero growth. They have no reserves left. Interest rate 16 percent. Inflation in double digits.

So, basically, Putin cannot afford to end this war because of the economic and social and political consequences in Russia, not because he wants to advance, because he’s not advancing. So, that’s why I feel that we need to continue to put more pressure on Russia as we move along. And these are the types of messages that we keep also discussing with President Trump and the administration. And look, Putin is letting President Trump down time after time. He lies about his dacha being bombed. He sends ballistic missiles and he breaks the ceasefire that he promised to the U.S. president.

So now the good news is, and this is my final point, the United States, Ukraine and Europe are now on the same page. And now we need to increase the pressure to end this war.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

How would you articulate a theory of victory for the Ukrainian side? I mean, your points about the struggles of Russia are quite persuasive, but I think Ukrainian policymakers and supporters of Ukraine have struggled to lay out clearly what a Ukrainian theory would be. How would you articulate that?

ALEXANDER STUBB

I can’t speak for the Ukrainians. They are the ones who define victory. And, of course, peace agreements, usually they’re good, bad, or a compromise. And I think we’re looking at a compromise here. I mean, the only thing I would ask the Ukrainians probably to do is to. If you want comparisons from history, which are a little bit dangerous, but the reason that Finland is one of the top supporters of Ukraine is the sort of emotional affinity we feel to what they are going through because we had a similar experience in the Winter War, which albeit lasted only 105 days in these types of conditions that we have outside here, -20 [degrees] and more, and in the War of Continuation, which was then longer.

And what did we end up with? So, we lost the war on the battlefield, or we could not have continued because we were so small and they were so big. So we lost 10 percent of our territory, including the areas where my grandparents and my father was born. On top of that, our top leaders were indicted as war criminals and had to go to jail, in a justice system which was led by the Soviets at the time. Thirdly, our military was limited. Fourth, we paid war compensation, $300 million at the value at that time. We’re the only country in the world, as far as I know, that have paid back their war compensation. And then finally, we had to let out a peninsula 30 kilometers from Helsinki called Porkkala for 50 years, but it was given back in 1956. So, we were only limited and we didn’t get much.

And then you have to ask the question, what will Ukraine get as a result of this peace? Number one, it will become a member of the European Union. It is going to happen. Number two, it’s going to get probably the biggest reconstruction package in the history of at least modern warfare. Number three, it will get security guarantees from the United States. And that’s huge. And, of course, also from European countries and the Coalition of the Willing.

And then the question comes to territory, the theory of victory. And here I cannot give you an answer. The only answer I can give you, that Finland will never, ever, de jure, approve any illegal annexation of Ukrainian territory to Russia. The cost of war is horrendous. But at the end of the day, I think that we don’t need a theory of victory because there is a theory of defeat. And that lies east of Ukraine in Russia.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

As you look at the ongoing negotiations, when you look at Russian demands, what would be a bridge too far and make this a settlement that’s not worth taking?

ALEXANDER STUBB

Well, again, this is up to the Ukrainians to decide. But two worries that I have. One is Donbas. At the rate at which Russia is moving, it would take them a minimum of two years to get Donbas, a minimum. And we’re talking 20 kilometers, right? So, they’re not advancing. But the second one is that this war is too big for Putin to fail, and therefore, he will not sign a peace agreement or he will not honor a peace agreement. And I, of course, think that the latter is the more serious one and a fundamental one that we have to deal with. And the only one who can put serious pressure on Putin and on Russia, of course, is Trump.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

What are your worries about Russian hostility toward Finland or other NATO members in the wake of war in Ukraine? Do you see a threat there?

ALEXANDER STUBB

I’m not worried about that. I think that’s. To be honest, of course, we are prepared for all kinds of scenarios, but that’s a lot of noise. That noise quite often comes from people who probably don’t have the depth of understanding of Russian geopolitical or military strategy. And the more I talk with my friends in the Southern Caucasus, in Armenia and Azerbaijan or in Georgia, or the more I talk to my friends in Central Asia, the more convinced I am that they are more worried than we should be.

Remember that Russia should not test Article 5, certainly not in Finland or anywhere else for that matter. We have seen the basic military failure of Russia in Ukraine. So for them to go ahead and test Article 5 is just not in the cards or scenarios that I look at very closely or seriously, at least.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

And you think Putin gets that?

ALEXANDER STUBB

I think so. You know, I’ve met Putin a few times. I think he’s a rational individual. He has his revisionist theory of history, which he bases a lot of his thinking on, for instance, on Ukraine, which I fundamentally disagree with. He also has this sort of dream of Russkiy Mir, great Russia, which means one country, one language, one religion, and one leader, himself, he still sees and has said many times that the biggest tragedy in recent history is the collapse of the Soviet Union and the 15 independent states that emerged out of there. So, it’s sort of this geopolitical fantasy that he lives with that does still worry me, but that doesn’t sort of reach out to my border.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

How have you understood the durability of Chinese support for the Russian war in Ukraine over the last few years? It would have struck me that China had a good opportunity to improve its relationship with much of Europe had it been a little bit more subtle about its role in the war in Ukraine. How have you understood the Chinese policy here?

ALEXANDER STUBB

Well, I had a state visit to Beijing in October 2024. So about eight months into my term as president of Finland, I had a chance to spend the better part of three hours in the presence of President Xi Jinping. My prime minister was in Beijing just last week. Obviously, Keir Starmer, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, was there, and also the prime minister of Canada. So, there is a very strong relationship emerging from Europeans and others who are reaching out to China.

I think at the beginning of the war, China sat on the fence and was a little bit baffled that “Why did Putin do this? Why didn’t he tell us about it?” But once that fence-sitting sort of transitioned, it became then pretty much, I would say, a vassal type of a relationship where Russia is completely dependent on China. And, of course, China’s argument is that “We don’t sell the military material.” And I get that. But there are elements that can be used for military equipment. And the financial support from trade or buying energy, oil and gas is, of course, quite substantive. But we’ll see. I think the Chinese are also starting to get tired of seeing this military failure by Putin. So, we’ll see what happens.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

How do you view China’s global ambitions? And to the extent you see it this way, do you see those as a threat to your own interest and to transatlantic interests? There’s, obviously, a kind of consensus in the United States that China is really the foremost challenge right now. Where do you differ from the American view of this, if at all?

ALEXANDER STUBB

Well, I mean, as I say in my piece and elsewhere, I think the world order is changing. It changes every so often. After World War I, it took two decades for it to change. After World War II, it took four decades for the Cold War to end. And then after the Cold War ended, it took three decades for this new transition to begin. And the transition quite often has a few key players.

After the Cold War, we did live a unipolar moment, which was obviously led by the United States, and China was far behind. Just to put it in context, the size of the Chinese economy and the Russian economy in 1990 were equal. Now China is over ten times bigger than Russia. So, there are obvious reasons why the United States sees its hegemonic role threatened by a superpower like China, from an economic perspective, from a demographic perspective, from a technological perspective, et cetera, et cetera.

I actually think that China is playing its cards quite well right now. It’s very much seen as the stable, patient superpower in name. It has forged a lot of interdependency relationships through the Belt and Road Initiative and the five or six other similar types of initiatives that have to do with development and technology and security. But obviously, it wants to be at least a regional superpower, which it is. And then the question is, how far will it go?

It also believes in its system of governance, which is not, obviously, a liberal democracy, but it is probably not as centralized as we believe either. There’s a different concept of society. We in the West, we come from a very individualistic background. We focus on the individual. Whereas in China, it’s more about the collective and society. And China is now able to provide its citizens with the basic goods that keep the system churning. The five percent annual growth rates have created a wealth machine and a distribution of wealth where people have emerged from poverty to the middle class. And the question is, can we do this in the United States? Can we do it in Europe sustainably in the long term?

But my basic point is that China and the United States are the two superpowers. And then they’re going to have a whole bunch of middle powers that come into this game and play probably a rather multivectoral foreign policy, the likes of India or Turkey. I mentioned earlier South Africa, Brazil. Put Nigeria into the mix, Indonesia, and you look at the Gulf states. So, there are many others.

So, that’s why we’re living in this really, you know, world of disorder where a lot of power vacuums emerge and then someone keeps on filling them. And I think it’ll take about five years for things to settle. And I hope to have a new world order by 2030.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

You noted at Davos that whereas you and other middle powers used to talk about de-risking from China, you’re now talking about de-risking from elsewhere with the elsewhere being quite clear in context what you were talking about. As you look to China for economic engagement, for other kinds of engagement, what are the risks and how do you manage those from a middle powers perspective?

ALEXANDER STUBB

Well, again, let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. I’m not advocating de-risking from the United States, I’m advocating interdependence. That’s why we have just sold 11 icebreakers to the United States. They need them desperately. We have eight. The United States. basically has 0. Russia has 40. So, you need to work on where you have mutual dependencies. And I think the language that Europe still uses is de-risking from China. Fun fact, the Biden administration started to use the same term of de-risking when Europe did that the first time around.

So, I think that these power relations are right now shifting. I don’t believe that you can kind of snap off value chains and dependencies just like that. They are tit-for-tat and you actually need them. China has a lot of cards right now, but obviously, Europe has a lot of cards as well. And I like this triangle of mutual dependence, China, the United States and Europe.

I do remember writing in a Financial Times column, it must have been in 2016, which I rather provocatively called [“For China, Europe is the new Africa”]. And my argument was that the way in which China was mining raw materials in Africa, they were mining technology in Europe. And I called for risk management and checking out. Now, of course, we live in a new world, and we’ll see, but you’ll start seeing Europe taking much more responsibility for its own raw materials. And obviously, we’re a little bit edgy on technology because our approach is different, but this doesn’t mean that you close the door completely.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

That picture of Europe as, in some ways, balancing between America and China is quite striking. That’s an interesting sense of where things are going.

ALEXANDER STUBB

It is. And what I also see now is Europe starting to work. Obviously, we had a free trade agreement with Mercosur in Latin America. We have a free trade agreement with India. I’m not seeing a free trade agreement with China, but there are some issues that are linked to intellectual property and others that you’ll probably start seeing some deals coming between Europe and China as well. And this is, I think, a natural inclination for entities or states to do, that if you feel a little bit uncomfortable with, say, tariffs coming from the United States, you start looking elsewhere. But the jury is still out for how long this will last.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

The other element you focus on in the Foreign Affairs essay is, of course, the global South. And you described this kind of triangular contest among the East, the West, and the South. How do you see that unfolding in the years ahead, especially at a moment where it does not strike me that a lot of the Western powers are spending a ton of time thinking about this, and China certainly is?

ALEXANDER STUBB

Yeah. So, my basic argument in the piece and also in the book is to say that we have the global West led by the United States that is the champion of the liberal world order that it created after World War II. Well, now we can ask the question whether the United States still wants to take that role or not. Probably right now, we could say that not so much. Then you have the global East led by China, followed by the likes of Russia, which believes probably in a more multipolar world and feels that the international system that was created after World War II was created in the image of the West and the United States, and it’s not necessarily wrong in that. And my argument is that if it’s this battle between multipolarity and multilateralism, the ones who are going to decide the direction in which we go is going to be the global South. So, what does India think? What does South Africa think? What does Brazil think? And they are the ones who are then going to huddle around and say, “Well, as a matter of fact, a rules-based world order would be better.”

But that, for me, for the West, entails two things, which both have to do with humbleness or humility. One is values-based realism, which is the instrument. So stay true to your values, democracy, freedom, fundamental rights, human rights, rule of law, protection of minorities. But be realistic that you cannot solve all the world’s problems just with Sweden. It has to be broader than that. So, if you want to deal with climate change, if you want to solve trade issues, if you want to solve conflicts, technology, et cetera, you need to cooperate with countries who don’t look like you, who don’t smell like you, who don’t think like you, and who don’t share your basic values.

And the other instrument that needs to be used from the Western perspective is what I call dignified foreign policy. And that means that you treat other countries with dignity in this sort of postcolonial world, if you will. I actually think that it’s an instrument that works. I mean, having been doing foreign policy, both on the academic side, civil servant side, and then in politics, I have never met anyone who is aggressive and arrogant that I would want to follow, unless I’m really, really forced to do that. So, that’s why I think that if the West now drives a more dignified foreign policy with the global South, I think we might get there. And I think India is the case in point here.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

It bodes poorly for how this new order is going to develop that you have a U.S. administration that I think would disagree with some of those basic theories of how power works and where we’ve seen a rift with India of all countries in the last year.

ALEXANDER STUBB

Yeah, but again, the pendulum there oscillates. President Trump has a different type of conducting foreign policy, and he does it quite strongly. And he uses economic power as coercion, almost like an instrument of war with tariffs, for instance. And to a certain extent, you could argue that from his perspective, he gets results. How long-lasting these results then are, I think the jury is still out on that.

As a free trader, I believe in win-win and mutual benefits. I believe in interdependence and in broad value chains. I believe that manufacturing per se will, at the end of the day, not create the type of labor that we might be thinking of in terms of heavy industry that will be done by robots. I happen to think that the next frontier is already here, and that’s artificial intelligence. And that will then create different types of past dependencies and avenues of economic growth. So, we’ll see how this sort of laboratory of tariffs pans out for the United States. We just don’t know yet.

I’ve had super interesting conversations with someone like Jamieson Greer, who I respect a lot, who thinks about these things deeply. He writes about them deeply.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

This is the U.S. trade representative

ALEXANDER STUBB

Exactly. And there is a case to be made, short-term or otherwise, that tariffs for a country like the United States works. But whether they work long-term, we just don’t know yet.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

You are close to singular in the world today in that you can write high-minded essays in elite journals and advocate multilateralism. And yet, you have, at the same time, been one of the really the most effective leaders when it comes to diplomacy with President Trump. Other than having been a professional-level golfer earlier in your life, I’m curious what you see as the formula for conducting diplomacy with Trump and where you’ve seen others go wrong. When you think this goes poorly, what do people miss?

ALEXANDER STUBB

Well, again, I don’t want to inflate my own role. I’m inherently a curious person. Studying in the United States from 1989 to 1993 genuinely changed my life. I wanted to become a golf professional. I realized I wasn’t good enough. So I got into international relations and I haven’t looked back since. So, I think I have a basic understanding of what it means to be American, whether you are from Greenville, South Carolina, or whether you are from San Francisco, California, or whether you’re from New York. And I have a lot of respect. I mean, I was a huge fan of The Federalist Papers. When I heard of the Hamilton musical, I rushed to go and see it just because of my academic quench and interest for it.

So, my take is quite pragmatic. I think diplomacy and foreign policy always works on two levels. One is your traditional state-to-state level. That’s where history, geography, values, interests, culture come into play. And I firmly believe that there needs to be a close bond between Europe and the United States, because we have that value base. We have that connection, which has a little bit of nostalgia, but essentially it’s really also about values and interests. And the other part is then the personal connection, right? So, you don’t have to agree on everything, but you can get cordially along with people. And I come from a small country, so I have no illusions about my impact. If I have a conversation with the president of the United States, who is the most powerful person in the world, you know, it’s great, but I have no illusions that I have an impact on him, right? President Trump is actually quite curious. He asks a lot of questions and he engages. He’s very different one-to-one or in smaller groups than what you see in general. And then, of course, because of the situation that we have the experience with the Russians or Soviets, the war in Ukraine is one of the key issues for President Trump. If he sometimes listens to a couple of the ideas that I have about it, that’s great, but I have no illusions of my impact.

And the curiosity, just to come back with it, for me, it helps a lot. I mean, I wrote the book over four years when I was pretty much in academia. Had to do some touch-ups when I became president for rather obvious reasons. But it helps me to frame thinking. And the reason I write to Foreign Affairs, and I actually do the writing myself, is that it helps me to then condense my ideas and come to different paths. And I think foreign policy is always an iteration. And right now, we are in 2026 and as we could see in the month of January, a lot of things happening.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

I have to imagine that when you were golfing in college, you did not know that your golf prowess might someday save the transatlantic relationship. But we all should be grateful that you’re a great golfer.

ALEXANDER STUBB

No, well, you know, my dad used to say when I was young that “Alex, don’t worry. Even if you don’t become a professional, golf will be useful for you one day.” And I said, “Yeah, sure, Dad. That’s just your way of saying ‘Start studying, son.’” And sure enough, Dad was right on this one. But I did stop golf, pretty much cold turkey, for 35 years. So I should be really thankful that Trump got me back into it. Now I’m kind of gung ho again. I’m a born-again golfer. I got new clubs. Okay, Trump gave me the clubs and they’re really, really nice. So, I really enjoy the game again.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

A wonky question that I’ve been so fascinated to get your take on as we read these reports of you texting back and forth with Trump and other leaders. This is a relatively new feature of international diplomacy. I have to say, as a former staffer, it’s kind of horrifying to imagine your bosses texting without supervision. But it’s been a part of how you’ve conducted diplomacy. You were part of this now infamous exchange about Trump not getting the Nobel Prize and about peace prize that he had with you and your Norwegian counterpart. How does the fact of leaders texting directly and interacting directly in this way change the way diplomacy is carried out? And how does that shape global politics to your mind?

ALEXANDER STUBB

Well, it becomes probably faster paced because, obviously, I mean, most of us are on our phones a lot, except when we are in spaces or places where we’re discussing confidential matters and classified matters, then we put them aside. So, we’re able to respond. And, of course, a lot of us have now different types of chats with different types of names where we exchange information. But, you know, the fact that I’m able to send a text message directly to President Trump or to his staff, which then shows it to President Trump, is, of course, an asset. At the same time, it’s an asset for him as well to be able to knock out something. And we have very direct messages and phone calls with President Trump and with many other leaders as well.

For me, coming from a small country, information is power. So if I’m able to relay information using my own rational mind and common sense to President Trump or I can relay information from President Trump to European leaders to Zelensky, then I make myself useful. And my staff, they’re actually happy that I do this as long as I inform them. So they’re okay about it. We share a lot of information and suddenly it becomes a web. So my national security adviser or my foreign policy advisers or defense advisers then react to different types of messages with their colleagues on their level. And this gives you skin in the game. It’s a new modern way of doing foreign policy, but sometimes I guess you have to be a little bit careful, type of language that you use because you never know, it might end up in the public.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

Let me close at a somewhat higher level. There’s a line in your Foreign Affairs piece that is really striking. You write, “The next five to ten years will likely determine the world order for decades to come.” As you look ahead 10 years, what does failure look like and what does success look like in that world order?

ALEXANDER STUBB

For me, failure looks like multipolarity on steroids, where we see foreign policy as a zero-sum game of deals, transactions, and spheres of interest. That, to me, essentially leads to conflict. And containing conflict just by pure interest is never a lasting recipe.

The best-case scenario is multilateralism and some kind of reformed United Nations, WTO, IMF, World Bank where you see a lot more agency given to players who were not considered to be the big powers after World War II. And then we start focusing more, again, on the substantive solution of things, such as climate change or conflicts or energy or technology. And we get around the same table again and behave toward each other in a more peaceful rather than belligerent manner. We’re not there yet, but we’re working toward it.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

Let us end on that hopeful note. And I should say, I hope you’re also giving all of your fellow European leaders their own cold plunge pool so they can get some of the cool that you seem to have. But President Stubb, thank you so much for the great piece and for taking the time today. We will look forward to having you back on our pages before too long.

ALEXANDER STUBB

Thank you very much. And thanks for Foreign Affairs, which, together with The Economist, the Financial Times, The New York Times, and many others, are pretty much my weekly reading list. I really enjoy it. It keeps my mind churning.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

Very happy to hear that. We appreciate it.