Comment Re:Finlandization... (Score 1) 138
Much as I'm disliking the Hitlerian Russian government now, I can't believe a) anyone wouldn't have reported it (the pilot) or b) not talked about it loudly for 25+ years.
It doesn't add up.
It does if you know anything about Finnish history. Pissing off the Soviets was may have been an American national sport during the cold war period but for the Finns it was not at the top of their agenda. Finland spent the cold war balancing on a razor's edge they were bound by post WWII treaties to have a military of a fixed (and rather small) size and of course to remain neutral. For this reason the Finns painstakingly split their military procurement exactly down the middle. Half the air force jets, half the army's tanks and half the navy's ships were bought in the Soviet bloc and the other half in the West and it was a very successful strategy (which is why its now being suggested as a solution to the Ukraine crisis). The Finns may have wiped the floor with the Soviet army during the Winter War but it was still not an experience the Finns cared to repeat in the nuclear era. Since the aircraft wasn't actually harmed no purpose would have been served by deliberately embarrassing the bad tempered 16 foot tall, 3000 pound grizzly bear sitting on their eastern border by advertising the ineptitude of the Soviet air defenses so the sensible strategy was just to play it down.
No, that was exactly why I read TFA expecting to see that the Finnish government was the one who buried it. They weren't. Seems to...defy credulity that 2 ordinary citizens would be making a political decision like that. The government yes, 2 copilots no.