This is the Guardian.

Today, it's been Vladimir Putin's obsession for decades.

How the Russian leader miscalculated and gave NATO's

faltering alliance new life?

Russia's border with Finland goes for more than 800 miles.

It's rugged, often freezing, sometimes tense, but not always.

There's no kind of fences or an effort, but it's patrolled regularly by finished border guards,

and many years ago now, but I spent a day with them up there.

At that stage, there was quite a friendly relationship between the two countries'

different sets of border guards.

But Finns know what the Russian army can do.

They remember a brutal invasion that started in winter 1939.

Since the two countries went to war, Finns have tried to strike a balance, taking security into their own hands,

training their population, teaching them to fight a much larger enemy, building vast networks of bunkers underground,

where civilian life can continue, even during war, and staying out of alliances like NATO,

for fear of provoking Russian retaliation.

But these add to mulch-u-us days in Europe.

At this shooting range in Helsinki, they are honing their skills.

The Russian border is less than two hours away.

They've looked at the war in Ukraine and shuddered the idea that it could happen here, too.

The old rules no longer apply.

And this week, Finland scrapped decades of security policy, and Sweden centuries fit.

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