De-escalation amid a Total War? : An interpretivist-constructivist analysis of Finland's involvement (or lack thereof) in the Siege of Leningrad and Murmansk during the Continuation War 1941-1944

Sammanfattning: At the beginning of the Continuation War in 1941, Finnish and German troops commenced a gradual escalation which resulted in swift successive victories against the Soviets. Yet, Finland´s Field Marshal Mannerheim unexpectedly turned his back on military rationality at Leningrad and Murmansk despite his knowledge of how vitally strategic the locations were to the Soviet war effort. Leningrad was encircled by German and Finnish forces and a successful siege was achievable, yet Mannerheim abruptly discontinued the offensive and chose to assume a stale war lasting until 1944. Likewise, Mannerheim withheld his troops from cutting off Murmansk Railway. These events beckon important inquiries regarding Mannerheim´s decision to de-escalate during successful offensives in a total war and presents a conundrum that few have to date examined holistically. As such, this thesis offers an alternative perspective to the current rational explanations of Finnish warfare in the Continuation War. This thesis discusses specific social processes of Finnish society that rationalist explanations overlook and applies the theory of constructivism to identify that normative factors can complement the prevailing rationalist explanations. This thesis further identifies how the social concepts of identity, shared culture and knowledge, and the norms of the Finnish people, and its leadership, contributed to Mannerheim’s decision to disregard military rationality and de-escalate. Lastly, this thesis determines that norms and ideas matter in war studies and future research should incorporate an interpretivist approach which contemplates social constructions and norms as alternative explanations in complex, multi-casual social phenomena like war.