The article examines the evolution of the security policy of Finland and NATO from 1994 to 2017, identifies key factors that determine the security policy. NATO's expansion to the East has influenced the foreign security policy of the Nordic countries, even those traditionally neutral, like Finland and Sweden. This expansion led to the transformation of the defense strategy of Finland. Despite the deepening of cooperation between Finland and NATO, the expansion of economic cooperation with Russia continues. Helsinki strategically uses its partnership with NATO to promote its national security interests. The article examines the main periods of the evolution of the security policy of Finland and NATO in 1994 - 2017.
The methodology of the article is based on the principle of historicism, according to which the partnership between Finland and NATO in the late XX - early XXI centuries was studied as a system of cause and effect relations in development and in a temporal relationship taking into account the historical context and global international processes. Guided by the principle of objectivity, the relations between Finland and NATO were studied on the basis of scientific data and documents. Also, as a methodological basis, the elements of the system method were used. It made possible to create a holistic picture of the relations between Finland and the North Atlantic alliance in the chosen period, to reveal the main laws, to determine the factors that have influence.
The article focuses on the problems of foreign and defense policy of Finland. The study of the position of the ruling political party in Finland, the Finnish public opinion on the issues of cooperation between Finland and NATO, Finland's relations with NATO as part of Finland's multi-vector security policy is one of the main tasks of the study.
The article examines the main periods of the evolution of the security policy of Finland and NATO in 1994 - 2017. On the basis of the studied internal political documents of Finland (the Constitution of Finland, the government's reports on security and defense policy, security concepts and strategies, the program documents of Finland's main political parties) and NATO's strategic concepts, the authors concluded that the evolution of Finland-NATO policy from 1994 to 2017 has passed three stages:
1) 1994-2003 - the stage of the partnership.
2) 2003-2011 - the period of «options options» in the Finnish security policy.
3) 2011-2017 - the period of the «status-quo plus» policy in relations between Finland and NATO.
The study revealed that the key factors influencing the evolution of the partnership between Finland and NATO are the political position of the ruling political party represented in the foreign policy strategy by the president or prime minister of Finland, opinion polls in the country, the foreign policy course of Sweden and good-neighborly relations with Russia.