Finnish Army Joint Terminal Attack Controllers overlook a firing range while providing targeting information to a US Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon flying overhead on 19 July 2022 in Grafenwöhr, Germany during Exercise Dynamic Front 22. Source: Flickr, NATO, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
These forces are not exactly talked about in public—Finnish soldiers must soon be ready to defend NATO countries.
Military integration will be seen in the coming years as major changes in Finnish defense planning.
Finland has been a member of NATO for two years. NATO’s principle is one for all and all for one, but Finland has been missing a piece of this.
It goes by the name “fully deployable” in NATO, fully mobile forces. These are forces that are on standby and will be deployed to support other member states if necessary.
In June 2025, NATO will confirm new goals for its member states on how they must develop their capabilities. The obligation of fully mobile forces also applies to Finland.
“No member state has a free pass,” says Kari Aapro, a special expert at the Finnish Ministry of Defense.
Aapro knows NATO and Finnish defense inside out, and he is primarily responsible for preparing the goals at the ministry.
At the defense ministers’ meeting in early June, NATO will approve the new performance goals. This is how NATO coordinates defense development. The goals are binding. The countries will embed them in their own plans and implement them with their own money.
In the real situation, NATO decides where mobile forces are needed, but the decision-making power over deployment lies with Finland.
Finland must be ready to designate such troops from each branch of the defense: the army, navy, air force, special forces, and maintenance and support forces. The performance targets are not public, and therefore they are reported to the public very sparingly. That is why the defense administration does not provide exact figures on the number of troops.
“It is not tens or tens of thousands, but somewhere in between,” says Sami Nurmi, Chief of Strategy of the Defense Forces.
“The wartime size of the Finnish armed forces is 280,000. That is a fairly marginal number in this context,” says Aapro.
According to Yle, the total number of troops would be a few percent of the wartime number of troops.
Sending troops does not endanger Finland’s defense Finnish foreign policy leadership and soldiers have emphasized in public that Finland’s most important task in NATO is to defend Finland. However, as an ally, Finland must also bear responsibility for defending other members.
NATO has conveyed to Finland that as long as Finland does not have fully mobile troops on standby, other countries will have to bear responsibility for Finland.
Can Finland afford to send soldiers to other NATO countries or will it endanger Finland’s defense?
“The numbers are so small that I do not think it would endanger it,” Aapro says.
Kari Aapro explains why Finland must also be ready to deploy troops if it is on standby.
The matter is not black and white. If there is a crisis in this direction, the flow of troops will flow towards Finland and not away from here, Aapro says.
But it must be accepted that if there is peace in the Nordic countries and there is turmoil somewhere else in Europe, then we are obliged as allies to participate in supporting other countries and to send troops assigned to standby there.
Putting the force on alert means very practical things: you have to decide what the terms of service are, how to ensure that the force is committed and available. The forces have to be trained and they have to practice.
The forces have to have equipment ready and stored. It has to be agreed how the equipment can be chartered to the destination and how the soldiers will travel to the destination.
Finland will build the forces in the near future, the Finnish Defense Forces estimate. The most planning and also new legislation will be required for the ground forces, which will consist mainly of reservists.
You Also Have To Prepare To Receive Help, And That Too Costs
Another clear change to Finland’s defense is to prepare to receive help from others.
This means all the support and planning that receiving help from other countries requires. Finland would hardly build these capabilities in the same way if it were not part of NATO and focused only on its own defense.
At the NATO level, European countries are being tried to take responsibility for the deteriorating security situation and for tasks in which the United States has borne more responsibility than the Europeans.
Such strategic-level capabilities include airlift and missile systems. They are such expensive and technically complex systems that it is not economically sensible for any European country to do them alone, says Nurmi, Chief of Strategy of the Finnish Defense Forces.
The Nordic countries are also taking on joint tasks. Nurmi does not say directly what they are. “It could be matters related to troop movement, airlift capability, sealift capability,” he mentions.
Performance targets are approved in NATO by a procedure called the consensus -1 decision.
This means that, for example, Finland must accept obligations that others jointly want Finland to fulfill.
Some of the targets are urgent, some have a longer time to implement, up to 15 years.
Finland Does Not Want To Be A Museum
The targets that NATO is now setting for its members are strict, because the security situation is also strict. They are also challenging for Finland.
The difficulty for Finland is further compounded by the 280,000-strong reserve of soldiers, whose material must be updated every twenty years.
“So that we don’t turn into a museum,” says Aapro. This takes up the majority of Finland’s defense budget, which is currently 2.4 percent of GDP.
However, there are now many new goals. Finland has decided to increase its defense budget to at least three percent of GDP. In NATO, the goal may be set at 3.5 percent.
According to Aapro, these are a challenge. The cost of implementing Finland’s goals has not yet been calculated.
The requirements will not end in June. Defense is planned in four-year cycles and reviewed in between. According to Aapro, the “hot potato” for NATO countries is what will happen in the next round. All countries are already increasing their defense spending.
“There is also a lot of discussion about what is realistic anymore. Spending cannot be increased indefinitely,” Aapro says.
That is why defense must be done more intelligently, he estimates.
Source: Yle (in Finnish)
Further reading:
- Defense Capability—the Secret of Finnish Happiness? / The Centre of Ethical Education in the Armed Forces