Finnish Defense Minister Antti Häkkänen speaks to the media at a meeting of NATO defense ministers in June 2024. Finland is negotiating terms under which NATO forces can be stationed in the Nordic country, including during times of “tense” border relations with Russia. AFP/GETTY IMAGES
THE WATCH STAFF
Finland is discussing plans to host NATO troops and exercises, Scandinavian media outlets reported. Those reports indicate that NATO troops may be based in Finland in peacetime as well as war, a major shift in the traditionally non-aligned country’s national defense policy.
The revelations follow a NATO defense ministers meeting this year that approved a troop presence in Finland. Since then, discussions have intensified. Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo told reporters that fellow Nordic NATO allies Sweden and Norway are considering stationing troops in Lapland, in the country’s north. “It is also really important for us that the other NATO countries are committed and involved in the defence of Lapland and the entire Scandinavian region,” Orpo said, according to the Independent Barents Observer, a Norwegian newspaper.
Defense Minister Antti Häkkänen said the Finnish government’s goal is to increase the presence of partner nation troops during periods when its border with Russia is “tense,” as it has been for much of the time since its eastern neighbor invaded Ukraine in 2022. “We are still negotiating on how big such a troop deployment would be, but it must be comprehensive and large enough to form a sufficient presence in crisis situations,” he said, adding that it is “essential that there are facilities and structures to house these forces in Finland for a longer period of time.”
His comments reflect a trend among Nordic countries. In the past year, Denmark, Norway and Sweden have all negotiated expanded defense agreements with the U.S. that would allow troops and materiel to be stationed on their territory. Finland’s border tensions with Russia, in which large groups of migrants were shuttled through the border by Russian border guards, has added an urgency to Helsinki’s posture. Finland closed its land border — the longest in Europe — with Russia in the fall of 2023 and, with only a brief reopening, it has remained shuttered.
The next step will be another meeting on the issue when NATO defense ministers convene in February 2025. At that meeting, NATO is expected to announce where its command center for land warfare in northern Europe would be stationed in Finland. Häkkänen said it will need good transport connections and ready infrastructure, according to Yle, the Finnish national broadcaster.
Finland has already announced plans to construct a 4-meter-high border fence along much of its 1,300-kilometer border with Russia. And the government is also mulling a ban on Russian purchase of Finnish real estate.
In a sign of strengthening ties with the U.S., two Air Force F-35 II warplanes landed on a strip of highway in Lapland in September 2024 during an exercise, the first time fifth-generation U.S. aircraft have operated from a road — not a runway — in Europe. It is part of the service’s push to operate from more locations with less infrastructure in the face of increasing threats to U.S. bases across the globe, according to Air & Space Forces magazine, which covers military aviation issues.
“These are the things we have to be able to do, and it takes practice,” Finnish Air Force Col. Saku Joukas, the exercise director and commander of the Lapland Air Wing, said in a news release prior to the exercise. “Now, the exercise will also have a stronger international element. We will demonstrate our top expertise to our allies and provide them with an opportunity to learn. In this way, we will also send out a message about the strength of our own defense.”
A contingent of U.S. Army paratroopers also recently visited the country as part of exercises with one of the newest members of NATO. Finland joined the trans-Atlantic alliance in 2023, breaking with decades of nonalignment and neutrality toward Russia.