The North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s newest member, Finland, adds strategic depth and significant military forces to the alliance. Finnish membership extends NATO’s northern flank eastward, to the border with Russia. And with the exception of Russia’s Kaliningrad enclave, the entire Baltic littoral now consists of NATO member states (counting Sweden as a de facto member of the alliance.) The Finnish armed forces thus represent NATO’s first line of defense in the Baltic/Scandinavian area.
Follow this link for an interactive map of the Scandinavian/Baltic area.
The Finnish Defense Forces
The armed forces of Finland are known collectively as the Finnish Defense Forces (FDF), consisting of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force. The Border Guard, which is administered by the Ministry of the Interior, would come under command of the FDF in wartime.
In peacetime, the personnel of the FDF consist of a professional cadre, the current intake of conscripts and reservists undergoing refresher training. The professional cadre’s primary peacetime missions are training and the maintenance of the mobilization base. In any given year there are approximately 18,000 professionals and 35,000 conscripts and reservists in uniform.
The cadre/conscript/reserve system enables Finland, a country with a total population of 5.6 million, to mobilize 280,000 troops, distributed among the three branches of the FDF plus the Border Guard.
The High Command
The President of Finland is supreme commander of the armed forces who, in consultation with the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense, issues orders to Finland’s top military commander, the Chief of Defense—in US parlance a four-star flag officer. He heads the Defense Command, a joint headquarters responsible for defense planning, coordination of the armed forces, and various administrative matters. The Chief of Defense’s immediate subordinates are the commanders of the service branches.
The Finnish Army
The Army is the largest branch of the Defense Forces. In peacetime its strength is about 3,700 professional cadre, 18,000 conscripts undergoing initial military training, and 18,000 reservists undergoing refresher training. These troops are disposed in six brigades, with a small number (700-1,000) serving abroad on international missions.
An organizational chart of the peacetime Army is somewhat misleading, since the eight brigades it depicts are not tactical formations. They exist, rather, to administer the battalions and smaller units assigned to them, carry out training, and maintain the mobilization base. The Armored Brigade, for example, is responsible for the mobilization of one wartime armored brigade and two battalion-sized mechanized battlegroups. (Future plans envision the replacement of the armored brigade with additional mechanized battle groups.) Similarly, the Jaeger Brigade, stationed in Finnish Lapland, specializes in arctic warfare training. (Jaeger, a word borrowed from German, means hunter and is a traditional term for light infantry.)
Up to the end of the Cold War, the Finnish Army was primarily equipped with Soviet weapons, e.g. T-55 tanks and BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles. These are being supplemented or replaced by more modern equipment, either from Western sources or of Finnish manufacture, e.g. the German Leopard 2A4 and 2A6 main battle tanks, and the Finnish Patria AMV armored personnel carrier.
The mobilized Finnish Army consists of 180,000 troops, organized as follows:
Mobile Forces
1 x armored brigade
2 x mechanized infantry brigades
2 x jaeger brigades
2 x mechanized battlegroups (battalion size)
1 x jaeger battalion (special for the defense of Helsinki)
1 x aviation battalion (helicopter)
1 x air defense battalion
Territorial Forces
6 x infantry brigades
14 x independent infantry battlegroups (battalion size)
24 x independent infantry companies
The Finnish Navy
In peacetime, the Navy has about 7,000 personnel on active duty at any given time: professional cadre, conscripts undergoing initial military training, and reservists undergoing refresher training. The forces afloat are concentrated in the Coastal Fleet, which consists of two surface warfare squadrons, one mine countermeasures squadron and one support squadron.
The main striking power of the Navy is embodied in the two surface warfare squadrons, each of which operates four missile-armed fast attack craft, a large minelayer and one or two small minelayers. The missile craft and the large minelayers have antisubmarine systems and can be employed as escorts. The small minelayers have a secondary role as transports or support ships. The Navy’s mine countermeasures squadron has three large minehunters and nine inshore minesweepers. The support squadron operates a number of transport and supply vessels and maintains various support units ashore.
The four older fast attack craft are due to be replaced in the late 2020s by four much larger and more capable corvettes: multipurpose warships with advanced surface, air defense and antisubmarine weapons systems, including an embarked helicopter.
Land-based and amphibious coastal defenses are concentrated in the Nyland Brigade, which includes the Coastal Jaegers (naval infantry), who are specially trained for operations in the Finnish Archipelago (southwestern Finland), an area characterized by numerous small islands and inlets. There are also coast defense detachments equipped with vehicle-mounted and manpack antiship missile systems, which have mostly replaced fixed and mobile guns. The Coastal Jaegers and coast defense detachments are supported by some 200 landing craft of various types.
In the event of mobilization all these units would be augmented by recalled reservists, raising the strength of the Navy to about 32,000 personnel.
The Finnish Air Force
In peacetime the Air Force has about 3,100 personnel on active duty, plus conscripts and reservists undergoing training. Air Force Command controls three regional air commands, each with a support (logistics) squadron, a headquarters flight, and a liaison/light transport flight. Two of the air commands, one in north Finland and one in central Finland, embody a combat operations center and a fighter squadron. Training activities are concentrated under the Air Force Academy, which in wartime provides a third fighter squadron.
The primary combat aircraft is the Boeing F/A-18C Hornet, with 55 in service. There are also seven F/A-18D two-seat conversion trainers, split between the fighter squadrons. A third fighter squadron is assigned to the Air Force Academy. In peacetime it provides jet conversion training with the BAE Mk.66 Hawk advanced trainer/light fighter-bomber. The Hornets, which were acquired in the 1990s, are nearing the end of their service life and are due to be replaced by the Lockheed F-35 Lightning II, of which 64 are on order. The Hawks are expected to soldier on into the 2030s.
Upon mobilization about 35,000 reservists will join the Air Force, raising its units to full wartime strength and activating a number of standby air bases.
The Finnish Border Guard
The Border Guard, with a peacetime strength of 3,800 career personnel, has ground, maritime and air branches. Though administered by the Ministry of the Interior, it is a military organization. In wartime the Border Guard would be reinforced by some 10,000 recalled reservists and come under command of the Finnish Defense Forces. Conscripts may volunteer to fulfill their military service obligation in the Border Guard. Those selected come mostly from Finland’s border areas and are intimately familiar with the terrain. They receive extensive training in long-range reconnaissance and guerilla operations and in wartime would form jaeger companies for special operations.
The Border Guard has two important wartime missions. On the border with Russia, its units are tasked to report an invasion and, to extent possible, delay the enemy’s advance. Thereafter, the mobilized jaeger companies would conduct long-range reconnaissance patrols and guerilla operations behind enemy lines.
The Border Guard’s three large patrol vessels can be armed for service as naval auxiliaries, and its twelve helicopters are suitable for military missions.
The Strategic Calculus
The most obvious consequence of Finland’s addition to NATO is revealed by a glance at the map: It effectively neutralizes the Russian Baltic Fleet, which operates primarily from the Baltyysk Naval Base in Kaliningrad. That enclave is bordered by Lithuania and Poland, both NATO members, and its sea approaches are overlooked by those two countries and Sweden. In wartime, any Russian naval forces stationed in the St. Petersburg area could only reach the Baltic by traversing the Gulf of Finland, a narrow stretch of water between that country and Estonia—a hazardous undertaking for surface ships. The Baltic is now a NATO lake.
During the Cold War, the defense of NATO’s northern flank rested with Denmark and Norway, and plans existed for the deployment of US and British forces to the latter country in the event of war. Now Finland has assumed that role, since a Russian attack in the region would have to begin with the occupation of at least the southern quarter of the country. This is precisely the contingency for which the FDF has long been prepared. The former strategy of territorial defense in depth has been somewhat modified in recent years, though not abandoned. Current plans call for the mobile forces described above to conduct an active defense against the main enemy force, while the territorial forces defend in place elsewhere.
Geographical and climate factors have not changed since the Red Army learned its painful lesson in the 1939-40 Winter War: Finland’s terrain is heavily forested and, in the south, dotted with hundreds of lakes both large and small. A Russian attack would have to go north from the Karelian Isthmus, then southwest along the coast toward the capital, Helsinki, and on to Hanko, thus opening the Gulf of Finland to Russian warships. The ground offensive might be supplemented by an amphibious landing, but this would be a perilous undertaking in restricted waters with an ever-present threat of air, surface and submarine attack. Though the Finnish Navy operates no submarines, Poland, Sweden and Germany do, and these could quickly reach the battle area. So too could strike aircraft from other NATO countries in the area, some forward deployed to Finland. It is also possible that NATO ground troops such as the US Marines and Britain’s Royal Marines could reinforce the Finnish Army.
Finland’s addition to NATO so complicates Russian planning for jmilitary operations in the Baltic/Scandinavian area that a major attack in the event of war is extremely unlikely. The Russians will probably look to their defenses instead, prioritizing the protection of St. Petersburg and the Kaliningrad enclave. If the shooting does start, a Russian invasion of Estonia and Latvia might be attempted but even that would be a risky operation.
Long ago the Roman military commentator Publius Vegetius Renatus advised his readers, Si vis pacem, para bellum: “If you want peace, prepare for war.” This well summarizes Finland’s defense policy, which now adds credibility to NATO’s core purpose: defense through deterrence.
Read Part One of this article here.