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Finland as a NATO Ally
This post is not a Kissinger policy wonk essay. It is a look at Finnish armed forces and what they bring to NATO.
Finland has mandatory military conscription for males that begins at the age of 18. New conscripts are called-up in August. Females have the option of joining the military. After a mandatory training period, a conscript then joins the reserves. Reserve duties, regular, and voluntary training continue until the age of 60.
The Finnish Defence Forces’ reserve comprises approximately 900,000 Finnish citizens. The wartime strength of the Finnish Defence Forces is 280,000 soldiers, and this strength is resupplied by other reservists as applicable.
Finland has a population of 5.5 million people. Having 900,000 well-trained reservists is impressive. At the present time, Finland spends about 1.5 percent of GDP on defense, NATO requires 2.0 percent. Finland is planning to increase their defense spending and increases were made after the Russian annexation of Crimea.
Finns are winter war experts, and the US and other NATO nations train in Finland. Finland has the strongest artillery forces in Western Europe, consisting of 700 howitzers, 700 heavy mortars, and 100 multiple rocket launchers.
At the present time, Finland has 55 F-18 Hornets that are also capable of landing on highways.
Rather than listing the entire inventory of the Finnish military, I was more impressed with the reserve commitment of Finland’s citizens to defend their country. The following video is a look at a pilot from Finland and his ability to fly an F-18 Hornet.
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Published in Military
They want to join NATO so they are guaranteed getting the kind of anti-tank weapons and training that Ukraine has gotten. In 1939 with minimal anti-armor capabilities they put a major hurt on the 1,000,000-strong Red Army.
That makes sense. I listened to one person, maybe Perun but it could have been someone else, who explained that Sweden is strong on military equipment but weak in personnel, while Finland is just the opposite. So if they get better armaments they would be better able to defend themselves, plus the way would be cleared to have allies in case Russia invaded. But I don’t think they expect it to cost them less money for their military.
I should also add that I don’t think Poland and the eastern EU countries would breathe a single word about how this low-key alliance of eastern EU might provide strength in unity against Germany and France. They were wary of saying anything like that before the war started, and certainly aren’t going to ruffle any feathers while the war is going on. But it might be a future card up their sleeve. I think it might be healthy for all concerned (except Putin).
We can sacrifice Maine, too. New York, not so much.
Okay, unfair. I mean, I get your point. But Finland is The West, and The West, at this point in human history, is us.
No one ever asked “us” to die for the Ukrainians. Six months into Russia’s war, no one’s pushing for boots on the ground. What “we” are doing is giving them the tools to defend themselves, which also provides a big global object lesson in the realities of Russian intentions and capabilities.
Which, I admit, will be awesome in a few years when they deploy their robot dogs that consist of homemade ninja suits over Chinese off-the-shelf Boston Robotics knock-offs.
Well if we do it it, we should leave immediately if the spending falls below 2%.
This video lays out some useful information on Finland and Sweden maybe joining NATO.
Are Finland and Sweden Military Ready For War with Russia?
I am fine with New York. Losing it would improve the country.
He left out sisu. Sisu is a Finnish farmer with a hunting rifle with iron sights taking out 500 or more invading Russians. Sisu is ski troops cutting an armored column in two places and annihilating everything in between – again and again and again. Sisu is taking full advantage of terrain that consists of forests and lakes and more forest and more lakes and very narrow roads. The tactics that the Ukrainians used to defend Kiev were invented by the Finns 85 years before to keep the Russians out of Helsinki.
Russia is a declining country and we’re seeing it. We can help with stuff we want to replace or test. China is the challenge. Russia will be a natural ally but is headed by a former Soviet. The issue is surviving Democrat leadership and China over the next 3 to 5 years. Putin will be gone by the time Russia is in a position to fix itself and starts worrying about China. We may be weak and unable to do much by then if we don’t wake up.
It is waste of resources like this that have made the Russian army less capable in Ukraine. They don’t have the economy or the military production to keep taking these kind of opportunity costs.
My suspicion is that the US would involve itself anyway if Russia made moves against Finland and Sweden, even without NATO membership, just like I suspect the US will be involved when China moves against Taiwan. Since we are likely to be involved either way I would much rather it be an explicit commitment. It makes it all above board. Implicit commitments are the ones that get the US in more trouble.
It is a fair point the Finns lost the winter war, although it was a pyrrhic victory for Russia. It was significant enough that Finland did not joining a second front with Germany against Russia in WW2, so strategically Russia did get what they wanted out of it.
I think that the invasion of Ukraine makes the idea of armed neutrality a thing of the past. Finland and Sweden as democracies are obviously going to gravitate to an alliance with other democracies and not with Russia or China. Whether or not they freeload is an open question at this point. I suspect they will not although they may be tempted to down the road. Currently the US looks increasingly weak on the world stage. The EU is going to have to take up more of the slack in its own defense going forward.
The Finns are increasing defense spending 70%, doesn’t sound like a free rider in the making. The are buying 64 F-35s etc….
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-05/finland-adds-2-2-billion-defense-spending-in-shadow-of-war
As far as strategic issues are concerned NATO nations have no desire to invade Russia. Russia is basically a third world nation with a first nation military. Unfortunately for Russian conscripts their first nation military has third world leadership. That doesn’t make Russia less dangerous to its closest neighbors, it makes it more dangerous.
As easy as it is for an invader to target civilians it is far more difficult to occupy and hold territory. Russia may receive financial aid from China but that comes with obligations. If Putin isn’t careful, he will become the new Castro. Putin’s Russia will become an irritant to Western Europe, but like Cuba that was dependent upon Russian financial help Putin will become dependent on Chinese largesse.
Unfortunately that will not happen until the US and EU give up their green fantasy and begin to exploit their own natural resources. Russia may not get rich as an extractive economy but extractive economies always have a bit of independence. They especially have independence when the rest of the world is bound and determine to increase their dependence on them instead of decreasing it.
What is it with Russians and cheap suits?
But there’s a robodog gap!!!
The introduction of high sartorial style by Mikhail and Raisa Gorbachev in designer clothes was short-lived. For a brief shining moment, no more wide-lapel heavy pinstripes from the Leonid Brezhnev collection at GUM; no more the dowdy, frumpy + babushka look of Nina Kruschev… but alas the right-wing axis of Reagan-Thatcher-John Paul II ended the chance of Lenin’s project culminating in high fashion consumerism and Russians were thrown back upon their unfortunate stylistic traditions…
The problem is that it does not need to be a green fantasy. Cheap Clean energy should be the goal. Why this false binary is being done is silly.
No dancy, doggie legs. Those will cost extra.
The USA and China have large enough economies and MICs to do this type of innovation. Russia doesn’t anymore. If they were more focused on what they really needed to conduct ground operations in their near abroad they would have a more capable military for what they are trying to accomplish. That isn’t to say they shouldn’t innovate just that they should be more selective. Since I don’t really want them to be more capable I am happy they are doing this, but it isn’t a good use of resources for them.
I’m not sure the innovation depends so much on a large economy. Production does, of course. Would you agree?
Remember the famous Wendy’s ad that the USSR protested:
I never saw or heard of that ad before. It doesn’t look very much like the fashion shows in Russian movies of the 60s (which were fairly modest affairs).
It doesn’t necessarily but any innovation involves an opportunity cost, Russia spends a lot of money on vanity and prestige projects for their military. Most of which doesn’t increase their ability to do what they want to do which is throw their weight around in their near abroad. I would not be as critical of this if their army had performed as virtually everybody, me included, assumed it would in Ukraine. Now I question whether or not they should be engaging in this type of speculative R&D. It seems like the would be better off investing in training, maintenance, and logistics, or maybe specific projects to address likely capability gaps.
Also Innovation in western market economies doesn’t necessary depend on a large economy, because it is a distributed affair. In a planned and controlled economy like China or Russia I am not sure that holds true. Russia has/ had a incredible amount of talented STEM folks. It historically hasn’t made very good use of them. US stealth technology was based on Russian research that wasn’t even classified at the time, so they have a history of missing opportunities.
That all sounds right.
As for the talented STEM folks in Russia, Yuri Dud* has come to the U.S. to make one or two documentaries about the Russian entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, and likes to ask, “Why couldn’t this be done back in Russia?” You would probably not be surprised at the reasons why not. (Some of Dud’s documentaries, including these, have English subtitles. Dud is not one of those creative people who left Russia after the Ukraine invasion, but now has had to register his organization as a foreign agent and put a splash screen to that effect on his videos. TV Rain had had to register as a foreign agent much earlier, but soon after the invasion was shut down entirely. It took several months, but it has restarted its news organization outside of Russia.)
(* Dud is not pronounced like the English word dud, but neither is it pronounced exactly like the English word dude.)
Possible correction. Wikipedia says he now operates out of Istanbul. I don’t know if that information is up-to-date.