Speeches
Minister of Defence Antti Häkkänen's speech at the Helsinki Security Forum 29.9.2023
Distinguished ministerial colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,
The global security situation has changed.
Tensions are increasing and uncertainty is growing.
Russia’s unjustified invasion of Ukraine – and its possible escalation obviously concerns us the most.
Unfortunately, there are also many other factors that make the world a more and more dangerous place.
China’s challenge to the US creates tensions that have global effects.
Decreasing democracy in Africa both increases mass immigration and destabilizes the region.
Islamic terrorism is not dead by any means.
Middle East continues to boil.
There is no quick and easy solutions to any of these challenges.
We are on the brink of a new era.
The post-Cold War age has come to an end.
A great reshuffle of security architecture is ongoing.
Nations, blocks and cultures prepare to choose their sides in this new world.
Military spending is growing worldwide.
The world is changing so fast that even the most advanced nations have difficulties to keep up.
Russia’s decline to autocracy did not come out of the blue.
However, it is staggering how swiftly Russia degraded to lawlessness, launched brutal military operations and disregarded the rule-based world order.
The post-cold war era of peace and cooperative security fooled the western world – especially Europe – to a false sense of security.
Only after one and a half years of war in Ukraine Europe is slowly starting to wake up and take action.
The deprioritizing of defence capabilities in Europe has led to diminished militaries and insufficient defence industrial base.
The American criticism of Europeans not investing in their defence has merit.
Europe must up its game and take defence seriously.
Finland is also opening a new page in its history.
The decision to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization completely changed our security policy’s fundamentals.
The deterrence provided by Nato is the key.
Our defence has relied on deterrence even before the invasion of Ukraine.
After the Second World War Finland was in a very challenging position.
The whole country had one focus: stopping the Soviet offensive –
and fortunately we prevailed.
However, after the war the Soviet pressure was strong, and no cooperative defence arrangements could be made with the the western nations.
Finland was alone.
Therefore, it was decided, that our future defence would be based upon neutrality, backed by independent national defence.
The Defence Forces would be developed to an extent that they would not pose a threat to the Soviet Union – but still would be strong enough to deter the soviets from invading Finland.
Luckily, our ability to defend was never tested.
The deterrence worked.
Today’s Russia is different from the Soviet Union.
Whereas both have always used military power to assert their dominance – Russia has also developed into an unpredictable and aggressive entity.
Our doctrine of independent defence and friendly neighborly relations could not be relied on anymore.
Our membership in Nato arised from this revelation.
As a Nato-member, we will continue to maintain and invest in our own defence.
The difference now is that if Russia goes – in poker terms – all in against us,
we have the world’s strongest military alliance to cover our back.
Let me assure you, there is a world of difference between being a partner and being a member.
Article five of the Nato charter is the key.
As a partner, we have taken part in numerous Nato activities throughout the years.
Finland has participated in Nato crisis management operations, taken part in different programs and contributed personnel to Nato structures.
We have gained invaluable knowledge and information about the alliance.
However – most of partners’ activities in Nato are limited to interoperability development and crisis management.
Operational planning and article five issues are off the table for partners.
Even though our decades long cooperation with Nato has resulted in an excellent level of interoperability, this is new to us.
Because of our history of independent defence – we have an extremely detailed and comprehensive set of national defence plans.
Our immediate and urgent need is to streamline, coordinate and adapt our plans to Nato’s Regional Plans.
We will not fix anything that is not broken.
The level of detail of our family of national plans regularly exceeds that of Nato’s.
Another thing that is new for us as a member is Nato’s political aspect.
Partner status focuses on purely military and technical issues, limiting the political participation to a minimum.
Nato’s interests cover a wide range of societal and political areas.
This requires interest and effort from other governmental actors – not just from the defence administration.
Thanks to our concept of total defence – we are quite well experienced in this.
The security policy issues, resilience and legislative questions need attention and participation from their respective ministries and agencies.
Since Nato is fundamentally a defence alliance it is paramount that the ministry of Defence has a clear overall picture and understanding what different ministries and agencies are doing with regard of the alliance.
In the end of the day – it all serves the purpose of military defence – both the alliance’s and ours.
Ladies and gentlemen,
A big question is: how will Finland position itself in the alliance?
Let us look at Nato’s three main tasks.
Of course, our focus is in the collective defence.
We will do our best to contribute and participate in all efforts concerning collective defence.
We have noticed with pleasure, that Nato has returned to its’ roots. That is the military defence of the Euro-Atlantic sphere.
For us this could mean increased participation in exercises or operations, such as Air Policing, Maritime presence outside of our own waters etc.
One of Nato’s core functions is nuclear planning.
This is naturally completely new to us.
We plan to participate fully in Nuclear Planning Group´s activities – increasing our knowledge and understanding in the same time.
In crisis management we have a long tradition operating in Nato’s framework.
We do not see any significant changes in this – however, troop numbers and geographical areas may vary – depending on the current situation.
Collective security can be understood in many ways.
In its widest form collective security can be interpreted as Nato’s and its members joint and coordinated actions to first, work in order to avoid crises to escalate to full scale war and secondly, in case of war coordinate and mutually repel armed incursions against allies.
Collective security can also be understood as coordinated political and diplomatic efforts – combined with distinct military aspects in order to maintain peace and stability.
These could include arms control, support of internal security in potential crisis areas and possible coercive measures to prevent the outbreak of hostilities.
It is natural for us to support and fully contribute to these goals.
Ladies and gentlemen,
In the Vilnius summit, it was agreed that Nato will continue to strengthen Defence and Deterrence assets and activities.
It was also agreed, that members will strive to meet Nato’s minimum defence spending level after decades of underinvestment.
Finally, allies agreed to continue Ukraine’s support and increase it – in all possible fields.
As an individual member state, we are able to meet all these goals.
We are strongly investing in defence – in spite of the difficult economic situation of our country.
We fulfil the spending level requirement and this government is committed to meet the level also going forward.
There are various large-scale modernization programs ongoing in our Defence Forces.
A new class of corvettes is built for the navy.
In the air defence side, we will replace our fleet of F-18 fighters with state of the art F-35s in coming years.
When these programs are coming to their end, we strive to focus our spending on land-forces major renovation program.
We continue to support Ukraine. The net worth of our aid so far exceeds 1.3 billion euros.
Altogether 18 aid packages has been sent and the 19th package is being prepared.
Due to our relative large reserve, we have been able to donate vast amounts of expendable, bulk material – such as ammunition, that some other allies are maybe lacking.
Although this does not mean that, our aid is limited to only bulk material.
We understand that joining the alliance is not financial freeride.
It will imply significant costs.
The renewed focus on collective defence means increased financial burden for all allies.
This may mean difficult decisions when forming the national budget.
Even so, I am confident that we will meet our goals and invest in national defence as well as in Nato.
Ladies and gentlemen,
We have a unique defence system here in Finland.
We draw our strength in defence from the whole-of-government approach to all defence matters.
Our citizens' willingness to defend our country is the highest in whole Europe.
Our defence forces are relatively cost effective with conscription and a large reserve element.
What we need to build and develop is the new mindset.
Our defence from now on, is defence of the whole alliance. Not just our own land.
We recognize our responsibilities in the alliance and understand what is expected from us.
We are also aware of our strengths and capabilities and look forward to work together with our new allies.
Finland will be a militarily capable, prominent member in Nato.
Thank you for your attention.