The United States remains an unwavering military partner to its fellow NATO member Finland, according to Helsinki’s leadership.
“We are very pleased that the U.S. is prepared to deepen their cooperation with us,” Finnish defense chief Antti Hakkanen told Reuters in September 2025 while aboard the U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Bainbridge. The warship docked in Helsinki ahead of the NATO exercise Neptune Strike in the Baltic Sea. Military cooperation between the U.S. and its Allies are part of a long-standing effort of interoperability that includes events such as Steadfast Noon, NATO’s annual October exercise that rehearses nuclear deterrence.
Finland’s location in Northern Europe — it shares a 1,300-kilometer-long border with Russia — imbues it with strategic importance for both NATO and Arctic security.
Helsinki and Washington have a bilateral Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA) that gives the U.S. military unimpeded access to 15 facilities and areas in Finland, according to Reuters.
The U.S. Department of War has “foreshadowed a potential drawdown” of forces in Europe to align with its forthcoming National Defense Strategy, according to a September 2025 report from news website Defense One. Finland’s president, Alexander Stubb, told news website Politico that it’s in the U.S. interest to keep forces in Europe. “I think there’ll be a bit of a [U.S. priority] shift to the Indo-Pacific and that’s understandable,” Stubb said. “When it comes to the number of troops [in Europe] there will probably be some discussion on that, but at this stage I’m not too worried.”
As of March 2025, the U.S. had 65,471 active-duty personnel permanently stationed in Europe, according to a report prepared for the NATO Allied Command Transformation.
Finland joined NATO in the wake of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and Moscow’s recent actions — such as repeated incursions of Alliance airspace — have only increased security concerns in Oslo and other European capitals.
The USS Bainbridge’s commanding officer, U.S. Navy Cmdr. Raymond Miller, said the U.S. military presence in the region hasn’t changed. “I have not seen … any indication of our ability to operate with NATO anywhere on the [eastern] flank had been slowed down at all,” he told Reuters.
Hakkanen, the Finnish defense minister, said the U.S. is not wavering from its security cooperation with his country.
“For our part, bilaterally, matters are advancing very strongly and deeply across all areas of defense cooperation: materiel, training, operational planning, the implementation of the DCA agreement,” he told Reuters.
Finnish Maj. Gen. Sami Nurmi, the deputy chief of staff for strategy in the Finnish Defence Forces (FDF), pointed to continuing U.S. military participation in Finland — for training and in NATO exercises — as a sign of a healthy relationship, according to an August 2025 FDF news release.
“The presence of the United States is not a one-time exception, but a part of our nations’ continuing and deepening partnership and alliance,” Nurmi said. “It is a demonstration of commitment to collective defense and the security of Finland and the Baltic Sea region.”