Antti Häkkänen, Finland’s defense minister, delivered this speech at the Allied Foresight Conference in June 2024 in Helsinki. It has been edited to fit Sentry’s format.
Let me begin by wishing you all a warm welcome to Helsinki. It is my sincere pleasure to give welcoming remarks for the Allied Foresight Conference. Before I touch upon the actual theme of the conference, let me say a couple of words about Finnish priorities and expectations of our membership.
I’m sure many of you here are interested in how a new NATO nation sees its membership. First of all, Finland joined NATO because the security environment around us changed dramatically.
Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, followed by its ruthless actions, showed us that good, neighborly relations and independent defense no longer guaranteed our security. Our previous doctrine was to maintain such a defense capability that it would be too costly to launch a military operation against us.
Unfortunately, the Ukraine war has proven that Russia is ready and willing to continue its aggression in spite of horrible casualties. Thus, instead of trying to raise the threshold of aggression by inflicting casualties, our new policy is to emphasize the deterrence and defense of the whole Alliance.
The deterrence and collective defense [are] the single most important aspect[s] of our membership in the Alliance. We intend to contribute to this fully, and we take our responsibilities very seriously.
Finland is currently upgrading both our Air Force and Navy with substantial new capabilities. After this comes the biggest task — upgrading our land forces. This is no small undertaking. In comparison to our population size — we have quite a large land force component in our wartime Army. The theme of this conference — Foresight — serves us, as well as the whole Alliance, by giving direction for our future development. By steady and continuous development of our own forces, we hope to assure our Allies that we intend to be a security provider, not a security consumer.
This brings me to the next priority of our membership: The unity of the Alliance. In order to have a credible deterrence and defense, the Alliance must be united. It is fully understandable that with such a large number of diverse nations in one Alliance, there are always differences of opinion and courses of action. Each nation has its own priorities and the right to promote them.
However, these differences need to be settled within the family. We must stand united in our commitments. Hostile entities are sure to exploit all possible cracks in the unity.
I must say that NATO’s unity concerning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been tremendous. It must have come as a surprise to Russia that NATO has been steadfast and unwavering in both condemning Russia’s actions and supporting Ukraine. Not every Ally shares the concerns as we do, but not one has doubted Ukraine’s cause and NATO’s efforts to support it.
Finally, before my thoughts on the topic of this conference, I want to update you on Finland’s support to Ukraine. We, as most other Allies, have been supporting Ukraine from the outset of the war.
Due to our large reserve Army, we have had quite large stocks of hardware and munitions. Therefore, even though our value of the support is average, we have been able to provide Ukraine with exactly the materiel they have been in critical need [of] — artillery pieces and munitions, mines and so forth.
We do not publicly disclose the number or detailed types of our support, but I can assure you that it has had the desired effect in the battlefield. Having supplied Ukraine directly from our stocks, we are slowly approaching the minimum stock levels.
We are still able to source materiel directly from defense forces’ warehouses, but we must take in consideration that Finland is a front-line nation. We cannot afford to deplete our stocks to a level where our defense capabilities would be at risk. That would mean that the Alliance’s northern flank would be at risk too.
Therefore, we are shifting our support to include more industrial participation and direct support from defense companies. This will both provide Ukraine with top-of-the-line materiel but also increase and grow our domestic defense materiel production capability. This, in the long term, enhances our security of supply and offers new sources also to other Allies.
We started to ramp up our defense industry … in 2022, but now, with our recent investments, we can both support Ukraine and at the same time replenish our own stocks. In spite of the shift in nature, our support for Ukraine remains ironclad.
Now, very shortly, about the actual theme of this conference. I’m using our membership in NATO as an example. In the Foresight literature, wild cards are high-impact events that are considered highly unlikely but possible. This is an apt description of our NATO membership. Why so? First, public opinion was firmly against membership in all opinion polls from [the] mid-1990s to 2021. The support for membership was steadily between 20-30%.
Secondly, before the events of 2022, there was no genuine political debate on whether we should join — even though every government white paper since 2004 had included a statement that Finland retains the option of joining a military Alliance and applying for NATO membership. Moreover, many experts working within the defense sector were wondering in the spring of 2022 whether it would be a suitable time for NATO to have enlargement on the agenda.
There was war in Europe, and the Alliance focus was on strengthening the Eastern flank and supporting Ukraine. Luckily, the Alliance was willing and able to welcome new members. From the foresight and planning perspective, the initial lesson learned for us is that the planning tools and mechanisms need to be flexible enough to incorporate political changes.
In our case, flexibility was incorporated in our strategy. Examples include:
- Interoperability has been the key guiding principle for our defense since [the] late 1990s.
- All government white papers have instructed the defense forces to develop the defense system in such a way that there should be no practical obstacles to military alignment (should the political will change).
Antti Häkkänen has served as Finland’s 59th defense minister since June 2023. Access the full speech as delivered at https://www.defmin.fi/en/topical/speeches/minister_of_defence_antti_hakkanen_s_welcoming_remarks_at_the_allied_foresight_conference_on_11_june_2024.14388.news#f0c35c22.