Sweden and Finland have launched a military and defense cooperative agreement. The Swedish and Finnish governments have clearly stated that the cooperation between the two countries shall continue to deepen. It indicates that it will span the entire spectrum: peace, crisis and war. However, until now the answers from politicians regarding how such a cooperation in wartime would look have been broad.
In the briefing “Swedish-Finnish Military Cooperation: What do we mean?” Charly Salonius-Pasternak and Karlis Neretnieks discuss the ambiguities of Swedish-Finnish military agreement as well as the problems that can arise.
– There is a lot of discussion of Swedish-Finnish military cooperation but central questions about war and peace have been left out of the debatt. In this report we problematize some of the cooperation’s important foundations, said Charly Salonius-Pasternak.
– The lack of concreteness in many important aspects of this cooperation are problematic. The question that must be asked is if Swedish-Finnish cooperation in war can perhaps create more problems than it solves, said Karlis Neretnieks.
Charly Salonius-Pasternak is a Senior Research Fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs program for global security, concentration on Nordic, transatlantic and American security policy. He has served in the Finnish defense force’s planning division (J5) and is an active debater on security policy and a reserve officer.
Karlis Neretnieks is a general major (PA) and currently implements analyses on security around the Baltic. He has previously been the rector of the National Defense University, leader of operations for the former Middle Military Area and brigade chief. Neretnieks is a member of the Royal Academy of War Sciences.