"Because it is serious now," Niklas Granholm, Swedish Defence Research Agency Leader
The United States military has received unfettered access to fifteen Finnish bases along the 830-mile-long border it shares with Russia.
The deal was signed on December 18, 2023, between U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Finnish Defense Minister Antti Hakkanen signed a defense cooperation agreement in Washington D.C. on Dec. 18, 2023. The agreement between the two nations enables the US military to carry out combat operations if necessary.
Ramping up defense capabilities in Sweden and Norway are underway, according to Blinken, as reported by Stars and Stripes. The number of bases opened to the United States in Scandinavia now numbers thirty-six.
The bases in northern Finland near the heavily militarized Russian Kola Peninsula include Ivalo, Rovajärvi, Rovaniemi, Tervola, and Veitsiluoto.
The pact allows U.S. forces to have exclusive access to defense materiel pre-positioned in various locations, with “unimpeded access” to those storage facilities.
Also, military aircraft, vehicles and ships will have access to various airport and seaports, the deal says.
Among the sites U.S. forces will be granted access to is a border guard base in Ivalo, a northern area near Russia’s fortified Kola Peninsula.
In line with other U.S. agreements, NATO treaty rules that exempt military pay from local taxation also apply for troops on missions in Finland. However, the deal does not call for any permanent U.S. bases to be established in the country.
“We now have a network of defense cooperation agreements that stretches from northern to southern Europe, from the Norwegian Sea to the Black Sea, providing security and stability for people all across the Continent,’ Blinken said.
Finland joined NATO this year, and after signing the agreement with the US, Russia summoned the Finnish Ambassador to Moscow.
Tensions with Russia have increased after Finland closed its last border crossing due to an influx of migrants that they claim is meant to destabilize their country. The signing of the agreement with the US has made Russia even more unpleasant.
Moscow is highly displeased with Finland’s deeper military cooperation with the United States and Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova in a statement openly warns the neighbouring country.
According to the spokeswoman, who is known for her undiplomatic and aggressive statements, Ambassador Helanterä was told that the new agreement with the Americans “will not come without a response.”
“The stronger military potential of NATO on our border threatens the security of the Russian Federation and will be followed by a response from the Russian side,” she underlined.
“Necessary measures to counter the aggressive actions of Finland and its NATO allies will be taken,” she underlined and added that “the responsibility for the transformation of an area of good-neighborly relations to a region of possible confrontation fully lies on Finnish authorities.”
It is important to note that Putin's military infrastructure has not been dented in any way in the Arctic (except for men that Putin has fed to the Ukrainian meatgrinder) as it has with the years-long war with Ukraine.
American nuclear weapons are still under negotiation with Finland.
Finland, which fended off a Soviet invasion in the 1939-40 Winter War, for decades steered clear of formally entering NATO for fear of antagonizing its giant neighbor but changed course following Russia's assault on Ukraine, which had tried unsuccessfully to enter the alliance.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in an interview with state television released Sunday, charged that the West had "dragged" Finland into NATO, saying Russia had long ago settled 20th-century disputes with Helsinki.
Putin announced the creation of a new district within Russia's military near Finland, with which Russia shares a 1,340-kilometer (830-mile) border.
Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen, speaking in Washington after the agreement signing, renewed accusations that Russia is trying to "weaponize migration" by sending people from developing countries through the border to the EU member.
Like the fact that Russia's nuclear forces and maritime military power are essentially unchanged and not weakened in the North. The same applies to the airborne forces.
Increased military capacity and military exercises of increasing frequency and size in the High North increase the risk of an unintentional military confrontation in the North.
Lacking dialogue and communication between the East and the West increases the risk of accidents or misunderstandings.
In the US, Donald Trump is climbing the polls and has a real chance of being elected president. This increases the risk of many things, including that the bases in Norway, Sweden, and Finland will never be used by the US.
The agreements between the US and the three Nordic countries also contain a built-in contradiction. While Norway, Sweden, and Finland base their security policy on stability and predictability, the American doctrine is based on military unpredictability as an essential part of the military strategy.
In 2021, the US Army wrote about two US soldiers training in Finland; few American soldiers have ever been trained in the Arctic Circle during winter.
ROVANIEMI, Finland – Subarctic temperatures didn’t stop a multinational training exercise from going forward during a Winter Combat Course near Rovaniemi, Finland, located just four miles south of the Arctic Circle, during the freezing month of January, the coldest month of the year in the region.
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“I’ve never done winter warfare training before, it was just a world of difference,” said U.S. Army Capt. Samuel Pankonen, the chief nursing officer at Kaiserslautern Army Health Clinic. “The focus of the training is to make sure we have action competence.
According to Pankonen, the course immersed participants in the arctic climate with minimal equipment to test survivability, lethality and collaboration.
“(The Finnish Army) wanted us to be able to operate in the environment that we were being exposed to,” said Pankonen, a native of Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin. “With the extreme cold and having (simulated) enemies trying to kill you, we had to operate at that most basic unit function and carry on the mission.”