Fredrik Schiller is a former Swedish Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina and to Eritrea. He is an economist and advisor primarily on wider European affairs, the Horn of Africa and international organisations. He has served at the United Nations, in the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). He is a conflict specialist with solid experience of operational crisis management and recovery and is strongly committed to innovative solutions to geostrategic challenges and to smart and sustainable entrepreneurship.
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Following Russia’s attack on Ukraine in February 2022 Finland's then President, Sauli Niinistö, and young social democratic Prime Minister, Sanna Marin, took the lead on getting Finland and Sweden into NATO. Ms Marin held several meetings with her then Swedish colleague, Magdalena Andersson, a like-minded social democrat. In a remarkably short time Ms Andersson managed to sway her party away from its solid belief in neutrality, to face up to the implications of the war in Ukraine. This led to the joint NATO applications in May 2022, Finland joining NATO in April 2023 and Sweden – delayed by Hungary and Türkiye – in March 2024.
Unlike Finland, Sweden came out of WWII unscathed and with its then substantial armed forces intact. During the Cold War its large air force collected aerial intelligence by flying over Soviet targets at high speed and low level and, like Sweden’s signals intelligence agency (FRA), it secretly shared valuable intelligence with NATO allies and with Finland for decades. Confidentially at ministerial level the Nordics also kept each other abreast of security and defence matters, and secret military planning was routinely undertaken to prepare for a possible Soviet attack on Finland or Norway.
Since 2017 Finland and Sweden have taken active part in the UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), established in 2014 with a primary goal of protecting northern Europe. JEF came to include all Nordic and Baltic states. Its military exercises are intended to signal deterrence of "malign activity" and to "reassure friends”. Joining JEF has helped Sweden and Finland to adjust to being part of a like-minded defence group of states.
Although Sweden has no border with Russia and Norway only a 196-kilometre land border and even shorter sea border (with the strategic Murmansk region), that area is highly sensitive and is defended by a mechanised brigade and border rangers. Finland, on the other hand, has a 1,343 kilometre long border with Russia, mostly in its sparsely populated north-east. This is now the longest external border that not just Finland shares with Russia, but also NATO as a whole. As it mostly runs through taiga forests with many lakes and without any natural landmarks, it is a rather formidable border for just 5.5 million Finns to defend. However, NATO membership means that this has become a joint task, including for the Swedish military which would see north-eastern Finland as its primary deployment zone in the event of a Russian attack.
Given a history of Tsarist occupation and two wars against the Soviet Union, Finns never sat back, relaxed, as Swedes of all political parties did, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Instead, Helsinki bought all East Germany’s artillery and upgraded it; today Finland has the largest artillery capability in Western Europe: 700 howitzers, 700 heavy mortars and rocket artillery. Finland’s core defence forces, professionals, consist of some 24,000 men and women. As in Sweden they are complemented by a national conscription system: all able men between 18 and 29 are liable. Within days Finland can mobilise 280,000 wartime personnel, backed up by 870,000 regularly trained reservists. Finnish society, including its business sector, is very broadly engaged in national defence. It has probably the world’s strongest civil defence system, including numerous well-kept nuclear shelters. Finnish defence plans do not give priority to stopping attacks at its long eastern border, but at using its landscape of lakes and dense forests to wear out an attacker.
Finland's air force is soon to be strengthened by 64 Lockheed Martin F-35 Lighting II fighter jets. These will replace an aging fleet of F/A-18 Hornets. All four Nordic air forces are now training together and refining their interoperability. They routinely challenge aggressive Russian flights over the Baltic Sea. Finland’s relatively small surface navy is being modernised and takes an active part in NATO maritime exercises.
Sweden has begun to strengthen its defence capability. Based on a unanimous all-party defence commission report, the Government was able (on 15 October 2024) to present a truly expansive defence bill for 2025-2030, focussed primarily on the army. There is to be a new and sharper war-time organisation and a modernisation of a civil defence that is in need of a total overhaul. The bill is expected to be adopted in its entirety before the end of this year. It will entail the greatest strengthening of Sweden’s defence since the Cold War.
The bill envisages that by NATO accounting principles Sweden’s military expenditure will reach 2.6 % of GNP in 2028. Motivating such a substantial increase is an assessment that an attack on Sweden or on its allies cannot be excluded and that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has resulted in a worsening of European security, including the security of Sweden and its near abroad.
The size of the Swedish military is to increase from today’s 88,000 soldiers to 130,000 by 2035. From no fully staffed army brigades at present four are to be formed, of which three mechanised, and to be operational by 2030. Several modern military capabilities are to be created including new anti-aircraft systems and sufficient ammunition - one of several lessons learned from the war in Ukraine. Half of the air force of 96 JAS 39 Gripen aircraft are to be of the next generation E/F and three new SAAB Global Eye early warning and control aircrafts have been ordered to replace those donated to Ukraine. Two new submarines, and several surface ships are to be procured to enable more maritime patrols. The strategic island of Gotland has again begun to be militarised; it has already seen repeated NATO exercises, including by the US Marine Corps.
Sweden awaits late 2025 for detailed NATO military taskings but will send in the new year a reduced mechanised battalion to NATO’s Multinational Brigade in Latvia. At Finnish request it is also taking the lead on NATO’s planned Forward Land Forces (FLF) in north-eastern Finland, a key future deployment area for the Swedish army. On a joint visit to the area in October the two Chiefs of Defence agreed that they had two to three years to strengthen Finland’s defences to withstand a future Russian attack, since most of the Russian army has been transferred to Ukraine and depleted there. General Janne Jaakkola calmly announced that his troops could very quickly and in sufficient numbers be mobilised to defend Finland's south-east. His Swedish colleague, General Michael Claesson, also assured media that his standby forces could strengthen north-eastern Finland “within days”.
The Defence Cooperation Agreement (DCA) signed by Washington and Helsinki in 2023 gives American forces access to 15 installations – five in Finland’s high north close to the Russian border – and permission to store equipment and weapons there. Sweden also has a DCA arrangement with the US to ease US deployment if needed. However, there is now an elephant in the room: in a crisis will future Commander-in-Chief Donald Trump be ready and willing to order the US Marine Corps and other combat units across the Atlantic, Norway and Sweden to defend Finland against a Russian attack?
