 Good afternoon and welcome to the IAEA my name is Roshin Smith and I work on the future of the Europe project here with the IAEA and We are delighted to welcome you to this seminar on security cooperation in Northern Europe This seminar has been hosted by the IAEA together with the ambassadors of Finland Norway and Sweden and the Irish Defense Forces We would like to welcome ambassadors, defense attaches and guests, but most especially our distinguished panelists. I would like to welcome to my right Vice Admiral Mark Mellet, Chief of Staff of the Irish Defense Forces Nicholas Grandholm, Deputy Director of Studies at the Swedish Defense Research Agency Division for Research Analysis Professor Colonel John Andreas Olsen, the Norwegian Defense Attaché to Ireland and Professor Lieutenant Colonel Yuri Ratisalo, the Military Professor of War Studies at the Finnish National Defense Universities. We're all very very welcome today and we're delighted to have you here So just on a few procedural issues. This is a recording event So if you haven't done so already, would you mind turning off or putting your mobile phone to silent? But please feel free to tweet at IAEA The second session after the question and answer session will not be recorded and it's under a Chatham House rules as well and we also have The security Cooperation in Europe is displayed at the back of the room that were generously brought to us So please feel free to take a copy before leaving as well So to start well, we know that Ireland has significantly contributed to international peace and security Within the United Nations the European Union and NATO's partnership for peace But we're also seeing that geographical changes in the security situation in the northern region Has and is having considerable impact and implications for Ireland Finland Norway and Sweden and I suppose giving the particularly Unpredictable nature and unsettling atmosphere of recent global events It is quite apt and timely to be discussing these really serious issues and important pressing issues over time on corporation and security So I would with that I would like to invite our first speaker to give a presentation No longer than 10 minutes, so there'll be 40 minutes of speaking and then we'll have a chance for people to air their views In the end. Okay, so professor Colonel John Andreas Olson, please And you're okay Admiral Melons Ambassadors distinguished guests. I very much appreciate this opportunity to talk about our newest publication titled security in other Europe. I would like to use my 10 minutes to present the purpose of the book a model for the way future for the way ahead and some challenges that we foresee and the single most important message today Is that we small nations in Europe are stronger together This seminar focuses on direction north a region that has regained an urgency not seen for at least three decades The book defines northern Europe as the northern group countries a UK initiated constellation that includes the five Nordic countries the three Baltic states Poland Germany and the Netherlands What we have in common is That Russia has re-emerged as a dominant factor for our defense planning The revitalization of the bastion defense concept is something we must take seriously This slide illustrates the Russian strategy in the high north and the North Atlantic and as you can see on the map Russia needs sea control of its inner bastion to defend its nuclear submarines outside the Kula Peninsula Maneuver freely in the bar and sea and protect its bases on land and in terms of strategic depth It needs sea denial down to the Greenland Iceland UK gap Russia also has the ability to disrupt our sea lines of communication and project power further south to prevent transatlantic Reinforcement in a potential conflict and if there is a conflict in Europe. We need reinforcement from the United States Kremlin's military modernization program with emphasis on long-range precision weapons represent the major distress for all of Europe At the heart of the matter Russia is introducing new class of conventional and nuclear attacks of Marines Russia has developed an anti-axis capability that could hold Europe and North America at existential risk The question for today is how northern Europe should respond to the new security challenge individually and collectively The authors of the book suggest a dual-track approach in which the northern European countries Strengthen cooperation among themselves and reinforce the transatlantic bomb at the same time as they build a constructive relationship with Moscow a strong and stable European Northern Europe combines both national and regional efforts with a robust transatlantic Relationship and I cannot emphasize strongly enough how important it is to maintain and strengthen the transatlantic link Between the United States and Europe especially in times like these NATO was designed for US leadership and United States is the backbone for a Europe whole free and at peace So let me offer a model for the way forward We have to start with a fundamental question What kind of future relationship does northern Europe want to have with Russia? What is our end state objective regarding Russia? And I believe and the authors of the book believes that we should have a strategic partnership with a peaceful and prosperous Russia We do not want the Russian people to suffer We do not want a desperate Kremlin, but our partnership must be on positive terms Founded on the three basic values of the north of the native 3t from 1949 Which is democracy individual liberty and the rule of law This should be a long-term objective, which is then the basis for prudent strategy And there is no holy grail, but we offer a return To basics and a strategy based on NATO in 3d deterrence defense and dialogue It is the alliance's long-standing strategy But it must be renewed and recalibrated to match the current situation NATO must consider deterrence in the context of today's political military realities Covering the full spectrum of nuclear, conventional, cyber and hybrid dimensions Defense includes updated contingency plans and a command and control structure That is fit for purpose and an exercise and training regime That strengthens three key elements Namely interoperability, readiness and resilience Interoperability is not only about weapons and technology, the so-called plug-and-play It is also about to know each other's doctrines, cultures and mindsets Working together across borders, may I say the mental, the moral and the physical interoperability Resilience is about preparing the society at large What Norway and Sweden refer to as the total defense concept The cooperation between the defense forces and the civilian community And readiness can be summarized in terms of the four thirties To have 30 air squadrons, 30 warships and 30 mechanized battalions ready for action in 30 days Interoperability, resilience and readiness is the heart of deterrence and defense But this book also emphasizes that NATO members Must seek a constructive dialogue with Moscow through bilateral and multilateral engagements We must find a common ground for coexistence And dialogue starts with a series of confidence-building measures That emphasize two democratic principles, transparency and accountability It all starts by accepting international law And for small countries like Norway, international law is our first line of defense Then we can talk about the means And the means to empower NATO in 3D is burden sharing With emphasis on the three C's, cash, capabilities and contributions European allies must increase the defense spending to the NATO target of 2% Of the respected GDPs by 2024 And moreover, 20% of the defense budget must be invested in relevant high-end capabilities And while the European allies must again focus on deterrence and collective defense They must also contribute to fighting terrorism, handling migration and human trafficking Such efforts are part of NATO's larger burden sharing scheme What we all call the 360-degree approach So the combination of the three P's and the three D's and the three C's Constitutes a theater-wide security and defense framework for Northern Europe One that includes NATO's two key partners in the north, namely Sweden and Finland And should a crisis occur in Northern Europe There is every reason to believe that all Nordic countries will engage in close cooperation with NATO This ends ways means model is a positive take on the future Some may say optimistic, some will say hopeful I call it realistic, if there is a will, there is a way Let me conclude in 60 seconds by identifying five main challenges for Northern Europe First, we must find a way to make regional defense cooperation strategic rather than ad hoc There is a lot of cooperation among our countries, but we must make them count Second, we need to connect national strategies to NATO and US Continuity Plans With the emphasis on three key parameters that I mentioned earlier Interoperability, resilience and readiness And third, we must overcome the regional Article 5 gap represented by Sweden and Finland Cooperation with Sweden and Finland is great, but when all is said and done, they are not members of NATO Fourth, we need to strengthen the all important NATO-EU partnership We need to find ways for these two organizations, for these two institutions to work hand in hand to cooperate rather than compete And finally, we need to bridge Atlanticism with Continentalism These two outlooks on the world must be seen as mutually reinforcing given today's complex security environment Ladies and gentlemen, these are the challenges as I see them I offered a model for peace and prosperity, I believe it is the recipe for stronger together Thank you for your attention Thank you very much, John, and especially thank you very much for keeping to the time, I lost it to you, exactly 10 minutes This one is set up next So I get 20 minutes? Maybe 12 if you're looking Your Excellency is admirable, ladies and gentlemen Ladies and gentlemen, very much thank you for the possibility of addressing you all here On this very important topic about security cooperation, taking a perspective from Northern Europe In my presentation I have two parts, I'm first going to talk about the security environment Where we are doing this security cooperation And then in the other part of my presentation I will look at Finnish perspective On security and defence cooperation Me coming from the military, being a military professor I will take some kind of a defence focus in this security cooperation arrangement I can offer you a Finnish perspective, not the Finnish perspective So as an academic I will only give my own personal thoughts and analysis About what's going on in our security environment and how Finland is responding to that I'm not trying to recite the official policy of Finland, just trying to analyse it Okay, so let's go to the first part, the security environment I do think that it's really important for us to understand today the logic About security in Europe and even more broadly It's really important to understand what has happened during the post-Kolvo era Because I think that what happened in the late 80s and early 90s It has been a dramatic watershed in our thinking about what is security What is defence in today's world And based on our changing notions of security and defence Many states in Europe have redefined their take on security policy And defence policy and what kind of militaries they have But this is the notion that we have witnessed in security sphere Quite a lot of the confrontation that vanished in the late 80s and 90s Has been replaced by the notion that we live in this interdependent world Where all states are facing similar kinds of new security threats So we need to manage this globalising world together In a cooperative fashion, in a positive some way In order to tackle the new security problems of our age And I think this has been the kind of main focus during the last 30 years And it has been dealing with quite a lot of so-called new threats Mostly non-military in nature, at least in Europe So we have widened our perspective on security, international security To include things like terrorism, climate change, drugs The spread of drugs and so on and so on So our kind of security sphere has become quite broad during the last 30 years And I do think that Mikkel Rasmussen, Danish academic said it pretty nicely 10 years ago, what was our security environment in 2006 When he noted that measured by the standards of the 20th century Meaning the Cold War era, we are safer than we have ever been However, the standards by which we measure our security have changed So not only are we to talk about what has been going on in our external environment I think it's really important for us to understand also How have we redefined our take on security and defence during the last 30 years Because I think our notions of security and then the facts on the ground Are two separate things and we need to take both of these into account So for me, looking at Europe or the West, so to speak Our notions of defence have also changed with this changing notions of international security So what defence has been for almost 30 years after the Cold War ended It is mostly defence wise, something that military forces need to be used somewhere out there Out of area in order to tackle the new problems Whether it's terrorism, humanitarian crisis and so on and so on So many defence forces or military forces in Europe in the West have transformed They take and many politicians have transformed the notion of where do we defend ourselves We have broadened the scope and this has meant that we have had different kinds of military forces And we have constructed new kinds of military forces during the last 30 years in Europe If you look at when the Cold War ended, for example Germany had about 200 battalions A battalion is a military formation of approximately 1000 soldiers Today there are 30 and the same kind of logic has been going on in most European countries So there has been quite a lot of losing the mass in the field of defence And developing deployable small but efficient troops across Europe And if you look at a Gallup poll made in 2015 Would you fight for your country? We can see that in most European countries people are not that interested Or have not been that willing to put their own efforts in the sphere of defence Asked whether you would fight for your country, I think the average answer from Europe is something like 30-35% Yes, as you can see, if you can't see I will tell you, in Finland we have a little bit different take And we always had a different take and we can talk more about this in the discussion phase But I think it's 75-80% of the Finns say that I would fight for my country should the need arise But in general level in Europe the notion that people should be fighting for their country That defence is for preparing against external aggression I think that quite a lot of that perspective was vanishing in Europe up until very recently It was 2013 in November just when the Euro Maidan crisis was getting heated up When Carnegie Europe organized a high level panel there was the Danish four star general The chairman of the military committee and others discussing about the future of NATO And the key take away from that conference and this was 2013 was, as the summary says NATO and its allies need to define a new narrative to convince citizens that defence still matters And I think that this really shows the kind of new notions of defence and security That matured during the 25 years of the post-Kolvo era But of course after the Crimean annexation things have started to look quite a lot into different kinds of reality But I don't think that the strange relations between Russia and the West I think that it's not only about Crimea, it's more about different paradigms in how do we conceptualize security Here I have a quote from Vladimir Putin from 2012 and I think he nails it when he says that NATO members, especially the United States have developed a peculiar interpretation of security That is different from ours and I think that is what is going on We are using different frameworks for analyzing and understanding security in Russia and in many of the western countries Which means that when we are talking about international security we are seeing different things We have two perspectives and we can't communicate too well And I think if we look at today's security problems that this difficulty in having communication is really a big thing So I do think this is the kind of the background about our changing notions of security and defence And then a few words about, I have been talking about 15 minutes to go on the Finnish case So first of all I would like to note that about 30 years ago we in Finland started the process of moving away from neutrality And I think that was codified when we entered the European Union so that we are not, we are not aligned militarily But we are not neutral anymore So I think that the European Union framework is a really important security framework Although it is not a security arrangement as such But many of the policies that the European Union does actually help us build a more secure security environment for us Of course doing cooperation with NATO has been an important part But as a partner, not becoming a member, I will come back to this a little bit later on very briefly And then I think the really big third point has been that of diplomacy Having good relations, keeping up good relations with as many actors as possible I think that this is a normal thing to do for any state But if you look at security cooperation, I think that, and especially from a defence perspective We have several really good opportunities to develop better security outcomes in our region, in Northern Europe By doing bilateral cooperation with Sweden, with doing Nordic cooperation with Denmark and Norway As well within our DEFCO framework But if you look at this kind of institutionalisation of security cooperation agendas I think what we have witnessed during the last couple of years is the multiplication of several new instruments That are in a way expressions that Europeans are trying to figure out which formats, which tools would be best suitable Or would be best to further security interests We have the Nordic Baltic aid, we have the Norden Group, we have the Joint Expeditionary Force We have the Germany's Framework Nation concept So we have quite a lot of new attempts to make Europe more secure Of course all of those will not survive the next 10 years And I don't think that they even have to survive Because I think that we are now in a political process of trying to figure out within the West and in Europe That which instrument would be the best And those ones that will actually work, I think that they will be strengthened And some of those we might be losing in the next few years So then looking at security cooperation from the defence perspective I have a graph here that tells you that it looks like if we ask the Finnish population that we will not be joining NATO within the next few years Here is an opinion poll during the last 15 years where the blue bar means how many people say that we should be joining That is between 20 and 30% has been the same for the last 20 years at least And then there is the green bar which is something like 60-65% of the Finnish population that say that we shouldn't be joining I think that the kind of general message what people are thinking is that NATO is doing a good job We need to cooperate with NATO but at this stage it would not be helpful for joining So I would say that I agree we need to cooperate more but the official membership aspect might be long in the future if at all And I would say that if I have to look at from a Finnish perspective, I think that the trend is that we are interested in doing more defence and security cooperation within Europe Even on a broader agenda but I think that is based on the notion that we need to have a core defence capability as a foundation for being able to cooperate So I think that it is credible national capabilities that actually facilitate cooperation and that is the baseline So I would like to end with a picture of a porcupine, I think that our security cooperation is based on the notion that if needed we can be stingy enough Stingy enough, even the biggest bear doesn't want to eat a porcupine but then we are really interested in developing those tools with others in order to further security in Northern Europe Thank you very much and for your military precision on the timing as well, thank you Could I invite Vice Admiral Mark Melit, Chief of Staff of the Irish Defence Forces to speak to us on the Irish perspective then, thank you It's just a pleasure to be here today, I speak in a personal capacity with a slight I suppose interest in my academic background The main theme I want to suppose highlight today is the team of collaboration On the table here our countries are different but our values are very similar Our militaries are different but our purpose is similar We're all part of the bedrock that underpins our sovereignty and we're part of the institutions that provide for the framework of the civil society In our own countries where people are free, where the institutions of state function and where the vulnerable are protected But we all know that freedom is not free and sovereign rights that are not upheld are more imaginary than real So on a day-to-day basis the challenge our own defence forces faces to facilitate a safe and secure environment in Ireland And that's what our aircrews do in terms of patrolling our airspace, our soldiers do in terms of land space and our sailors in terms of maritime space Ireland is a jurisdiction that's almost three times the size of Germany, almost a million square kilometres Trinidads of euros have yet to be found hydrocarbon and mineral resources One of the richest food producing ecosystems and renewable energy environments on the planet 90% of the air travel between Europe and North America passes through airspace under Irish control And our policy framework in terms of our defence is set out in the 2015 white paper defence And that is built on military neutrality but not on isolationism In fact for decades our country has been a proponent of multilateralism in particular under the institutions of the United Nations And we're doing a good job, Ireland is in the top 5% of most secure countries in the world according to the Global Peace Index It's an attractor for foreign direct investment, it's the digital capital of Europe with huge multinational investments As well as biome, made and pharma tech centred here in Ireland But a safe and secure environment at home doesn't mean a safe and secure environment everywhere And for over 60 years Ireland has contributed to multinational operations under the edges of the United Nations We've operated in some of the most challenging security environments in the world Well almost 70,000 individual tours of duty And 87 members of our defence forces have made the ultimate sacrifice in the cause of peace Right now our main missions are in Lebanon, in Syria, in the Balkans and in Mali And over 650 troops in 14 missions in 14 countries We've intervened with lawless gangs, stood up to violent extremists We freed hostages and in recent years we've rescued almost 18,000 people in the Mediterranean We've seen hundreds of people drown and we've recovered scores of bodies And we're in a position now whereby while we're security producers There's a huge demand because of security consumers And I think when we look at it Europe was born out of the ashes of the Second World War And yet few people seem to remember that, not to mention the First World War I think the memories of the Balkan Wars are still raw in the memory of many Europeans And right now on our borders we have two wars A full-scale hybrid war in Ukraine where over 10,000 people have died And in Syria the remnants of the multiple proxy wars that have gone on for the past number of years With almost a half a million people dead and almost 11 million people displaced The remnants of ISIS that still stay in Iraq and Syria have moved on towards Libya And they're linking up across the Maghreb which the likes of Al Qaeda in the Maghreb And other terrorist groups across the Sahel, adding to instability in Northern Africa We have troops in Mali which is a very challenging security environment And drug cartels are shipping through Western Africa up into Europe Where often these shipments are intertwining with people and weapons trafficking And these challenges are also exacerbated by other major challenges such as the impact of climate change And population increase In fact Africa is cited as one of the continent's most impacted by climate change And when you look at the health and the wealth and the security of Europe And the lack of health and the lack of wealth and the lack of security in other places Migration will continue into the future And often this migration is leveraged by criminal networks Who are perverse in terms of the desperate situation that these people are in Narrow times are sometimes shaped by social media Which is polarizing political cohesion Given a rise to the right which is a challenge to the future Growing evidence of violent extremism There is also growing evidence of espionage And state sponsored cyber interfering with the institutions of democracy and civil society And of course we have to worry in the challenges of attacks on critical national infrastructure Which could have catastrophic outcomes We live at a time of unpredictability The likes of which we have never seen before And this is the fourth if not the fifth successive year Of the global deterioration in peace and security There is growing complexity which is leading to vulnerability with the institutions of civil society And many are hankering for the simplicity That seems to go with unilateralism Often driving populism Wanting to forego the burden of values and norms and principles Power is shifting if not inverting With the mix of tech, cloud, mobile data, internet of things Artificial intelligence often challenging the legitimacy of government and institutions And there are tensions between them for leadership and management In terms of traditional settled organization And the need for a new disruptive innovative approach So there is positive growth however in terms of robotics and data And for me I often say that three things are clear If we don't leverage the information and knowledge that's available to us We increase risk If our competitor or enemy leverages data and information available to them To become more formidable And the simple reality is that every moment of every day New technologies and new ways of doing things are being created Four hundred years ago John Dunn said No man is an island entirely to himself Everyone is a piece of the continent a part of the main If a cloud be washed away by the sea Europe is the less And this account from John Dunn is prophetic It means we're increasingly dependent Interdependent and in our own organization Our own defence force and our defence organization We're increasingly looking at four principles Filled around firstly on the issue of values Values are about the norms and principles that define human behaviour At the state level And I was talking with Jilly earlier on They're about the sustainable development goals And a framework for collaboration internationally At a national level They're also about adaptation of the women peace and security 1325 agenda And also for our own organization The mortar that joins the bricks of our various institutions The second principle is about collaboration Our white paper and defence makes a key point That increasingly the answers to our challenging problems Lie outside our organizational boundary So we need to actually network externally And collaborate together We need to move away from silos Silos undermining trust, efficiency and effectiveness And try and leverage diverse networks That bring us together And we need to actually look at moving from closed mindsets To open mindsets And in this regard we're moving ourselves With institutions such as PESCO And more recently the adaptation of the EU And NATO SOFAs The third principle is about diversity In our external environment Enhancing our external partnerships Is critical It's also about driving internally In terms of the way we work with regards to academia And other institutions such as entrepreneurs And business Internally a huge amount of our focus Has been on the whole development Of a diversity and inclusion strategy And key to that actually in our own defence forces Is a recognition that we need to move And increase the number of women in our defence forces Recognition that is there In terms of women peace and security And also one of the sustainable development goals The importance of women and children In the context of moving forward And the final principle is actually The need for greater autonomy in organisations We're in an information age Where by increasingly we need to have mission command Devolve decision making to the lowest possible level In our organisations In a world of breakneck speed Opportunities come to pass Not to pause But in increasing autonomy in terms of decision making We must also increase the tolerance for risk It's inevitable in complex organisations Mistakes will happen But mistakes should be seen For the learning opportunity that it gives I think it's best off in terms of Amazon said Success and failure are inseparable twins And we need greater descent In terms of people standing up Rather than echo chambers I think a study was done recently Where it said 85% of organisations Have numbers who would say Something needs to be done But they never put their hand up And they're all for that change Pulling this all together for us The key is leadership Leadership that is sustained Leadership that's about character And about competence It facilitates autonomy It facilitates the values and norms That will make things better It's also about ensuring that leadership At the right level And it was Mary Parker Follett said Leadership is not so much about the exercise Of power But about that capacity to create Leadership needs to create more leaders So we live in a time Where there's a rate of change As if we are at war And yet we are at peace We have black swarms in terms of Unknown unknowns Items that we can't predict By an extremism Hybrid extreme right Stay sponsored cyber Indeed we have black elephants Known unknowns That we don't know what to do with I often say recently We see each other Driving further uncertainty And chaos We see disparate phenomena Climate change Population increase Cyber and violent extremism We need to be prepared To think the unthinkable And think the unpalatable We need to collaborate Within the policy frameworks That we have Thank you Hopefully for the third time Admiral Distinguished colleagues Ladies and gentlemen Thank you for that kind introduction As well This will be an attempt at a brief Overview and by no means will cover All the whole range of factors Changing in the Nordic region And relations to NATO here And I hope we can bring up Much of the specifics in the Q&A session Later The perspective I bring is from Stockholm Which shouldn't be surprising to anyone The FOI I speak here today In a personal capacity So the views expressed here Are not necessarily in line with Those of the government of Sweden What I'd like to cover here Is three main themes To first a brief overview Of the different threat factors Facing the Nordics today And second some recent initiatives In Nordic Defence Corporation How they Are expanding Thirdly what concrete measures Could be undertaken to increase Defense capability in the Nordic region And the high north in addition To the ones already under development So first of all the geopolitical Climate has taken a turn For the worst in recent years There is also an ongoing Rapid and large scale Redistribution of resources For power and influence That changes the conditions And multilateral organizations In the international system Making the post 1945 And post 1990 solutions Look distinctly shaky The Nordic region And what used to be known as The high north including the north Atlantic is increasingly seen As one connected region In terms of security The realization Among the Nordics That Russia has developed A broader concept of operations Over so called gray zone operations To open conflict Means a trend towards Defensive stance to counter this threat Is clearly visible among the Nordics Concerns over the transatlantic Relations are rising among the Nordics What effect will the policies Of the current US administration Have on security in the Nordic region Simultaneously deployments And activities of the US Armed forces along with European allies in northern Europe Have increased in recent years So on one level increased military Enabled deployment and activities And on the top political level Expressed doubts about the Usefulness of US European cooperation on security This triggers distrust in Europe And unease among the Nordics Added to that all the challenges Of EU cooperation where Brexit The activities of so called Illiberal democracies In eastern and central Europe And populist protest and revolt Elsewhere in Europe For the complicate things for the Nordics As a part of this rather bleak outlook I'd also like to add the role of China And here the Nordics are not alone In being courted by her Commercial ventures backed up Indirectly or directly by The People's Liberation Army Or directly by the Chinese state Ames at gaining influence Or taking control of Telecommunications facilities Infrastructure Ground based space assets And sensitive high tech companies Political communication from The Chinese government has also At times taken on a high note The so called Belt and Road Initiative And its Nordic and Arctic components Is a case in point So for the Nordic nations These strategic factors Taken together add up to Something akin to a perfect storm And a continuous and different threat factors Thus have to be taken into account The strategic landscape Is changing rapidly And this will affect all the Nordics The Nordics however are similar In several ways But their perspective sometimes Differred due to geography And historical experience We're all liberal democracies With a high degree of participation In the democratic processes The respective national strategies For security Affairs All the Nordics are now In the process of transiting The defense emphasis In order to enhance territorial defense And away from a focus On the international crisis management operations This means more units More of intergovernmental cooperation Increased military expenditure Including more domains Such as cyber And the countering of influence operations So how have the Nordics Tried to face these challenges With security and safety Facing them today I'll look at this from two angles Nordic defense cooperation And defense spending While security has for a long time Been a feature of cooperation Between the Nordics In my opinion This will gradually take on a higher quality But some limits will remain Due to the different choices Made in security arrangements There are several vehicles In deepening and broadening the cooperation Is the intergovernmental Nordic defense cooperation Nordefko formed in 2009 This recently seems to have been re-energized In mid-November 2018 A new set of political guidelines Were adopted at the Nordic Defense Meeting in Oslo The key paragraph From the vision document Takes into account The different security affiliations And the objective on security In the document 16 operationalized targets For cooperation Or to be implemented by 2025 These range from movement And storage for military units And equipment Between and through the nations In support of national And multinational activities Operations and deployments Over to strategic dialogue And common situational awareness In peace, crisis And information operations Also form part of the areas of cooperation Besides much else It also includes strengthened dialogue With the Baltic states And enhanced armaments And coordination and cooperation It remains to be seen Whether this rather ambitious agenda For Nordefko will come to fruition This time around Previous initiatives of this sort Have founded on strategic myopia And ingrained habits So is it any different this time? On balance, I think so The realization that the strategic climate Has taken a serious turn for the worst And this probably will be For the foreseeable future Will drive the Nordics closer together In defense and security There are also additional Inter-Nordic defense and security Efforts ongoing In particular, the Swedish finish project Started a few years ago Where a joint naval task group Is under development As well as aiming for A partial integration Of the Swedish and Finnish air forces To this one, one can add The Swedish-Finnish-Norwegian Air Force Cooperation in the north The cross-border training arrangement These projects are aimed At enabling operational cooperation In peace, crisis, and in conflict The Swedish finish cooperation Has also been supplemented By a trilateral arrangement Somewhat paradoxically As great strides are taken In the Swedish-Finnish cooperation Swedish-Norwegian cooperation Has until recently Been beset with problems Several attempts at joint Development and acquisition Of artillery system Joint purchase of trucks And selling of Swedish submarines And fighter planes to Norway Have failed and caused friction A new start was clearly needed And this is now well underway Part of the reason for this Renewed effort is that strategically Norway and Sweden can be seen As a pair of Siamese twins The problem is that We are joined back to back And that makes communication Sometimes rather difficult But nevertheless, strategic Cooperation is needed Relations between NATO And the Nordics Members and partners Are also influenced by The worsening security situation And patterns And content As well as an increase In day-to-day operational Cross-border cooperation The enhanced opportunities Partnership, the EOP for short Opens up for standardization Exercises and research cooperation Within NATO structures For the six EOP partners Sweden and Finland among them And this is done in order To further improve defense Back to turn for a few minutes Here to defense spending among The Nordics here The discussion on this topic Is in my view often somewhat superficial Only too often does it not get Past a simple comparative discussion On defense spending as a percentage Of GDP At the FOI we have for many years Had a defense economics analysis Program, study program Where all countries were analyzed And one conclusion Looking at the data For the Nordics Is on this somewhat cluttered slide Is that all the Nordics Seem to have realized That the days of ever-lower Defense spending Is in the past Increases in military expenditure Can be clearly seen in all countries But these are called by National processes And decision-making cultures But is the change going quickly Enough to catch up With the Nordic region In capability and conflict In open conflict, I think not So what more concrete things Could be done to achieve A higher operational effect With existing resources for defense My point of departure here Is that I see the Nordic Baltic region With its surrounding seas As a cohesive, strategic region In terms of defense and security First, the existing Cooperation between And Finnish air forces The cross-border training arrangement I mentioned earlier Could be scaled up to form A fully-fledged Nordic strike force Its focus should not be limited To the north With the mandate for operations All over the Nordic Baltic region It would form a respectable strike Component that any aggressor Would have to take into account And help fill a gap In current capabilities The arrangement should be open With the possibility of space technology There is now a fast-paced development Meaning that lead times For development and launch Are significantly shorter And costs are one or two magnitudes lower The situational awareness Needs to improve in the Nordic region A joint Nordic satellite system Could be a help in this respect Third, analytical work On security and defense For the Nordic Baltic region Should be enhanced And ready on the way But a number of issues Would benefit from better common understanding Based on proper analysis Of the wider regional strategic picture Thereby contributing To better decision-making And minimizing wishful thinking Lastly, the Russian attempts Mentioned earlier At developing a bastion in the north Means that air and naval power projections South into the North Atlantic Will be possible In the sense that transatlantic sea lines Of communication and underwater communications Could develop into a serious threat In the Nordic Baltic region An intensified Nordic naval and maritime Operational cooperation And development for the North Sea Skogarak and Kataget In order to protect the sea lines Into the Baltic Sea comes to mind So, to summarize Several threat factors Are simultaneously facing The Nordics Forming something of a perfect storm Current solutions to security May not work that well in the future The trend is clearly towards increased scope Quantity and quality In Nordic defense cooperation A lot has been done In particular since 2014 And more things are in the works But the pace of change Is currently not fast enough The relative gap in capabilities The other powers in the region So it's a higher gear in defense efforts Among the Nordics around the corner What speaks in favor of this Is the realization that the threats Are bigger, more varying than expected And more long term Several initiatives in the past few years Show that the Nordics in different ways Have realized this and are adjusting The defense and security policies What speaks against this trend Is the reluctance to spend more On defense and budgetary competition With other important sectors And yes, I think it seems likely So to end up here The Nordics are in various degrees Consensus-oriented societies And this means that it takes a lot To change the established defense Concepts and spending levels Where in some ways behind the curve But the frames of reference Are now being adjusted I just hope that it's all fast enough So thank you very much