Finland and national preparedness (Financial Times)

atlanticrando - March 28, 2022

News

In light of the Ukrainian invasion, FT has posted a story describing Finland’s national preparedness strategy/culture that I thought some here might find interesting.

“But what Finland calls its strategy of ‘comprehensive security’ offers an example of how countries can create rigorous, society-wide systems to protect themselves ahead of time — planning not just for a potential invasion, but also for natural disasters or cyber attacks or a pandemic. 

This is not only about military readiness. It also extends to what Charly Salonius-Pasternak, a security expert at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, describes as the ‘boring, unsexy work’ of ensuring that laws and rules work in times of crisis.”

I think it’s well known that some European states, like Finland and Switzerland, have very deeply engrained military or civil defense infrastructure, but there’s some thoughts here about working with the private sector, etc. that might be of interest. While it’s not a perfect system, there are some things here that other countries should consider, such as dual use infrastructure in case of emergency, etc. From a North American perspective, it would be prudent if Canada and the US investigated some of these measures, given that extreme weather, wildfire risk, etc., etc. is only going to increase.

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Excellent article, Finland clearly understands the need for Civil Defence and Preparedness with having a powerful hostile neighbour on its border that had already stolen a chunk of Finish land previously. Sadly many other European states like my own UK got rid of its Civil Defence force and ALL of its satrategic reserves (fuel, grain etc) in 1990