Turn seven into four

As Finland turns to the West, it is also modernising its maritime armed forces. The small country is spending a lot of money on this.

Finland is a country of extremes in terms of military strategy. With only 5.5 million inhabitants on 338,465 square kilometres, the country is relatively sparsely populated, and the population is distributed unevenly across the country, with a clear population concentration in the south. A good 10 per cent of the country is made up of inland waters, predominantly the approximately 56,000 lakes with an area of at least one hectare, plus a forest area of 73 per cent of the national territory. Finland's 1250-kilometre-long sea border also poses major problems for the country's defence, particularly because of the countless offshore islands that characterise the Archipelago Sea to the southwest of the mainland.

Finland's neighbourhood to Russia is naturally of central importance for the country's strategic military position. While relations with the Soviet Union during the Cold War were still characterised by Finland's strict neutrality and close cooperation in the defence sector, the country gradually oriented itself towards the West after 1990 - a development that has gained considerable momentum since 2015 due to an increasingly aggressive Russia. The country now cooperates intensively with various NATO states and its Nordic neighbours, for example through its membership in the Partnership for Peace programme since 1994 and Enhanced Opportunity since 2004, as well as its active participation in the Nordic Defence Cooperation (Nordefco) since 2009.