The experience of NATO’s newly created Force Integration Units (NFIUS) in the Baltic States and Poland may also be of relevance to Finland.
INFRASTRUCTURE. For NATO, the full integration of Finland’s air defence assets would be a substantial improvement on the current situation. Today, there is some transparency between NATO’s air situation and defence and Finland’s assets (notably the Air Situational Data Exchange, ASDE): this is necessary for air traffic management and safety reasons. However, the sharing of the regional air picture is partial in nature and incomplete in geographical scope when compared to what it would be in a full NATO framework. This applies both to air situation data in the airspace of Finland and its NATO or EU partners, as well as to the Russian airspace contiguous to Finland. The same remarks apply to Sweden’s limited sharing of air situation data with both NATO and Finland.
Technically and operationally, the integration of existing and planned NATO and Finnish air surveillance assets would be a straightforward task, with Finland joining NATO’s Air Command and Control System (ACCS). Finland has the corresponding technological know-how and experience of cooperation with industrial partners involved in ACCS.
It is unclear whether Finland (and/or Sweden) could acquire ACCS without full membership of NATO. However, it could presumably secure a level of interoperability with ACCS comparable to that of neutral Switzerland’s FLORAKO air surveillance and control system. In the meantime, Finland’s and Sweden’s ability to share a detailed picture of the air situation between themselves and with NATO partners remains limited.
Conversely, logistical infrastructure issues would be largely scenario-dependent. From NATO’s standpoint, a joint entry by Finland and Sweden (or indeed by Sweden alone) would be convenient in the sense that circumvention of Kaliningrad’s A2AD and support for the defence of the Baltic States would presumably transit via Sweden. The situation would be different were Finland to join alone: in that case, planning for the defence of the Baltic States would call on access to Finnish land, airspace and territorial waters.
FORCE POSTURE AND PLANNING. If one assumes that Russian force dispositions and activities remain more or less what they are today, Finland’s current and planned (see below) force posture should be militari-
