Minister of Defence Antti Häkkänen's speech at the NATO Nuclear Policy Symposium on 29 April 2025
Finnish Ministry of Defence
29.04.2025 15:28
Distinguished guests, experts and friends of nuclear policy, Ladies and Gentlemen,
As Finland is 8th year in a row the happiest country in the World, I am also very happy to wish you all warmly welcome to Helsinki.
This is most likely the most northernmost NATO Nuclear Policy Symposium ever - if not, at least the first ever in Finland.
In my opening speech of this year's Symposium, I will focus on the importance of NATO's Nuclear deterrence. I will also describe, how we Finns see the vital importance of deterrence and defence.
However, I will start with some words regarding the current security environment and threats that we are all facing together.
Ladies and gentlemen,
We are facing the most complex and rapidly changing security environment in a generation. This includes growing nuclear threats.
Global strategic balance is shifting, and the strategic competition is intensifying. Russia's aggressive and illegal military actions have undermined the international rules-based order. Russia has endangered peace and stability throughout the Euro-Atlantic area. Instability has many global symptoms.
Russia poses the biggest threat towards Euro-Atlantic security. Russia has showed and been very clear in its policy, that it is ready to use all means to achieve its goals.
We have witnessed coercive nuclear signalling from Russia. Russia has updated its nuclear doctrine, and it emphasises the importance of nuclear weapons and broad-spectrum influencing. And many of us experience that influencing, including heavy disinformation campaigns, daily.
Russia's very close security relations with China, Iran and North Korea are of great concern.
The support from these countries to Russia's illegal war in Ukraine is underlining the importance of NATO's collective deterrence and defence posture.
Lately we have seen diverse discussions on the future of nuclear deterrence. While engaging those discussions, we should not forget the central role of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) to global security.
The NPT is the foundation of the Alliance's mutual security guarantee and collective defence. Nuclear non-proliferation cannot be questioned. We are all committed to the NPT as the cornerstone of the global nuclear non-proliferation regime and disarmament architecture.
The critical link between arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation and nuclear deterrence needs to be emphasized.
As we have noticed, Russia has been using nuclear deterrence language and nuclear signalling in the way we have never witnessed before.
We need to make sure, that our strategic communication is strong and counters the Russian disinformation. We cannot let Russia and others to lead the narrative and neither undermine our deterrence nor influence our resilience.
It is very important that NATO remains committed to credible, effective and safe nuclear deterrence mission.
We can support that effort in many different ways. One of them is by strengthening the coherence between conventional and nuclear planning.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Strategically most important areas of the Russian Federation are located in the very close vicinity of Finland. These are Kola Peninsula and St Petersburg. I want also to highlight the importance of the Baltic Sea, which has significant importance regarding Russia's vital energy exports. Lately the Baltic Sea has also been the stage of the broad-spectrum influencing.
The accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO are reshuffling the strategic landscape in Northern Europe.
Finland's strategic location both at the Baltic Sea region and in the Arctic is significant for the Alliance.
This creates stronger deterrence and defence in the strategic set-up in Northern Europe and in High North.
Finland has been here bordering Russia and its' strategic and non-strategic nuclear assets already for decades. We have always taken the Russian threat seriously and prepared for that.
In March Finland made the decision to increase our defence spending to 3 percent of our GDP. Our contribution to defence and to resilience has always been strong.
An evolving conscription system, a trained large reserve and a strong will to defend the country are the cornerstones of the Finnish defence.
I will shortly address the basis for our defence capability and strong resilience, the concepts of comprehensive security and total defence.
Comprehensive security is the foundation of resilience in the Finnish society. In the concept of comprehensive security, the vital functions of society are taken care of in collaboration between the authorities, business community, organisations and citizens in all circumstances and at all levels of society.
The lessons learned from the second world war taught us that to be able to stay independent and resist invasion - all society's resources must be available for national defence.
Finland is a nation of 5,5 million people with a big land mass. With such a small population, it was deemed impossible to prepare for the defence against a neighbouring superpower alone. During crises, the civilian society supports defence - all society's resources are needed.
This concept of total defence involves comprehensive national efforts, including civilian and military cooperation.
Everything starts with people: Every citizen have a role in the system. Citizens must understand that total defence does not only comprise the actions of the defence forces or the authorities - it is a whole-of-nation effort.
As some of you witnessed yesterday in central Helsinki, we have one of the largest civil protection systems in the World.
Civil defence is a field that supports the military defence in secondary role. The military rely heavily on the civilian society in many support functions and proper civil defence ensures that these functions are carried out also in the times of crises.
Each city, county and municipality have a legal obligation to plan and acquire facilities for evacuation and in-place shelters for their population.
In urban areas, every block of flats is required to have sufficient shelters for the tenants. Cities maintain large complexes for population for in-place sheltering. For example, the city of Helsinki, with the population of less than 700 000 has 5500 shelters with a capacity for 900 000 people.
We have similar comprehensive approach also to our preparedness for chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats and the concept of dispersal is part of defence.
Dear guests,
Finland is committed to NATO's deterrence and defence posture by contributing to both. In addition to our contribution to strong conventional defence, Finland participates NATO's nuclear policy and decisions without any prior restrictions.
Before Finland's NATO membership, we described our national defence policy with the word threshold. Our goal was to develop a relatively strong national defence, which would signal to our opposing forces, that an attack towards Finland would come with significant costs. We have always understood the importance of nuclear deterrence to our security. Finland benefited from the strategic stability Nato's nuclear deterrence created even before our membership.
The coherence between conventional and nuclear components of NATO's deterrence and defence posture across all domains are more relevant than ever.
We understand the importance of burden sharing very well. There are many ways to do that for a non-nuclear country. For example by policy means, conventional support to nuclear operations, exercising, and facilitating policy discussions like this symposium here in Helsinki.
Nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence are the key elements in our international security and defence policy discussions. We are committed to improve our competence and raising our nuclear IQ.
We have some steps to climb what comes to nuclear IQ in Finland, but we have started it already by the help of many Allies also and proceeding steadily in this.
Credible deterrence and defence are based on strong national and collective resilience. This is one of our assets to share with the Alliance.
As an example, I want to mention CBRN Defence and preparedness: the better you are prepared for C, B, R and nuclear threats, the better resilience we have against those threats. These conventional capabilities not only might support NATO's nuclear operations and resilience, but they also strengthen deterrence.
Distinguished participants, of this year's symposium,
There are many crucial changes taking place: firstly the decisions to increase defence spending to enhance our conventional deterrence, secondly our continued efforts to develop NATO's nuclear deterrence and thirdly the crucial demand for our coherence and unity.
I am confident that NATO's deterrence and defence will be stronger than ever. I also want to assure you Finland's strong commitment to credible and effective deterrence.
NATO Nuclear Policy Symposium is a unique way to work together towards this goal and to raise our IQ on important nuclear policy issues.
Finally, I want to thank the Nuclear Policy Directorate and the organisers of this year's event here in Helsinki. I am confident that through your hard work you have prepared a great symposium for us all.
You will have an excellent two days here at the Symposium with the best experts in this field.
I wish you all fruitful and productive symposium.
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