Canada strengthens defense ties with Finland and Sweden. What can they teach us?

To find the largest range of artillery practices in Western Europe, you must go north – far north.

Rovajärvi is just above the Arctic circle, outside the city of Rovaniemi, in Finnish Lapland. And at the end of May, while young conscripts end their last weeks of training on the dismissal of artillery cannons, it is cold enough for the soldiers to come together in thick gloves and neck warming.

The Finnish conscript IIVARI Luukari has been training for months on these howles, which are identical to those currently used in the most bloody conflict in Europe since the Second World War.

“I think it is good to prepare for the worst case, like what happened in Ukraine,” he told CBC News, “but I hope there will be no wars in Finland.”

Hoping the best and preparing for the worst is a lifestyle in Finland. The whole country lives by a concept entitled “Global Security”, which obliges each citizen, business, military and official of the government to recognize the role they must play in the defense of their country.

Global security even appeared during the trip of the Minister of Foreign Affairs Anita Anand to Finland at the beginning of the month, surfaced in a joint declaration as a “strong objective” for the continuous bilateral cooperation of Canada with its Arctic ally.

“In Finland, people understand that we have a company that we have built for ourselves, and we love it a lot,” said Janne Kuusela, an official superior to the defense policy of the Finnish Ministry of Defense.

“But the other side of the medal is that we are (a) a small nation. We have 5.6 million people, with one of the largest land mass in Europe, located next to Russia. So people understand that … everyone must do their part in the defense and the safeguard of the nation.”

Defense as shared duty

The army is still responsible for being the first line of defense of Finland, with a long -standing conscription system which forces young men to finish compulsory military service when they are 18 years old and some 900,000 citizens among its reserves.

But at the level of the company, the full security goes from the industries ready to continue to manage the services during the crisis, to the citizens having 72 hours of food and water at hand in order to be self -sufficient in an emergency.

“It all starts with individual people,” said Kuusela. “Because if your citizens do not get this reality and they are not willing to do their part – then you can almost forget to have complete security and a robust defense.”

This level of preparation is necessary in a nation which has been invaded by its neighbor there are only a few generations. During the 1939 Winter War, Soviet Russia launched a total attack on Finland, extending over four months of fighting that saw the Finnish in inferiority set up difficult resistance.

“Fortunately, we were able to repel the attacker,” noted Finnish foreign minister Elina Valtonen in an interview in Helsinki in May.

But, she warned-“we had to abandon a territory.”

The Winter War ended with a peace treaty which saw Finland abandon 10% of its land – including its second largest city in Viipuri – in Russia.

Valtonen has warned of such a solution applied to Ukraine, as a charter of the United Nations, promulgated five years after the end of the winter war, “explicitly prohibits the use of violence to change borders-and this is something we have to ask for the international community,” she said.

Threats on the horizon

Finland is also able to share with its allies an acute sense of threats looming on the other side of its border 1,340 km long with Russia.

“During the Putin regime, Russia has become a very imperialist regime and a country,” said Valtonen. “We must take it very, very seriously, this threat that Russia poses.”

“We know for sure that Russia will increase its military force at its borders with NATO, especially after the fighting in Ukraine has stopped,” added Kuusela.

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“It is important to note that Russia has not threatened Finland militarily, but the potential is still there. And this is the question of military resources and power that Russia has, then the potential will to use this power to achieve their political objectives – it is a combination that we consider, of course, all the time.”

It is a danger that neighboring Sweden is also eagerly awaited.

“We continue to see the Russian threat as systemic and long -term,” said Viktoria Hjort Malmer, director of defense policies at the Swedish Defense Ministry.

“They would quickly have the possibility of regrouping in particular the Baltic borders and the Finnish border,” she said, adding that the NATO deadline, Mark Rutte, of a possible attack on the alliance in the next five years is plausible.

“We are definitely preparing to be able to deal with this kind of scenario.”

It is a scenario that would have been perceived a little differently a few years ago. In 2022, the two Nordic countries abandoned decades of military non-alignment to join NATO, after the invasion of Russia on the scale of Ukraine.

Now, under article 5 of the Alliance, the two countries – just like Canada – are forced to respond, if an NATO ally is attacked.

An approach to society

Like Finland, Sweden has established a social agreement to support its security efforts. When the Finns respect “global security”, the Swedes live under “total defense” – which includes a specific responsibility for citizens aged 16 to 70.

“You are obliged by law to serve in the event of an alert and increased war,” said Sara Myrdal of the Swedish agency of civil contingencies, one of the many government agencies responsible for preparing its citizens.

“This may be to continue to do what you already do” – if you work in essential services, for example – “but you can also be assigned to do something different,” she added, pointing to save the training that the government is currently planning to provide.

Conscription counts as part of this effort. Sweden reintroduced compulsory military service in 2017 for men and women, with around 8,000 young people selected for basic training last year. In five years, this number will increase to 10,000, while Sweden increases its military expansion.

But for many Swedes, being prepared can be as simple as to remain informed. A way in which the Swedish government has approached this is done through a bright yellow brochure that landed in 5.2 million mailboxes last year.

“The reaction to this brochure, which talks about the concept of duty and conscription and the way you need to prepare yourself as a citizen, is extremely a sense of responsibility,” said Myrdal by expressing its content.

The brochure, in the event of a crisis or war: important information for all residents of Sweden, offers blunt advice on the search for shelters during an air raid, articles necessary for emergency kits at home and even how to stop severe bleeding.

“Tackling war is important to us, because it is ultimately the biggest challenge, I would say, to our society,” said Myrdal. “So we have to work at worst.”

Canada has sent similar guides on how to survive a nuclear attack during the Cold War. Decades later, while Sweden updated its own crisis advice for citizens, Myrdal stressed the opportunity for an ally like Canada to follow the traces of Sweden.

“I think we have things to learn from you, but you may be able to take inspiration from the way we approach our population-and how we may be talking about the worst case as we do,” she said.

This project was made possible by the R. James Travers from the corresponding abroadA scholarship of $ 25,000 awarded to a Canadian journalist each year to finance the abroad reports. Monitor more reports on security, defense and sovereignty problems in Finland, Sweden and Greenland this fall.