Finland’s Nordic neighbour Sweden, on the brink of joining NATO, signed a similar deal last week.

NATO’s newest member, Finland, has announced it will sign a bilateral defence cooperation agreement next week with the United States.

The deal will allow Washington to station troops and store weapons inside the Nordic country, which shares a sprawling border with Russia.

Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen told a news conference in Helsinki on Thursday that Defense Minister Antti Häkkänen will sign the so-called Defence Cooperation Agreement (DCA) on Monday.

  • TWeaKEnglish
    57•7 months ago

    It should be noted that this agreement is completely separate from NATO.

    • @wizzor@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      35•7 months ago

      Technically yes, but in practice the goal is to make the practical arrangements implementing of Article 5 security quarantees possible. There is not much use of NATO support, if alliance forces can’t operate in Finland in a practical way.

      I am sure there are new operational agreements of similar nature will be made between Finland and Sweden as well as Finland and Estonia. That said, there is already a significant degree of defence cooperation between Finland and Sweden.

      Finland is also already part of the british led JEF, and I would be surprised if the Nato framework would not change the nature of that cooperation.

    • SirIriusEnglish
      7•7 months ago

      Both Finland and Sweden are in Russia’s crosshairs for joining NATO.

      • TWeaKEnglish
        12•7 months ago

        I feel like they were in their crosshairs regardless.

      • @Sagifurius@lemm.eeEnglish
        0•7 months ago

        Yeah, almost like a massive web of mutual defense treaties…where have i heard that one before? oh BTW Russia, India, Brazil for some fucking reason, and some other asian countries have a mutual defense agreement.