Nuclear weapons | Finland should participate in NATO’s nuclear weapons exercise, says a researcher

Aviation industry Key.Aero website published the news in mid-August that Finnish Hornet fighters would be participating in NATO’s annual Steadfast Noon nuclear weapons exercise. The news relied on an anonymous NATO source and also listed the other air assets of the NATO countries participating in the exercise.

Key.Aero was the first to report the news in Finland Ilta-Sanomat.

It is probably useless to wait for official confirmation of the participants of the exercise. The Ministry of Defense does not comment on the exercise or Finland’s possible participation in it, because “the defense administration follows the guidelines agreed upon in NATO in communication about nuclear deterrence, including exercise activities”.

From the NATO website announcements from the nuclear weapons exercise can only be found from 2021. In 2022 and 2023, NATO announced the start of the exercise a few days in advance and revealed not only the time of the exercise, but also the participating countries and the number of aircraft. In addition, it was stated in which countries’ airspace the exercise will be carried out.

A little more information leaked out during the exercises, when NATO published pictures of the planes flying in the exercise on its website. In them at least the equipment of the American, British, Dutch and Turkish air forces was seen.

You should the information about Finland’s participation is correct or not, it is not up to the senior researcher of the Foreign Policy Institute Matti Pesun hard to find grounds according to. He reminds that Finland is a strategically sensitive frontline country, which can also be a transit area for nuclear weapons in the worst scenarios.

“As a frontline country, we have an interest in seeing how this (nuclear weapons) side of NATO works,” Pesu tells STT.

According to him, the participation could not be considered very surprising. Finland did not set any restrictions on its NATO membership, and for example the president Sauli Niinistö stated in spring 2023, that in addition to the work of the nuclear planning group NPG in NATO, Finland should also participate in nuclear weapons exercises.

“Of course, it could also be that there have been some expectations towards Finland in NATO that we want to meet,” Pesu reflects.

In practice, Steadfast Noon is about practicing the use of the B-61 nuclear bombs deployed by the United States in Europe, although real nuclear weapons are never moved during the exercises, according to NATO.

Finland’s Hornets, i.e. F/A-18 fighters, are not certified to carry nuclear bombs, so the Finns’ possible participation would be limited to the usual air force support operations or acting as a training opponent.

In NATO a wider group of participants in the nuclear weapons exercise has been hoped for, in addition to the current approximately 13–14 states, which is therefore only barely half of the member states. According to Pesu, some of the NATO countries do not have their own air forces at all, which explains the omission from the exercises. This is not an insurmountable obstacle, but you can also participate in the exercise in other ways.

“For example, Croatia made its airspace available for training last year,” Pesu reminds.

So it cannot be said that, for example, this fall’s exercise will not include some countries that do not appear in the list of aircraft in the Key.Aeron news.

According to Pesu, in some member states, such as apparently Norway, participation in a nuclear weapons exercise may also involve domestic political “sensitivities”. Along with Norway, Sweden’s fighters were also not mentioned in the Key.Aeron news about this autumn’s exercise.

Pesu believes that for Sweden, it may rather be a question of the freshness of NATO membership, which only started in the spring.

“It could be that this exercise just came too quickly. After all, there were no indications of Finland’s participation in the fall of last year,” says Pesu.