Sweden is currently the framework nation for the European Union’s rapid reaction forces’ Nordic Battle Group 15 (NBG15). As the battlegroup is a prioritized project in Sweden, symbolizing the “new” generation of security policy, wherein the defence forces were to be employed largely for different humanitarian tasks abroad, the fact that the battlegroups have never been activated for a “proper” mission is something of an embarrassment for certain parts of the political spectrum there. As such, there are now persistent rumors that Sweden is pushing for sending the forces abroad, preferably to some suitable African conflict. The fact that South Sudan, Mali, Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Libya have all been mentioned, underlines two important facts, namely that there have never been any shortage of “suitable conflicts” for the battlegroups, and that for the current political campaign the priority seems to be on getting to employ the battlegroup, rather than having started by identifying a proper need, and then activating the battlegroup to fill this need.

On the internet, the debate has been raging on in Swedish security and foreign policy circles on both twitter and blogs, with Patrik Oksanen (who also have included selected tweets by others), former FM Carl Bildt, Johan Wiktorin, and Reservofficer, all posting well written analyses of the situation. I will here focus on lifting the issue of possible Finnish participation.

When looking at the order of battle for NBG15 as a whole, it is clear that Finland is supplying a rather small but specialized piece of the puzzle, in the form of the unimaginatively named FIN Helicopter Unit, part of the Expeditionary Air Wing (EAW). This consists of four NH90 tactical transport helicopters with medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) as their main task, together with a maintenance and support organization. In total it consists of four helicopter, 13 ground vehicles, and slightly fewer than 70 servicemen.

International operations of different kinds are one of the three main tasks prescribed by the law to be handled by the Finnish Defence Forces. However, it has something of a special status, as the operations are manned on a completely voluntary basis as they appear. Last Saturday, January the 3^rd, Brigadier general Petri Hulkko wrote a column in Finnish regional newspaper Itä-Savo, where he called for making international missions mandatory for contracted soldiers. This created some stir, with Upseeriliitto (the Finnish Officer’s Union) stating that other solutions are readily available, and noting that supply/demand-issues are rarely satisfactory solved by legislation. However, a number of individual officers also spoke out in favour of Hulkko’s proposal.

This debate serves as the backdrop for today’s article published by Helsingin Sanomat, where it is noted that one in five of the allocated personnel of the helicopter unit have expressed that they are not willing to participate in a foreign deployment. The problem is that unlike traditional “Show of flag” missions that employs large numbers of people to maintain a visible presence, positions such as helicopter mechanic demand proper qualifications, and cannot easily be filled by volunteering reservists or civilian contractors. This puts the whole participation of FIN Helicopter Unit in a possible deployment of NBG15 in doubt, which would not only cause considerable embarrassment for the Finnish political leadership, but also add to the logistical problems of the battle group as a whole.