I am happy to announce that I will be holding two lectures in my hometown of Kokkola this autumn. These will be held as part of the courses provided by the National Defence Training Association of Finland (MPK), in particular its training and support unit in Middle-Ostrobothnia (Keski-Pohjanmaan KOTU). A well-trained and motivated reserve is one of the key pillars of the Finnish Defence Forces, and unfortunately the recent budget cuts have left a significant hole in the defence force’s ability to maintain the training level of the reserve. Partly to compensate for this, motivated reservists, simply called aktiiviressuja (“active reservists”) in Finnish, can apply to any of the varied courses MPK provides. These include everything from taking part in full-blown military exercises to civil defense courses such as first aid, oil-spill cleanup, and prepping (or why not try Operating and maintaining a chainsaw for women?). MPK does a stellar job in providing efficient and varied training of a high-quality despite having a very limited budget, and it is a great honour for me to be a small part of this important work!

My lectures will deal with topics familiar to the readers of the blog, with the first one held 13 October and covering Kaliningrad and the Baltic states. Those who have read my earlier post on the topic will undoubtedly recognise some of the material, but I will also aim to include enough new material to make it interesting, something which shouldn’t be too hard considering the rapid pace of development currently affecting defence and security in the greater Baltic region. One sub-topic which was not featured in the post at all is how a potential crises in the region would affect Finland, something which I believe will be of great interest to my listeners.

Information about the lecture and registration is found here, under the name “Kaliningrad ja Suwalkin aukko – Baltian avain / luentotilaisuus”.

The second lecture, held on 10 November, will be a general overview of the future of the Finnish Navy. Naturally, a lot of focus will be on Squadron 2020. But while the reintroduction of large surface combatants into the Finnish Navy rightfully takes a lot of the limelight, a number of other interesting projects are also ongoing. These include the mid-life updates of the Hamina-class FAC and Pansio-class mineferries, as well as naval applications of the Patria NEMO. My stated goal is that the audience will get a picture not only of what will change for the navy in the near- and mid-term, but crucially why these changes will be implemented. Oh, and I can almost promise that the word panssarilaiva will be mentioned.

Information about the lecture and registration is found here, under the name “Laivue 2020 ja Merivoimien kehitysnäkymät / luentotilaisuus”.

Both lectures are free of charge, and I will make sure to reserve time for questions and some discussion towards the end. I have received questions if the material will be available somewhere, and the short answer is “I hope so”. This depends on in what form I will have my speaking notes, but if I reckon that they can be of use in a stand-alone format, I will post them here on the blog afterwards.

Being aware that both topics are rather specialised, I will keep the baseline so that no background knowledge of the specific topic is required, and then build from there. Let’s put it like this: if you enjoy the blog, I believe you will enjoy the lectures as well.

P.s. RUMINT suggests that there just *might* be some coffee involved.