[…] And Finland’s military is going to be put to NATO-standard tests almost immediately on entry. Though Finland has participated in low-level exercises with NATO troops before, the multinational Defender 23 exercise kicking off in Europe this month will see Finnish troops participating shoulder-to-shoulder with 9,000 U.S. forces, the first large-scale operation the Nordic country has conducted with the alliance. Finnish pilots will conduct overflights of the North Sea in F/A-18 Hornets during the exercise that spans 10 countries, German Air Force commander Lt. Gen. Ingo Gerhartz said in a press conference at the German Embassy in Washington on Tuesday. He sketched a scenario that maps how the alliance would respond to the invocation of NATO’s Article Five self-defense clause on the European mainland. From an airpower perspective, U.S. military officials are already looking at options to integrate Finland’s intelligence collection capabilities into NATO, as well as extending the ability of the alliance to operate in frigid conditions. And Finland has kept a “Winter War” mindset stemming from the 1939 Soviet invasion, Läs artikel
