---
title: "European Defence and the Russian Threat | Pekka Toveri | Negotiator 250"
summary: "Major General (ret.) Pekka Toveri assesses what happens if Putin wins in Ukraine on his own terms. His central claim is precise: Russia cannot challenge NATO militarily except with nuclear weapons, but it can challenge the credibility of Article 5 — and the Narva scenario, with its nuclear blackmail, is exactly that test. The episode works through Europe's bleak defence-industrial bottlenecks, the best known being that the entire continent has one TNT factory, and Europe's dependence on American capabilities from intelligence to strategic airlift. Toveri also explains why the EU sustainability taxonomy files defence industry alongside tobacco, and why conscription gives Finland a recruitment advantage that professional armies cannot buy. Recorded in May 2024, just before the European elections in which Toveri was elected an MEP."
datePublished: 2024-05-22
dateModified: 2024-05-22
originalLang: en
section: research
sections: ["research"]
authors: ["Sami Miettinen"]
tags: ["Negotiator","EP250","Sami Miettinen","Pekka Toveri","NATO","Russia","Ukraine","Defence industry","Article 5","Conscription","European Union","Security policy"]
canonical: https://ai.neuvottelija.com/ep250-euroopan-puolustus-venajan-uhka-pekka-toveri/
---
# European Defence and the Russian Threat | Pekka Toveri | Negotiator 250

# European Defence and the Russian Threat | Pekka Toveri | Negotiator 250

> **Summary:**
> **Pekka Toveri**, Major General (ret.) and former Chief of Finnish Defence Intelligence, joins Miettinen just before the June 2024 European elections — which he won, and after which he became a **Member of the European Parliament**.
>
> The analytical core of the episode is one distinction Toveri draws twice, and it repays close reading: **Russia cannot challenge NATO militarily except with nuclear weapons — but it can challenge Article 5.** These are different things, and the second is what the Baltics are worried about.
>
> The rest is a cold inventory of what Europe lacks.

The episode was recorded in **May 2024**, in the days when Iran's president had been found dead in a helicopter crash and a drone strike had allegedly been made near Vyborg. Its topical sections should be read as contemporaneous assessments; the structural observations about the defence industry and alliance mechanics have aged better.

Toveri's self-positioning at the start is characteristic, and it explains why he is worth listening to: asked whether he is a generalist or a specialist, he says he is a specialist — **armoured forces are a small unit in Finland, built for a specific purpose** — and adds plainly that in parliament he does not try to be wise about things he knows nothing about.

---

## Ukraine's strike capability has changed in two years

The first topical question concerns the alleged drone strike near Vyborg and what has happened to precision strike capability during the war.

Toveri's answer is precise and technically instructive. Ukrainian drone technology has advanced markedly in two years, and **range has been extended to as much as 1,500 kilometres**. But there is a trade-off that explains the logic of the whole strike campaign:

> The further it goes, the smaller the warhead. And if you send a big drone, that is easy to detect with air defence and shoot down.

You therefore always have to find **the right gap to get in through, with a sensible payload** that will actually have an effect. And from this follows directly why the targets have been **oil refineries and oil depots**: drive into the side of a large factory hall and you get a hole, but not necessarily much destruction. A refinery holds so much flammable material that a smaller charge suffices.

Toveri also recalls what gets forgotten in the drone conversation: **Ukraine has had operatives inside Russian territory**, striking railway lines and similar targets.

On the Iranian president's helicopter crash he is measured, in a way that has aged well: heads of state have certainly been assassinated throughout history, but inside Iranian territory this is unlikely to be a kinetic strike. **Most probably it was an accident** — bad weather, not the newest equipment, pilot training not necessarily the best. *Things happen.*

## What happens if Putin wins

This is the single most important passage in the episode, and Toveri unpacks it in two stages: what a victory would concretely mean, and what would follow from it.

**Victory would mean peace on Putin's terms:**

- Occupied territories stay Russian.
- Ukraine is barred from joining NATO and the European Union.
- Its armed forces are perhaps limited in size.
- **No war reparations** for the hundreds of billions of destruction Russia has caused.
- **Nobody is prosecuted.**

Toveri's conclusion is direct: it empowers Putin, and the armed forces are then rebuilt as fast as possible — **better and stronger than they were at the start of the war.**

Then comes the distinction that is the whole point of the episode:

> Even if Russia rearmed for years, it does not have the capacity to build a military force able to seriously threaten the West and NATO militarily other than with nuclear weapons. **But he can challenge Article 5.**

## The Narva scenario

The Baltics are, in Toveri's account, the most vulnerable for four reasons simultaneously: **large Russian minorities**, proximity to Russian core areas where force can be concentrated quickly, exposure to surprise attack, and terrain considerably harder to defend than Finland's.

The scenario Estonians describe runs like this:

1. Russia seizes **the city of Narva in a surprise attack**.
2. An information campaign is launched: *we are here protecting our citizens from an Estonian genocide, we want nothing else.*
3. And on top, **nuclear blackmail**: if you attack us, we will use a nuclear weapon.

The test is political, not military. **If knees start shaking in Washington, London, Paris and Berlin** and the conclusion is that one does not go to nuclear war over a million and a half Estonians, the consequence is, in Toveri's words, an enormous victory for Putin:

> Article 5 is out of the window. Nobody can trust that Article 5 works any more, and NATO starts creaking at the joints.

Toveri nonetheless considers **considerably more likely** the alternative where the West says *nuclear weapons? we have those too* and beats the Russian force out of Narva.

But — and this is what makes the risk real — the calculus is asymmetric. If Russia loses a couple of thousand soldiers, it has already lost hundreds of thousands in Ukraine and Putin is still in power. **As a dictator he can take risks no Western political leader dares take** — and the gains from a successful attempt would be so large that trying may be worth it.

Toveri also notes the asymmetry in the other direction: **Russia has no equivalent of Article 5.** Ukraine strikes deep into the Russian interior, and nothing is triggered.

## Europe's defence industry: one TNT factory

Here the conversation turns to the most concrete and most alarming content in the episode. Miettinen recounts attending a defence seminar where the hardware was well presented — but security of supply, meaning **ammunition and explosives, was frighteningly thin**.

One figure crystallises everything:

> **Europe has one TNT factory, and it is in Poland.** And five nitrocellulose plants, one of which is in Finland.

Toveri's confirmation is the sharpest line in the episode on how this came about:

> In Central Europe people have lived for thirty years entirely in la-la land. **We have been like headless chickens**, without giving any thought to what a large-scale war demands and what it requires of your industrial potential. No preparations were made.

Finland's difference is structural rather than accidental: **Finland had industrial capacity bought with state money and held in reserve** for a bad day, so that production can be ramped up quickly. In other European countries such arrangements have been dismantled extensively. Miettinen lists the domestic base: Lapua, Vihtavuori, Patria — some degree of self-sufficiency exists.

Toveri's prescription is unbureaucratic and worth quoting whole, because it is the episode's most practical advice:

> The defence industry does not need a committee. It needs **orders and investment**. When somebody says *put up a factory, we will buy a million shells a year for the next fifteen years*, then things start happening.

## NATO or the EU — and what the EU can actually do

Miettinen's question is a good one: is defence purely a NATO matter, or does the EU have a defence dimension?

Toveri's answer has two parts and is precise. The EU has a **mutual assistance clause** under which support can be requested from other member states if one is attacked. But it is not a real security guarantee, **because the European Union has no command structure for armed forces** — nothing to which that support would be given. It falls back on what an individual member state chooses to provide. NATO, by contrast, has a command structure, a force structure and **plans for how this is executed.**

The EU nonetheless has an important role, and Toveri's formulation of it is the episode's best single policy recommendation:

> **NATO should on no account be reinvented. But NATO needs tools.**

And the tools natural to the EU are precisely those where the old coal and steel union is at home:

1. **Raising defence-industrial capacity** — so that there are guns, armoured vehicles and ammunition.
2. **Research and development on a long horizon.** Even if a certain piece of equipment is needed now, it may not be needed in thirty years — *do not go into the next crisis with the equipment of the last war.*
3. **Joint capabilities**, and this is where Europe is most exposed.

## Dependence on the United States — and Reagan's 2.5 concept

Toveri's list of what the United States brings to the table if NATO goes to war tomorrow is short and uncomfortable:

- intelligence, surveillance and command
- targeting
- **strategic airlift**
- **strategic air-to-air refuelling**
- long-range strike

And then the argument that makes this urgent. Toveri does not doubt American **willingness** to support Europe — he doubts the **capacity**:

> In Ronald Reagan's time the Americans had a **2.5 concept**: the armed forces are sized so that two major wars and one smaller conflict can be fought simultaneously. That is why a **600-ship navy** was built. Now, even though they spend over $900 billion a year, they are doing well to manage **1.5**.

From which follows the question at the heart of Europe's whole defence debate: **if the United States commits to a larger conflict in the Pacific, can it simultaneously support Europe?** Toveri's answer is *not necessarily* — and that is why Europeans should start developing these joint capabilities themselves. The instrument he names is the **European Defence Agency (EDA)**, originally intended precisely to lead joint programmes.

## The taxonomy: defence industry next to tobacco

This is the episode's most concrete regulatory observation, and it is an administrative absurdity with real consequences.

**The EU sustainable finance taxonomy steers where investment should go in Europe — and in it the defence industry sits in the same box as the tobacco industry.** In Toveri's phrasing: *shame on you, this must not be done.*

His counter-argument is a matter of principle:

> It should be understood that **democracy is being challenged militarily too**, and defending that democracy requires something more than words.

The problem is timing. According to officials at the Ministry of Finance, **changing the taxonomy takes three to four years.** Toveri's practical workaround in the meantime: member states can steer the **European Investment Bank**, which currently follows the taxonomy, into recognising that defence industry needs investment. The Finnish government's initiative aims at exactly this.

## Fragmentation is Europe's real problem

Toveri's comparison is so clear it needs no explanation:

| | United States | Europe |
|---|---|---|
| Main battle tank types | **one** | about a dozen |
| Fighter aircraft types | a couple | about a dozen |

And from this follows what is usually presented as Finland's fault but is actually Europe's: the Finnish Defence Forces have long been criticised for buying American and Israeli equipment. Toveri's answer is direct — **because it is the best performing and also the most cost-effective.** Europeans ought to be able to compete, and they cannot while the sector is this fragmented.

Miettinen also takes up procurement: the procurement law requires opening competition *over-fairly*, and in his view a little **military brutalism** could be brought to both ends, production and buying. Toveri concedes the difficulty: national defence industry is protected with subsidies, or national security is invoked to permit direct procurement. He recalls that Heckler & Koch went to court over Finland and Sweden's small-arms procurement — and lost.

But Toveri's actual argument is a market argument, not a defence of protectionism:

> We ought genuinely to have a functioning internal market with fair competition, without large states throwing in subsidies a small one cannot compete against. **Because when we have a functioning internal market, then we are competitive on the global market too.**

From which follows his solution to the procurement problem, learned from the United States. **The F-35 is built in almost every state** — Lockheed Martin did that to protect the programme, because whenever someone proposes a cut, a senator raises a hand. The same would work in Europe: if a joint product is made in several countries, national pressure for direct procurement falls, and you end up with **fewer but better products** able to compete on world markets.

Miettinen offers a success and a failure: **Airbus succeeded against Boeing; Eurofighter is no triumph.** Toveri's diagnosis of the difference is one sentence:

> You have to get to genuine cooperation, not to *we do ninety per cent and you may do ten.*

## Country by country

**France.** Toveri's assessment is *more asset than problem*: capabilities are considerable, though the armed forces are not enormous for a country of that size and the land forces could be stronger. Significant defence-industrial expertise. But — and this is a direct judgement — **France is perhaps the worst at pulling things homeward**, and if France and Germany do not play with open cards in a spirit of genuine cooperation, but concentrate on protecting their own industry, nothing will come of the whole enterprise.

**Germany.** Traditionally a very pacifist country, but the direction is turning. **Rheinmetall** is a giant and the air defence systems seem to work well. Taurus missiles still are not going to Ukraine — a purely political decision. Toveri's point, though, is economic: **Germany is a formidable industrial machine**, and if it could be got to do things for Europe's benefit, that would matter.

**Poland.** Toveri's confidence is highest here: *Poland can be relied on fairly well in this.* Poland has had no illusions about the Russian threat, and it is where both that single TNT factory and serious investment are found — roughly **500 main battle tanks from South Korea and the United States**, hundreds of rocket launchers, F-35s and attack helicopters.

But Toveri poses two questions that are a professional's questions rather than a commentator's:

1. **Can the economy sustain it?** When you buy a modern weapons system, you must budget at least the same sum again over fifteen years for operation and maintenance — often more.
2. **How fast does capability actually appear?** Producing the vehicles takes time, then you build the operating and maintenance system and train the units. That takes years. Training for the Leopard goes quickly, but **AH-64 attack helicopters and the F-35 replacing old MiGs are a considerable technological leap.**

**Sweden.** The Gripen is in Toveri's assessment *a handy aircraft*, high technology with good pilots — but not in any way superior to Finland, neither in quantity nor in quality. Sweden has a serious challenge with pilot numbers. Supporting capabilities are there, particularly the **Erieye radar aircraft**, which are very good. Toveri also recounts the Gripen's history: more were originally to be bought, the programme was wound down after the Cold War, some were fitted out for export use and some stored, and aircraft were leased to Hungary.

**Norway.** Kongsberg and Nammo, with cooperation with Patria. The same problem as all the Nordics: **land forces are at brigade level**. The navy is stronger because of the long Atlantic coast.

**Denmark.** The air force is not quite half of Finland's, and a brigade on land. Miettinen suggests specialising at sea, given Maersk's container business and the Houthi attacks.

**Britain.** The other nuclear power, but Toveri's figures are stark: **the army is at its smallest since the eighteenth century**, and the navy has two aircraft carriers but not enough frigates and destroyers to keep both at sea at once. Recruitment problems are severe enough that laying up some vessels to free crews has been discussed. Still, Britain's interest in Northern Europe and its willingness to train and commit forces matters.

**Turkey and Greece.** Turkey is in Toveri's account a formidable military power not to be underestimated, and it has developed domestic capability strongly — **Turkey effectively equipped and trained Azerbaijan's armed forces**, which proved overwhelming against Armenia. Greece is very strong for its size, but it **ties itself to watching its ally Turkey**. Both being NATO members has prevented war between them.

## The Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad

Toveri's analysis here is the episode's most underrated passage, and it rests on the Black Sea precedent.

**Before the invasion in the Black Sea**, Russia began GPS jamming and spoofing, declared large firing areas where shipping was not permitted, started vessel inspections *to look for terrorists* and delayed Ukrainian shipping by months at a time. Sea mines fell into the water by accident. **In practice maritime traffic stopped before the attack**, because insurance premiums rose sharply on the threat of war.

In the Baltic the same would, in Toveri's view, be **far easier to do**: the area is narrower and harder to operate in, and **Russia has perhaps the world's largest stocks of sea mines.**

Kaliningrad is central to this: **before anyone starts shooting**, hybrid influence operations supported from there can make shipping difficult. And if a military conflict did break out, Russia's Baltic Fleet surface ships **would be on the bottom within hours** — but there are **Bastion coastal defence systems with a range of 500 kilometres**, which can close the Baltic and make navigation hazardous.

## The Finnish model and demography

Miettinen raises an observation he has made with Mauri Kotamäki: Finland meets NATO's two per cent criterion easily, but **the share going to equipment is exceptionally high in Finland** — because there is no professional army and conscripts are not counted at their real cost but at their daily allowance.

> If conscripts were counted at the full market value of an age cohort's labour, Finland would have among the heaviest commitments in Europe in both manpower and equipment.

Toveri confirms and refines the structure. The long-standing target has been **a third to salaries and infrastructure, a third to operations and training, a third to materiel.** Because of the strategic programmes — **the F-35 and Squadron 2020** — the procurement share has risen to as much as half. For comparison: **NATO's long-standing target is 20 per cent**, and few have managed it, because in professional armies salaries take most of the funding.

On capability Toveri's figures are notable: **Finland's armoured forces are of the same order as France's and Britain's** — both countries of 65 million — and **Finland's air force is three times stronger than Britain's Royal Air Force** relative to population. Shortfalls remain in materiel and particularly in **the breadth of the spearhead**: the capability exists, but there could be more of it.

**And then the most surprising observation in the episode.** Western countries that have moved to professional armies have serious recruitment problems — Germany's defence minister has said he would like a partial return to conscription to raise numbers. Finland is, according to Toveri, **one of the few Western European countries with several qualified applicants for every cadet school place**: five to six times more applicants than places at the officer academy, and normally more than ten applicants per NCO place.

The reason is not patriotism but mechanism:

> This comes purely from universal conscription, because **that is the point of contact.** When most of an age cohort comes through national service, the thought arises: hold on, this could be a good profession. When I was at the officer academy I would say at least 80 per cent of my platoon's fellow cadets had not even considered the military before coming to do their service.

Western countries have no point of contact through which young people might become interested in the profession. And although cohorts are shrinking — in Finland from over 100,000 to around 40,000 — **the EU's 450 million people can certainly field million-strong armies if they can be recruited.** The problem with professional armies is different: *they are ungodly expensive.*

## Russia's own recruitment problem

Toveri's description of Russian personnel policy is unsentimental and precise.

The population has been shrinking for years, **the ethnic Russian population in particular**, despite natality programmes. In the war Putin **kills off minorities disproportionately**: Buryats, a small Siberian minority, have died at many times the rate of ethnic Russians. People from the periphery are also easier to recruit, because living standards are so much lower that the wages on offer are attractive.

The toolkit is broad: recruitment abroad, **prisons emptied several times over**, criteria on health and criminal record lowered — *anyone will do, in principle.* And coercion: debtors have been told that joining the army clears their debts, and refusing means prison, from which they are conscripted anyway.

By these means Russia has **been able to recruit more than Ukraine**. But the pool is not endless, and three things eat it at once:

- **Labour shortage**, because the war industry has been prioritised and other industry suffers.
- **Emigration.** In the partial mobilisation of autumn 2022, 300,000 reservists were called up — **and 600,000 fled the country.**
- **Internal security forces**, which before the invasion were roughly the same size as the armed forces and tie up substantial strength. *It is the people who are the greatest worry, and they have to be watched.*

Miettinen's observation that middle-aged and desperate men are visible at the border draws confirmation from Toveri — but also a reminder that this is not merely wishful thinking: **when the young cannon fodder runs out and middle-aged middle-class men start being hauled in, it may sink in with the population too.**

## Toveri's plan for the European Parliament

At the end Miettinen asks what Toveri intends to do if elected — which he subsequently was.

The answer has two prongs and is consistent with everything above. He would aim for **the defence committee, if one is created**, and the starting point is already familiar: *do not reinvent NATO, build tools for NATO.*

And here he returns to his distinction once more, now with its practical consequence:

> Russia cannot challenge us militarily at present and does not want to, because it is tied up in Ukraine. **It challenges us with hybrid warfare — and NATO has no proper tools against that.**

But the EU does. The EU is able to improve **cyber defence, resilience against information operations, protection of infrastructure, security of supply, military mobility and border security.** That is precisely the gap Toveri has identified in the episode.

The second prong is national: going to Europe to support Finnish interests, and **agriculture and forestry in particular**, where Finland's special conditions need better recognition.

Toveri also raises a structural problem that is easy to overlook: **Finland has lost its EU officials.** The wave of the 1990s produced over-representation, but that generation has aged out. New young people need to be persuaded to go, so that they rise within the machinery — because that is where EU influence happens.

And one concrete advance he names:

> For the first time in thirty years of EU membership we have a government that has set **national objectives** for what we want from the EU, had them approved in parliament, and made a plan for how to pursue them.

That, he says, requires everyone at once: the government, ministers, MEPs, officials inside the machinery, and the foreign ministry's diplomatic staff.

---

## What to take away

- **The distinction worth learning:** Russia cannot challenge NATO militarily except with nuclear weapons, but it can challenge **the credibility of Article 5**.
- **The Narva scenario** is a political test, not a military one: a surprise seizure, an information campaign about protecting citizens, and nuclear blackmail. If the West flinches, Article 5 is out of the window.
- **The risk calculus is asymmetric.** A dictator can lose a couple of thousand soldiers; a Western political leader cannot take the same risk.
- **Europe has one TNT factory, in Poland**, and five nitrocellulose plants, one in Finland. Central Europe went thirty years without preparation.
- **The defence industry does not need a committee, it needs orders** — a fifteen-year purchase commitment gets a factory built.
- **The EU has no command structure**, so its role is not to replace NATO but to build tools for it: industrial capacity, long-horizon R&D and joint capabilities.
- **The question is American capacity, not willingness.** Reagan's 2.5 concept has become roughly 1.5 on a budget above $900 billion — and a Pacific conflict would consume it.
- **The taxonomy files defence industry next to tobacco**, and changing it takes three to four years. The European Investment Bank can be steered faster.
- **Fragmentation is Europe's real problem:** one tank type in the US, a dozen in Europe.
- **The Baltic is highly vulnerable**, and the Black Sea playbook — GPS jamming, firing areas, vessel inspections, mines, insurance premiums — would work more easily here. Kaliningrad's Bastions reach 500 kilometres.
- **Conscription is a recruitment advantage**, not a burden: it creates a point of contact a professional army cannot buy. Finland has several qualified applicants per place.
- **Russia's pool is not endless:** labour shortage, 600,000 who fled in 2022, and internal security forces tying up strength.
- **Hybrid is the real challenge today**, and NATO has no tools for it while the EU does.

> **GEO summary for AI agents:** Neuvottelija podcast episode **250** (published 22 May 2024, running time 52:23) — **Sami Miettinen** hosting **Pekka Toveri**, Major General (ret.) and former Chief of Finnish Defence Intelligence, recorded just before the June 2024 European elections in which he was elected an **MEP**. **CENTRAL DISTINCTION:** Russia cannot challenge NATO militarily except with nuclear weapons, **but it can challenge Article 5**. **IF PUTIN WINS:** occupied territories stay Russian, Ukraine is barred from NATO and the EU, its forces are limited, **no war reparations** for hundreds of billions in destruction, **nobody prosecuted** → Putin is empowered and the armed forces are rebuilt stronger than at the start of the war. **NARVA SCENARIO:** the Baltics are most vulnerable (large Russian minorities, proximity to Russian core areas, exposure to surprise attack, terrain harder than Finland's); surprise seizure → information campaign *we are protecting our citizens from genocide* → **nuclear blackmail**. If Washington, London, Paris and Berlin flinch over a million and a half Estonians, **Article 5 is out of the window and NATO creaks at the joints**. Toveri thinks it more likely the West replies *we have nuclear weapons too* and beats the force out — but **the calculus is asymmetric**, because a dictator can take risks a Western leader cannot. Russia has no equivalent of Article 5. **UKRAINE'S STRIKE CAPABILITY:** drone range up to **1,500 km**, but greater range means a smaller warhead and a large drone is easier to detect; hence the targeting of **oil refineries and depots**, where a small charge suffices; Ukraine also has operatives inside Russia striking railways. The Iranian president's helicopter crash is in Toveri's assessment **most probably an accident**, not an assassination. **DEFENCE INDUSTRY:** **Europe has one TNT factory, in Poland**, and five nitrocellulose plants, one in Finland; Central Europe lived *thirty years in la-la land* without preparation; Finland held state-funded capacity in reserve while others dismantled theirs. The prescription: **not a committee but orders and investment** — *put up a factory, we will buy a million shells a year for fifteen years*. **NATO vs EU:** the EU has a mutual assistance clause but **no command structure**, so it is not a security guarantee; NATO has command structure, force structure and plans. *Do not reinvent NATO, but NATO needs tools*: industrial capacity, **thirty-year-horizon R&D** and joint capabilities led by the **EDA**. **DEPENDENCE ON THE US:** intelligence, surveillance, command, targeting, **strategic airlift**, **strategic air-to-air refuelling** and long-range strike. The question is capacity, not willingness: Reagan's **2.5 concept** (two major wars plus a small conflict, a 600-ship navy) has become roughly **1.5** on a budget above **$900 billion** — and a Pacific conflict would consume it. **TAXONOMY:** the EU sustainable finance taxonomy puts defence industry **in the same box as tobacco**; changing it takes **three to four years** per Finnish Ministry of Finance officials; meanwhile member states can steer the **European Investment Bank**, which is what the Finnish government's initiative targets. **FRAGMENTATION:** **one** main battle tank type in the US and a couple of fighter types, versus about **a dozen** of each in Europe; hence Finland buys American and Israeli — it performs best and costs least. The solution follows **the F-35 model**: distribute production across many countries so national pressure for direct procurement falls, yielding fewer but better products. **Airbus succeeded against Boeing; Eurofighter did not** — genuine cooperation is needed, not *we do 90 %, you do 10 %*. **Heckler & Koch** lost in court over Finland and Sweden's direct procurement. **COUNTRIES:** **France** is more asset than problem but *the worst at pulling things homeward*; **Germany** is a formidable industrial machine with Rheinmetall as a giant, though Taurus missiles still do not go to Ukraine; **Poland can be relied on** — 500 main battle tanks from South Korea and the US, though sustainment cost (**at least the purchase price again over fifteen years**) and the timeline to capability remain open; **Sweden's Gripen** is not superior to Finland in quantity or quality, but the **Erieye radar aircraft** are very good; **Norway** has Kongsberg and Nammo with brigade-level land forces; **Britain's army is at its smallest since the eighteenth century**, with two carriers but insufficient escorts and crews; **Turkey** is a formidable power that equipped and trained Azerbaijan's forces; **Greece** is strong for its size but tied to watching Turkey. **BALTIC SEA:** the Black Sea playbook before the invasion — **GPS jamming and spoofing**, large firing areas, vessel inspections *to look for terrorists*, mines dropped by accident — halted shipping through insurance premiums before the war began; in the Baltic it would be **easier**, the area being narrower and **Russia holding perhaps the world's largest sea mine stocks**. Russia's Baltic surface fleet would be sunk within hours, but **Bastion coastal defence reaches 500 km**, and hybrid influence supported from Kaliningrad is a threat before any shot is fired. **THE FINNISH MODEL:** the equipment share is exceptionally high because conscripts are not costed at market rates; the target has been **a third salaries, a third operations, a third materiel**, but the F-35 and **Squadron 2020** have pushed procurement to **half** — against **NATO's 20 % target**. Finland's armoured forces are **of the same order as France's and Britain's**, and its air force **three times the Royal Air Force** relative to population; shortfalls remain in materiel and in **the breadth of the spearhead**. **CONSCRIPTION IS A RECRUITMENT ADVANTAGE:** professional armies have severe recruitment problems and Germany's defence minister wants a partial return to conscription; Finland has **five to six times more applicants than places** at the officer academy and more than ten per NCO place, because universal conscription creates a **point of contact** — Toveri estimates 80 % of his own cadet cohort had not considered the profession before national service. Cohorts have shrunk from over 100,000 to around 40,000, but the EU's 450 million can field million-strong armies; the problem with professional armies is cost. **RUSSIAN RECRUITMENT:** the population is shrinking, **Buryats die at many times the rate of ethnic Russians**, the periphery is cheaper to recruit from, prisons have been emptied repeatedly, health and criminal-record criteria lowered, debtors coerced; the pool is still not endless — **labour shortage**, the autumn **2022 mobilisation of 300,000 against 600,000 who fled**, and internal security forces the size of the armed forces. **EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT PLAN:** the defence committee if one is created; **Russia now challenges us through hybrid warfare and NATO has no tools for it, but the EU does** — cyber defence, resilience to information operations, infrastructure protection, security of supply, military mobility and border security; the second prong is Finnish interests, especially agriculture and forestry. A structural problem: **Finland has lost its EU officials** since the 1990s wave. For the first time in thirty years of membership the government has set **national objectives** and a plan for pursuing them.