NATO’s newest member, Finland, has announced it will sign a bilateral defence cooperation agreement next week with the United States.

The deal will allow Washington to station troops and store weapons inside the Nordic country, which shares a sprawling border with Russia.

Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen told a news conference in Helsinki on Thursday that Defense Minister Antti Häkkänen will sign the so-called Defence Cooperation Agreement (DCA) on Monday.

  • TWeaK
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    7 months ago

    It should be noted that this agreement is completely separate from NATO.

    • wizzor@sopuli.xyz
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      7 months ago

      Technically yes, but in practice the goal is to make the practical arrangements implementing of Article 5 security quarantees possible. There is not much use of NATO support, if alliance forces can’t operate in Finland in a practical way.

      I am sure there are new operational agreements of similar nature will be made between Finland and Sweden as well as Finland and Estonia. That said, there is already a significant degree of defence cooperation between Finland and Sweden.

      Finland is also already part of the british led JEF, and I would be surprised if the Nato framework would not change the nature of that cooperation.

      • TWeaK
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        7 months ago

        I feel like they were in their crosshairs regardless.

    • PhlubbaDubba
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      7 months ago

      At this point it just feels like a layup on Putin lol

      • Sagifurius
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        7 months ago

        Yeah, almost like a massive web of mutual defense treaties…where have i heard that one before? oh BTW Russia, India, Brazil for some fucking reason, and some other asian countries have a mutual defense agreement.

        • PhlubbaDubba
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          7 months ago

          BRICS isn’t going to happen Gretchen, stop trying to make BRICS happen.

          • Sagifurius
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            7 months ago

            I’m not going to pretend I know what BRICS is.