Disarming military conscription

(Your country needs you... to stand around in the cold a lot. An honour guard of some sort outside the Presidential Palace, snapped from the tram)

The politics of the Finnish conscription system, I have to admit, is something of a specialist interest of mine. I guess if you're a 17 year old Finnish bloke looking at giving up the next 6 months of your life to the fatherland, its kinda interesting - but less so for the other 99.9% of the world's population. Nevertheless, YLE reports an interesting statement that the President made Monday, opening a National Defence Course - a common venue for making major policy proposals on defence and security related issues. YLE reports:

"[President] Halonen [stated] both international and national defence scenarios had changed sufficiently in nature to allow for a common training period at the start of both military and civilian national service. Following an initial common training period, both forms of service would carry on as before".

I have a chapter in my PhD where I argue that the Finnish military conscription system has very little do with the military defence of Finland, and far more to do with reproducing ideas of what it is to be Finnish. It seems that the President agrees, even if she wouldn't put it in those words, as the suggestion seems to be that basic training in the Finnish army now doesn't need to have anything to do with being a soldier because it will be done by conscientious objectors as well who want nothing to do with being a soldier. That's kinda weird isn't it?

Halt! Or you will be merchandised!

I was looking at toys on the Sainsbury's website today and was rather surprised to see a range called HM Armed Forces. If you don't believe me, their own website is here, they have a not very good blog here and of course, a (pretty tacky) youtube video:



Thanks to having little kids, I've started paying attention to toys again in recent years. It has struck me that when I was little there were far more realistic 'war' toys around than there are now. My Action Men of the late 70s/early 80s were dressed in the UK uniforms of the time and armed with contemporary weaponry. One was in olive drab and DPM and armed with his SLR so presumably was going to play his part in stopping the Russians getting to the Fulda Gap; another was in all white, had skis and a white SLR so seemed destined to clash with the Spetznaz in a defence of Narvik along side his fellow RM Arctic Warfare Cadre. The last one, most obviously of all, with his all black uniform, H&K MP5 and gas mask was going to go through windows to neatly double tap Libyan terrorists. This was clearly all good educational stuff for a young lad. The Action Men of now are like comic book heroes who seem to fight wars in day glo colours on jet skis of no obvious military utility.

So it's interesting that there seems to be a gap in the market now for "realistic" action figures, but with British troops dying almost daily in Afghanistan it does seem very slightly in bad taste. Is the market gap a new engagement with global reality amongst the male, 5 to 10 year old demographic? Or perhaps more like the nostalgia of thirtysomething dads remembering the SLR wielding Action Men of their childhood. The HM Forces do have an enemy character: "the Mercenary", a suitably PC solution for who it is OK to blow away (although look carefully, that's a German rifle isn't it? Hmmm....). I wonder if next up will be a Taliban insurgent figure? If so, we fortunately already have a Harrier available should your infantryman need some close air support. You can also get an HM Forces radio set, although of course to a be like a real HM Forces radio set, it would have to have taken 20 years to procure, weigh a tonne, work considerably worse than the commercially available alternatives and have costed the tax payer hundreds of millions of quid.

But leaving politics aside - what the hell are HM Forces doing franchising their name? Does Her Maj herself get any say? Or perhaps even a cut of the profits? Will the income stream generated from HM Armed Forces Toys be enough to the plug the helicopter deficit in Helmand? I was just thinking recently how smart HM Forces have been lending their assets (from a Eurofighter to a tank regiment) to the BBC in recent years for various episodes of "Top Gear"* but, in effect, merchandising the Afghan war to toy manufacturers does seem like a rather postmodern step.

*and you have to admit, this is one of the funniest and cleverest pieces of TV entertainment in recent years no matter how much I want to loath Clarkson for everything he stands for.

Britain in Afghanistan

I'm trying to write a short and basic descriptive piece for work about the British military presence in Afghanistan and the debate over it back in the UK. I've been using the BBC's excellent, if very sad, webpages that keep track of all the fatalities with pictures of those who have died and links to stories about them. Just tonight whilst I've been working on the piece, two more as yet unnamed soldiers have been added to that already too long list. No real point to make tonight beyond just how sad it is. And behind each one of those numbers there is a story that we should try to remember.

Conscription politics

I noticed a little news article last week, from the STT wire, which I've been meaning to write about for ages. The new commander of the Finnish defence forces, General Ari Puheloinen, stated that Finland's wartime force numbers are going to fall due to budget cuts and demographic changes. General Puheloinen mentions the magic 250,000 number. Now 250,000 men under arms sounds and huge amount, and indeed it is. But currently Finnish wartime forces are meant to be an incredible 350,000 men. If you ask Finnish military officers and senior people in the MoD what they think about this, they seem willing to say even on the record that it is a bit of a joke. Finland has a reserve military, so to get to that sort of number you would be calling up reservists in their 40s who haven't had any contact with the military for decades and its questionable what weapons there would be for them to use, even if they could remember how to use them. If there ever was a war, the real defence would be based on the air force, navy and the so-called readiness brigades of Kainuu, Pori and Karelia. These brigades would account for less than a tenth of that number but would have the best equipment, and the best trained and youngest reservists.

I've written before about how Finnish conscription isn't really about the military, they can't say it publicly but off the record there are some (but by no means all) officers and policy makers who support professionalisation and getting rid of conscription. But support for conscription remains so high in the public, and hence amongst politicians, I really don't see this happening soon. My oldest son has well over a decade before he gets called up, but there is a good chance things won't have changed much by the time he is old enough.

The General's comments are interesting because clearly the Finnish Defence Forces (FDF) know that they can't run a serious military under the current structure (one foreign military attaché described the Finnish systems as antiquated and poor, saying the FDF simply couldn't run modern combined arms operations because the airforce can do next to nothing in support of ground forces). There are three major upgrades process coming up in the next couple of decades as equipment in the air force, navy and army all becomes obsolete and MoD planners will tell anyone willing to listen about military inflation - that all weapons systems are getting more and more expensive. There appears to be no public support for more of the budget being spent on defence, so the FDF knows they need to make do with what they've got. And they seem to think that this means less men and more machines but the public and politicians feel differently.

The irony is 250,000 remains a massive amount of men, and so far they still can't get even that past the politicians. Civilian democratic control of the military is wonderful thing but if the military are the experts on this war-stuff, its worth listening to what they actually have to say on the matter.

Here's the Finnish army deployed in central Helsinki (snapped from a passing tram) they are involved in an important military activity - shaking charity collecting tins. Ho hum.

Helsinki International Air Show

A few images that I managed to snap today at the Helsinki International Air Show and Malmi airport. I don't have a telephoto lens so these were mainly taken at 55 mm and then 'zoomed in' on iPhoto. Click on them to see bigger images.

Finnish army NH-90 Transport Helicopter. A big meaty helo, but the pilot could make it dance.

The Finnish Air Force's "Midnight Hawks" fly by Malmi Airport control tower

The Midnight Hawks.

And again...

And again. The Midnight Hawks were great, but who ever picked their display music that was blasted over the P.A. should be shot - some truly godawful Nightwish.

Condensation streams off the top of a Finnish Air Force F-18 as it blast into a fast climb. The F18 pilot had far superior music taste with Green Day being played in the back ground. But then you could hardly hear it anyway over the delicious scream of the afterburners.

Finnish airforce F-18 - the whole neighbourhood knew it was in town! Large numbers of people had ear protectors on or ear plugs in. I didn't think to bring any, but having grown up under an RAF and USAF low level flight training path, my ears are pretty used to it.

Not what you normally see over Helsinki: an F18 deploys chaff (update: note from the comments: this should probably be flares not chaff) and rolls out.

A second chaff deployment. Malmi must be becoming a really lousy neighbourhood if shoulder launched ground to air missiles are deemed likely! :-)

Michael Yon in Afghanistan

Michael Yon has been doing a series of excellent dispatches showing life for the British Army in southern Afghanistan. It is a good insight into the daily reality for the Brits and Gurkhas out there, and show the kind of terrain, physical and social, they are operating in. All the pieces are interesting and his photos great, so just go to his website and have a look.

His article on the Lithuanian military cooperation with Japanese development aid was particularly interesting if you are interested in crisis management and reconstruction, but I did note the now classic handwear being sported by one Lithuanian soldier in this photo!

"Ant and Dec survive Taliban attack"

There are some headlines, such as the one above, that there is simply no way you can avoid clicking on. From Yahoo news:

"TV stars Ant and Dec came under fire while visiting Afghanistan to present a bravery award to troops, it has emerged. Ant McPartlin and Dec Donnelly were waiting to catch a military flight when the Taliban shelled Kandahar airport, it has been reported."

One wonders if it was personal? Those cheeky chappies can get a tad annoying but it seems unlikely that any Taliban commanders have ever had to sit through that many episodes of Byker Grove. On a more serious note, big-up to Ant'n'Dec for going out in the first place and for reminding perhaps not the most engaged sections of the community back home that: "It was pretty hairy - not something I'd like to experience again... It shows what our troops go through every day."

They are the very model of a modern military machine?

Your correspondent continues to practice his riding-one-handed-whilst-fishing-his-camera-out-of-his-bag skills

So yesterday I'm cycling into the office, and I'm nearly there - right in downtown Helsinki - and there sitting in the morning commuter traffic jam is an armoured personnel carrier. I grew up in a country where partly just to do with traditions, and in part due to the IRA's terrorist campaign, you never saw soldiers in uniform - let alone APC's in city traffic jams. But Finland is very different, with 82% of young men still doing conscription, you see soldiers in uniform everywhere and the military is a visible part of life. But why is an APC in the middle of town? One of the Finnish Defence Force's main training scenarios is to defend against a "strategic strike" - a swift attack designed at taking control of the centres of national power. So from time to time there are actually military exercises in the city centre. "Perhaps the APC was part of such an exercise?" I speculated.

And of course, Georgia is on everyone's mind in Finland. Originally all the prominent politicians said that the Russian operations/humanitarian intervention/acts of unwarranted aggression (delete as politically preferred) in Georgia changed nothing for Finland. So far, so Finlandised. But then Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen said, in a stunning display of common sense and stating the obvious, that of course it changes somethings, even if Finland's underlying security policy doesn't need to change. He then couldn't resist pointing out to the Swedes that they might want to have reconsider their security solutions in this new light. Finland might keep losing at the ice hockey, so they have to take the opportunity to put the boot in where they can! And now, the still pretty new to the job Foreign Minister, Alexander Stubb (who seems to have acquitted himself well through his baptism of fire as the current chair of the OSCE that gave him a leading role in the S. Ossetian cease fire negotiations) is suggesting Finland should join NATO whilst it can.

So back to armour rumbling through the streets of a European capital. Today all was revealed: the weather looked crappy so I took the bus, and there in the middle of town as I swapped to the tram was the APC - with a banner on it advertising the fact that it's war invalids' week. The soldiers are out with collecting tins, not assault rifles, in hand.

"War invalids' autumn [charity] collection"

They're not actually armed when they ask you for money

I've enquired about this in the past and found out that it is indeed what it looks likes: the state compelling some of its citizens, the conscripts, to ask money from other citizens, the citizens of Helsinki, towards the up-keep of veterans who should presumably be looked after by the state anyway, in the form of social and health services? Is this actually an odd form of indirect and voluntary extra taxation? Are the conscripts tax collectors? And does this make the Finnish army look like a credible, modern military that might make any aggressive, unfriendly neighbouring state pause for thought?

The change from your shopping could help fund our peace-enforcement training!

EUFOR Chad: this isn't going to end well

I happened to be interviewing a Finnish Ministry of Defence official this morning on a totally unconnected issue, but he mentioned in passing that the just deployed EU mission to Chad, which includes Finnish troops, requires a particularly highly trained level of soldier due to the political and cultural complexity of the situation and the very harsh operating climate. After today's terrible events it might be a start if their training covered map reading. An EUFOR jeep strayed into Sudan, got shot at, one of the two soldiers in the vehicle is now missing and a rescue/recovery party was also fired on and seem to have returned fire killing one or two Sudanese.

The speed at which the EU managed to get together the mission is best described as glacial, what they actually want to achieve in a politically contorted environment is vague at best, and as an under-secretary for UN peace-keeping said at a seminar I went to last week - the EU powers are already talking cynically about the UN being their "exit strategy" from any Chadian quagmire. The same guy said that looking from the outside, the EU seems to use up so much political energy coming to a decision internally that it has little left for dynamism internationally. You get the feeling the EU isn't taking this very seriously.

Looking cool for the counter-insurgency

Firepower and sartorial elegance!

I'm very excited to see the Times has also started to notice new fashion trends in the world of global mayhem. Good for them; I suspect that what is now happening with the Iraqi special forces troops on the streets of Baghdad will be seen in the autumn menswear collections on the catwalks of Milan and New York later this year. I'm working on my dodgy goatee, and am developing a collections of colour-coordinated leather fingerless gloves. Now I'm off to find my old skateboard knee pads and strap them round my ankles.

Notice googles on backwards - snowboarder style, ankle-worn knee pads, fag, cute little girl, and bizzarely - a meat cleaver!

Anyway - stay tuned for more on how to keep lookin' good for worldwide strife.

"I can not hear you over the sound of my own awesomness"

This slogan was rather amusingly scribbled over a photo of Blackwater security contractor, and then stuck up on the wall of a work space at a U.S. military base in Baghdad. When it comes to Blackwater and there ilk, there are all sorts of interesting and important discussions to be had about the privatization of security in an era of globalization; the renunciation by states of holding the legitimate monopoly on violence as they outsource war to commercial operations; the position of private military companies in international law; blah blah blah. But I'm not now interested in that. Rather I'm interested in ideas of sartorial elegance in the age of modern global mayhem. Last year I asked why do all wannabe terrorists need to wear leather fingerless gloves? Now we want to know - what is it about private military contractors and dodgy goatee beards?

The guy in the middle is a journo so his dodgy mustache doesn't count.

And if you are still not convinced try clicking this link, or this, or this, or this, or this, or this or this (oh, the fun you can have with Google Images!).

Anyway, I think I have made my point.