United States is in Discussions to Establish Military Bases in Finland

The United States and Finland are currently in the process of negotiating a deal that would let the US set up a military presence in the Nordic nation. 

Per Newsweek, Finnish Foreign Ministry official Mikael Antell revealed that Finland and the US are in negotiations about a Defense Cooperation Agreement that may lay the groundwork for the establishment of military infrastructure on Finnish territory. 

The prospective agreement would not cover nuclear weapons. However, Finnish officials have hinted at potentially hosting nukes. The US has nuclear weapons deployed in five NATO countries under the military alliance’s nuclear sharing program but not in any countries that joined the alliance after the end of the Cold War.

Antell stated that the potential DCA “enables troops to enter the country, stay on the ground, the pre-storage of material and possible infrastructure investments through the funds granted by the US Congress to the Pentagon.”

The US and Finland have been discussing the DCA since the fall of 2022, and the latest round of talks on the deal were held in Helsinki last week. “The agreement also defines the facilities and areas where the cooperation would be focused,” Antell remarked. “They are basically military areas and garrisons. In principle, there can be more than one, but the discussions are still open in this regard.”

Dave DeCamp of Antiwar.com noted that Finland “shares an over 800-mile border with Russia,” which increases the chances of further escalation with Russia now that there’s talks about potentially militarizing Finland. Russia plans on responding in kind by bolstering its military presence close to its border with Finland. 

The threat of escalation is very real here. Hopefully, cooler heads prevail here. A modest proposal for a geopolitical situation like this would be for Finland to stay in NATO, while the US exits this alliance altogether. Entangling alliances like NATO only heightens the risk of a nuclear conflict kicking off. 

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