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PP RUEHAG RUEHROV RUEHSL RUEHSR
DE RUEHHE #0015/01 0131622
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 131622Z JAN 10
FM AMEMBASSY HELSINKI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 5366
INFO RUCNMEM/EU MEMBER STATES COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHBS/USEU BRUSSELS PRIORITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 HELSINKI 000015 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/12/2020 
TAGS: AF FI MOPS PGOV
SUBJECT: COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH EASIER SAID THAN DONE: 
FINLAND'S CRISIS MANAGEMENT EFFORTS 
 
REF: A. HELSINKI 458 
     ¶B. HELSINKI 447 
     ¶C. HELSINKI 441 
     ¶D. HELSINKI 378 
     ¶E. HELSINKI 360 
 
Classified By: P/E Chief Scott Brandon, Reasons 1.4(b) and (d) 
 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY: The Finnish government is justly proud of 
its contributions to crisis management operations.  In the 
last decade alone it has deployed military and civilian 
personnel to the Balkans, Africa, the Middle East, and 
Afghanistan as part of missions under UN, EU, OSCE, and NATO 
auspices.  Finnish leaders from ministers down to the 
ground-level can recite the mantra of the "comprehensive 
approach" to crisis management.  Finnish soldiers and 
civilians alike recognize the need to employ military, 
diplomatic, and development tools in a coordinated manner in 
order to bring stability to areas in crisis.  The GOF has 
formalized this approach through a number of initiatives, 
including the publication of its first official comprehensive 
crisis management strategy, its first guidebook for 
harmonizing security and development policy, and the 
establishment of a center of expertise in comprehensive 
crisis management. 
 
¶2. (SBU) However, the impending removal of all Finnish 
civilians from its PRT in Afghanistan and the apparent lack 
of operational coordination between those responsible for 
development, diplomacy, and defense in Helsinki may indicate 
that Finnish practice has not caught up to theory.  GOF 
interlocutors point to bureaucratic and legal obstacles to 
interagency (and intra-agency) cooperation, as well as a lack 
of qualified volunteers for OMLT and police training missions 
in dangerous locales.  On the bright side, the GOF has 
internationally-recognized military and civilian institutions 
training personnel for crisis management operations.  These 
institutions and the USG would benefit from partnerships 
between U.S. and Finnish crisis management trainers and 
researchers.  END SUMMARY. 
 
---------------------- 
COMPREHENSIVE STRATEGY 
---------------------- 
 
¶3. (U) November 9 saw the publication of Finland's first 
official strategy for comprehensive crisis management (NOTE: 
This document is still only available in Finnish. END NOTE). 
The culmination of a year-long interagency effort led by the 
MFA, the strategy's stated goal is to enhance Finland's 
effectiveness by ensuring that all available tools, including 
military, civilian, development cooperation, and humanitarian 
assistance, are coordinated in order to achieve success. 
Finland is increasingly involved in challenging areas 
(Afghanistan, Chad, and Darfur are mentioned) in which its 
personnel are subject to hostile actions by some in the local 
population, something Finns have rarely if ever experienced 
in their long history of peacekeeping (see reftel E). 
 
¶4. (U) The strategy proposes several lines of action in order 
to improve Finland's effectiveness in crisis management. 
Firstly, Finland seeks to strengthen the EU's role as a 
crisis management actor alongside other multilateral bodies 
such as NATO, the UN, and the informal Nordic group of 
nations.  Second, it outlines a national strategy 
coordination group to be established under the leadership of 
the MFA consisting of personnel from relevant ministries 
(Defense, Foreign Affairs, Interior) supplemented with 
experts from outside government (NGOs, think tanks).  This 
group would monitor and assess crisis management operations 
throughout the cycle from warning signs of an impending 
crisis to outside intervention, conflict resolution, and 
reconstruction. 
 
¶5. (U) Lastly, the strategy recommends improvements in the 
recruitment of Finnish military and civilian personnel to 
take part in crisis management.  Finland has had difficulty 
finding sufficient volunteers for all of its positions in 
Kosovo, Chad, and Afghanistan.  With no legal mechanism to 
compel overseas service and a small standing military, around 
half of its deployed forces are reservists who need to be 
incentivized to leave their civilian careers for deployments. 
 Time spent overseas is seen by some police as harmful to 
their prospects for promotion and Finland only recruits 
police over thirty years old for its law enforcement training 
and advising positions.  Finland's shortage of female police 
officers (only around 20% of the police force is female) also 
makes it difficult to field sufficient female police trainers 
overseas. 
 
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PRINCIPAL CHALLENGES 
-------------------- 
 
¶6. (C) MFA Security Policy and Crisis Management Unit 
Director Timo Kantola, who led the interagency drafting 
effort, emphasized to us that the strategy makes it clear 
that civilian efforts are just as important as military ones, 
something which has often been lost in the media and 
political spotlight placed on Finland's overseas military 
deployments.  Finnish Defence Forces Operations Chief Major 
General Raty picked up on the same theme in a December 10 
meeting with AMB when he decried the lack of civilian experts 
at the Swedish-Finnish PRT in Afghanistan.  He returned from 
a recent visit there seeing an unmet need for more 
international civilians to mentor and support Afghan civilian 
officials, especially in the police.  Ad hoc mentorship of 
police by Finnish soldiers is not sufficient.  While the 
government constantly "talks" about a comprehensive approach, 
Raty does not see it in actual GOF decision-making. 
 
¶7. (SBU) According to Raty, Kantola, and others, Finland 
faces three main challenges in balancing its diplomacy, 
development, and defense pillars in crisis management 
operations: 
 
-- (SBU) Legal Limitations:  The separate statutes 
authorizing military and civilian participation in crisis 
management are inconsistent with one another and hinder 
cooperation in the field.  As an example of these problems 
Kantola pointed to the withdrawal of all four of its civilian 
personnel from the Swedish-Finnish PRT as of December 31 due 
to frictions regarding their chain of command and security 
standards (see also reftel C).  The laws are not flexible 
enough to allow for changing legal and political bases for 
operations, such as have occurred in Chad and Georgia, making 
it difficult for Finnish personnel to remain committed to an 
operation when it changes from UN- to EU-led, for example, 
without time-consuming additional legislative action back in 
Helsinki.  The laws also provide strict limits on the use of 
force which hinder operations in nonpermissive environments. 
Despite these shortcomings, since the laws were only passed 
in the last couple of years, the government does not yet feel 
the time is right to revisit them. 
 
-- (C) Friction between Development and Crisis Management:  A 
few weeks after the government's comprehensive crisis 
management strategy was published, the MFA published a white 
paper entitled "Development and Security in Finland's 
Development Policy".  The last page of the white paper 
contains a venn diagram in which the large oval labeled 
"development cooperation" has a smaller overlapping oval 
labeled "civilian crisis management", indicating none too 
subtly the perspective of the authors from the Department for 
Development Policy.  The explanation below the diagram notes 
that "nearly 90% of funding for civilian CM operations comes 
from Overseas Development Assistance."  The control that the 
development side of the MFA has over funding has been 
problematic given its uneasy working relationship with the 
"policy" side  of the bureaucracy.  PRT activities in 
Afghanistan, considered to be crisis management, are handled 
by the latter but development projects and aid to NGOs in 
Afghanistan by the former.  Foreign Minister Stubb (NCP) and 
Development and Trade Minister Vayrynen (Center) are from 
different generations and backgrounds.  While Stubb is a 
confirmed supporter of ISAF and our strategy in Afghanistan, 
Vayrynen has swayed from supporting the withdrawal of all 
Finnish forces from ISAF to touting the work of Finnish NGOs 
in Afghanistan (many of which receive grants from the 
development budget) (see reftel E for context of Vayrynen's 
remarks on ISAF).  Raty identified Vayrynen's skepticism 
regarding cooperation with NATO, ISAF, and even the EU as a 
significant obstacle to realizing a comprehensive approach in 
Finland's crisis management efforts. 
 
-- (SBU) Getting the Right People in the Right Place: 
Kantola repeated oft-heard concerns about finding sufficient 
volunteers to staff Finland's present level of civilian and 
military commitments.  Regarding Finland's inability to fill 
its 30 OMLT slots in Afghanistan (22 of which are vacant), 
Kantola explained that Finland was not well prepared for 
missions in which its military personnel must operate without 
their own infrastructure and with a completely different 
mindset than that of a "peacekeeper." (See reftel B for more 
on recruitment problems.) There has been a recent uptick in 
military volunteers for overseas operations, with the Defense 
Ministry reporting that applications increased from 125 in 
October to 329 in November.  Afghanistan is the "most 
desirable" destination according to the ministry.  The 
increase is attributed to an increase in salary as well as 
improved insurance coverage. 
 
 
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-------------------------------- 
SUCCESS STORIES: FINCENT AND CMC 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶8. (U) One of Finland's strengths is its training of military 
and civilian personnel.  This is conducted by two 
institutions, one military and one civilian, which have been 
joined together into a "center of expertise" in comprehensive 
crisis management since November 2008.  The Finnish Defence 
Forces International Centre (FINCENT) has a 40 year history 
of training Finnish and international military personnel, 
having originated as a UN training center and now providing 
training through NATO/PfP and EU-approved courses as well. 
Crisis Management Centre Finland (CMC), jointly-administered 
by the Interior Ministry and MFA, is the civilian half of the 
center of expertise.  600 students of 50 different 
nationalities participate in some 50 training courses per 
year at CMC.  CMC leverages its co-location with a major 
rescue services training facility in order to provide 
realistic field training exercises to complement its 
classroom instruction. 
 
¶9. (U) As a part of the informal European Group on Training 
(EGT), CMC has been a pioneer in developing standards for 
training of civilians across the EU, resulting in the 
creation of the "Certified EU Civilian Crisis Management 
Course" designed to ensure that civilians taking part in any 
EU crisis management mission have certain minimum 
competencies.  Of those trained in this "101" level course at 
CMC, two-thirds are Finns.  Besides its training activities, 
CMC also has a research and development unit which both 
collects "lessons learned" about the effectiveness of its 
training and leads the development of new curricula. 
 
------- 
COMMENT 
------- 
 
¶10. (SBU) Recent scandals regarding the poor information flow 
at the highest levels between the Defense Ministry, Foreign 
Ministry, Interior Ministry, Prime Minister's Office, and the 
President have resulted in stacks of critical editorials but 
little else (see reftel A).  As long as authority for foreign 
and security policy remains divided between the President and 
the government, further breakdowns seem likely.  While we can 
do little to improve the state of affairs at the top of the 
government, we can take advantage of willing partners at the 
operational level. 
 
¶11. (SBU) Post has visited both FINCENT and CMC and observed 
training at the latter.  These institutions are open to 
increased cooperation with U.S. partners.  In the short run, 
such cooperation could pay dividends in Afghanistan, where 
hundreds of personnel from the EU's EUPOL police training 
mission operate alongside U.S. military and civilian 
personnel.  In the long run, exchanges of faculty, students, 
and researchers involved in civilian crisis management 
training could improve both the willingness and capacity of 
the EU to operate alongside U.S. military and civilian 
elements. 
 
¶12. (SBU) Post is working to promote exchanges between the 
U.S. Institute of Peace and National Defense University in 
Washington and CMC and FINCENT in Finland and welcomes ideas 
from Washington and other EU posts with institutions focusing 
on civilian crisis management.  Finland participated in the 
S/CRS-sponsored Stability Operations Training and Education 
Workshop in October 2009 and would be receptive to proposals 
to build on the discussions there. 
BUTLER