Remarks

Laura Saarikoski, Moderator:
Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to this conversation between Secretary General Stoltenberg and President Stubb, organised by the Atlantic Council of Finland. Before we start, just a friendly reminder that this conversation is on the record and will be streamed live by NATO. Also the audience will have a chance to ask questions in the end.

Welcome to Helsinki also on my behalf, Mr Stoltenberg. This is your first visit to Finland since we became a NATO member state and from here you will be travelling to Stockholm. As we speak, NATO is preparing for the 75th Anniversary Summit in Washington DC. From the table there, there will be increased support for Ukraine and also the defence spending.

But let's start with Finland. Could you both please describe to us in a little bit more detail how the integration of Finland into NATO has so far gone, and what is still to be done? And President Stubb could you please elaborate how it has gone from your perspective?

Alexander Stubb, President of Finland:
Yeah, sure. I mean, first of all, warm welcome to everyone. Jens and I seem to be spending a lot of time together lately. We spent a weekend together in Madrid, we're here today, and I think next week we are in Riga, moving towards Washington DC. I think the mental shift that we probably had in Finland is a basic philosophy where previously we talked about an "independent and strong defence". It was all about Finish defence. Now we are shifting our mindset towards a strong defence as part of the Alliance. How's it going so far? I would say it's going quite well. And in many ways you could argue that we're actually joining the Alliance at an opportune time, in the sense that the command structure of the Alliance is changing. The operative structure of the Alliance is changing. And of course, us as a new member, just doubled NATO's land border with Russia. It will have some consequences then, you know, in our capacity to act and our role in NATO. So final point: I do feel that we have integrated very well, but we are humble, we are a new member state, we're moving towards our second Summit meeting, and we will do our part.

Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General:
Let me start by saying that it is a great pleasure to be here and as I said this is my first visit to Helsinki after Finland became a full-fledged member. I've been here many times but this is for me an important, almost historic, visit because it's great to be in Finland and then be visiting a NATO Ally. Alex mentioned earlier today that we met many years ago when he was Foreign Minister and I was Prime Minister of Norway. And at that time, I think none of us were able to imagine the possibility of Finland being a full member of the Alliance just not so many years later. And therefore, it's also rare to share this moment with him and to see so closely how Finland now is really not only a member of the Alliance, but a very capable, highly valued NATO Ally with the high skilled well trained, well equipped forces, the high readiness. We were briefed earlier today by the military authorities in Finland and it was extremely impressive to learn more about actually all the help that Finland is providing to this Alliance. NATO is making Finland safer but also NATO stronger and thank you so much for doing that.

Then, on the integration, I think it's important to remember--first of all I agree with Alex that things are moving well, but it's important to remember that we didn't start on zeros. It was not like Finland was just a random country out there suddenly becoming a NATO Ally. The reality is that Finland was a very close partner. So we did a lot together even before you joined the Alliance. Exercises, we worked together as close partners, Finland participated in NATO missions and operations; I met Finish troops in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and elsewhere also before you became a NATO member. So we started on a similar footing and then we are moving from there and integrating the good and successful way Finland into all NATO structures.

Alexander Stubb, President of Finland:
To add onto that, and then of course with a different type of crisis management or peacekeeping operations, I mean, our military and political leadership was wise in the 1990s already because we participated in S4 in Bosnia and K4 in Kosovo and then of course, later on, as Jens mentioned in ISAF. So we had the capacity to participate in NATO missions. And of course, I think we talked a lot about a so-called NATO option in the good old days. I think in many ways it started with the probably smartest decision of Finnish Defence in modern history in the early 1990s, when we purchased the FA18s. And that meant that we became closely integrated into the American system of defence, and we continued of course on that path, and making ourselves as NATO compatible as possible. So if a rainy day one day emerged, we were able to then seek membership immediately and would be accepted. And of course, we witnessed the fastest membership pass in the history of the Alliance, because we were ready.

Laura Saarikoski, Moderator:
And what about the Washington Summit? I mean, what are the concrete outcomes that can be expected there as far as the support for Ukraine or the defence spending? And what are the Finish priorities at the Summit?

Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General:
I can start on that and say that first of all, to say one thing about the NATO action for Finland, even though that was not a question because to be honest, I visited Finland many times before you applied, and for me it was a bit confusing this whole idea of a "NATO option". Because for our security every European country has the option to apply for NATO membership.
But the thing is that it worked. So even if I didn't understand what it was, it was a very successful concept, because it was a way to make membership a possibility, something you could address, it was in a way legal and it was a way to communicate to us and to the world, and I guess maybe also to the to the Finish broader public. That actually, yes, now Finland was out of NATO, but that could change. So I will praise those who invented that very strange message because it was a very successful concept of making it possible and easy for you then to turn around and then suddenly apply for membership. And the reality is that, you know, you applied on the 17th of May 2022, and just a couple of months later, in July, you were invited. That's an extremely quick accession process, meaning that from when you apply to all the Allies to agree to invite you, it was a few weeks. Then it took less than a year to finalise the ratification process. That's also extremely quick. Ratification takes minimum a year normally because you have to go to all the parliaments So even if there are no political problems, normally takes more than a year, and you were able to make it in less than a year.

And then we took some more months with Sweden, but even Sweden is a quick accession process. So I say this because it was a kind of understanding that this is very difficult; no it went very quickly after you applied it. And thank you all--I guess many in this audience here have been supportive or that process in different ways. And thank you because this is political courage, this is political leadership. And also Alex has been in favour of NATO for many years. So thank you, all of you, for what you have done and made this possible.

Then the question was about Washington. Well, briefly, we can't dwell into all these issues but the main issues for Washington is to ensure that we have a strong message to Ukraine about support and more robust support. Both  a stronger NATO framework for coordinating the military support and the training, and the long-term pledge for Ukraine. Then support for deterrence and defence; we have agreed very ambitious defence plans. We need to ensure that we have the capabilities, the forces, to make these plans a reality. And linked to that is also defence spending. A good thing about having Finland as a member is that you are actually spending more than 2%. And the third thing is our Asia Pacific partners will meet with the heads of state and government from Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and Australia. And that's of course also to address all the challenges that China poses to our security. And if there's anything that is clear is that security is not regional, security is global. What happens in Asia matters for Europe, and vice versa. So these are briefly the three main topics for the Summit.

Alexander Stubb, President of Finland:
Before I go to Washington, I do have to take a walk down nostalgia avenue with the NATO option thing, you could call it perhaps strategic ambiguity or strategic communication. I think it was very useful for our internal debate.

Laura Saarikoski, Moderator:
Who came up with that, can you remember?

Alexander Stubb, President of Finland:
I don't even remember, do you remember who it was? Does anyone with an institutional memory? Someone must have coined the term.

So the basic idea was that we had a group of people in Finland who believed that it was not time to join the Alliance or they were outright against it. Then you had a group of people who were in favour of it. And I think the notion of a NATO option left the door open in both directions with a short interim period, unfortunately, from 2011 to 2014, when that option was actually closed in government negotiations for reasons x,y, and z. But the external communication was more important. This was a deterrence to a certain extent, towards Russia, in many ways. And then of course, we were able to rake in on that option in 2022.

Finland and Washington. Of course, the Summit itself is about deterrence and defence, and then about Ukraine. I mean, those are the sort of three key concepts. We go into the Summit meeting with preparations coming with the Foreign Ministers last week defence ministers, next week with a very constructive approach whereby, when it comes to defence, we're looking at the possible command structure and where we find ourselves. You will know that we have expressed our preference or capacity to be in Norfolk. We have also expressed our willingness to provide the Alliance with a land component and possible future FLF (forward land forces). Having said that, I still believe that the most important outcome of NATO is linked to Ukraine. And just like the Secretary General said, it is about how the Alliance finances Ukraine, what it provides Ukraine with, and what kind of a path it gives to Ukraine towards NATO membership. Our line is very clear: the rightful place of Ukraine is in NATO. And we believe strongly that the process is irreversible. Linked to this of course, is a potential and possible NATO mission on Ukraine as well. So I think a lot of, not necessarily low hanging fruits, but a lot of possibilities that we see coming up in the next five weeks as we approach the Summit.

Laura Saarikoski, Moderator:
How do you convince the more reserved NATO Allies for an increased support for Ukraine, and this, of course, in a long run will also include the United States because regardless of who wins the election in November, the US interest in the long run will lie in China and Pacific. So how do you, sort of, keep the more reserved Allies in the group and also convince that it is in a vital US interest to care about European security?

Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General:
First of all, I'm confident that we will have all Allies on board and the reason why we'll have all Allies on board is that they realize that it's in our security interest to ensure that President Putin doesn't prevail in Ukraine. Of course, there's a war going on in Ukraine. And in wars, there are no risk-free options and there is no risk-free option for us as NATO Allies, either. But I think the biggest risk is if President Putin wins, because then the message is that when he violates international law and invades another country, then he gets what he wants, and that will actually reduce the threshold for using force again.

So, knowing that there is no risk-free option, I think the biggest risk is if he wins, then we need to prevent that from happening. Second from the beginning of this war, NATO has defined two very clear tasks. One is to support Ukraine as we do, the other is to prevent this war from escalating beyond Ukraine to become a full-fledged war between Russia and NATO. And we reconciled those two tasks which, to some extent, it's not obvious how to reconcile, by providing massive military support to Ukraine, by providing training, but not by sending troops, combat troops participating directly in the fighting. And that makes us supporters of Ukraine, but not party to the conflict. This is a war of aggression. Ukraine has the right of self-defence that's enshrined in UN Charter, we have the right to support Ukraine without becoming party to the conflict. And then we have this balancing act. Other way to prevent escalation, while we are supporting Ukraine, is by supporting Ukraine, but at the same time, we have significantly increased our military presence in eastern part of the Alliance.

So, we were very prepared when the full-fledged invasion happened on the 24th of February because we had very good intelligence saying that this is going to happen. So that morning, we convened that NATO, we made a decision to step up our support for Ukraine from NATO Allies. But we also made the decision to activate NATO's defence plans, meaning that SACEUR got more authorities to deploy more forces on top of the forces that were already deployed to the eastern part of the Alliance. We have now eight battlegroups, we have significant naval and air forces, and that's in the eastern part in the Alliance and that's to remove any room for miscalculation in Moscow, about our readiness to protect every Ally. And as long as there is no room for miscalculation in Moscow about that, that there will be no attack on a NATO Ally, and then we were able to prevent escalation from beyond Ukraine to full-fledged war between Russia and Ukraine. And this is the message for those Allies who are a bit reluctant, but I think they understand it, So I think we're in a good place.

Alexander Stubb, President of Finland:
I guess, I mean, two angles on it. The first one is linked directly to the question; can we rely on American support because it is pivoting towards the Indo Pacific and especially towards China? I would argue that precisely because they have pivoted towards China, we can rely on American support, because no matter who runs the United States in the future, in order for the US to remain a superpower, in order for the US to be able to live in this world of great power competition, especially with China, they need Allies. And a quarter of those Allies come from Europe, and roughly a quarter of those Allies are actually members of the Alliance. Whether United States withdraw in any which way or form from the Alliance or from supporting Ukraine, it would shoot itself in the foot. And in that sense, I think we can rely on American support, no matter how much rhetoric there is around the difficult situation. I had the possibility to meet American Congressmen, Senators and House Representatives from across the aisle just two weeks ago, and they were all quite confident that American support will continue. Most of them were actually dealing with appropriations or with defence.

The other one is how do we then convince the rest of the Allies? I think the starting point is quite simple. Ukraine's war in many ways is our war. They are defending the values that we defend, the values that were established in the founding treaties of the Alliance in 1949. And I've kept on saying this and I'll do it again. I think Putin has to understand that he has already lost the war - in the sense that Ukraine became European, transatlantic, and a member of the Alliance in a sense that the Transatlantic Partnership is closer than it had been since the Cold War, in the sense that the European Union has not been as united in its history as it is right now, in a sense that the icing of the cake is that Finland and Sweden became NATO members. And at the end of the day, Ukraine will become as well. What he did, established exactly the opposite of what he was trying to achieve. And I think this should be an incentive enough for us to provide the necessary finance and deterrence and help the Ukrainians to win this war on the battlefield as well.

Laura Saarikoski, Moderator:
Well, then, one more question about Russia, actually. I was covering the NATO's 50th anniversary meeting in DC in 1999. And at the time, they was actually talk about even Russia becoming maybe a NATO member one day and it feels really like a totally another world, another millennium now. How do you, what is your estimate on the future of Russia? How do you see it from the perspective of NATO and from the perspective of Finland?

Alexander Stubb, President of Finland:
I guess we should go back as far as to roughly 1954 when the Soviet Union actually wanted to become a member of NATO, but when the Brits and others were a little bit sceptical about the idea, they established the Warsaw Pact. But I think our base case on Russia is quite simple.
So, everything that we do is based on three facts whereby the first one is that when this war has ended it will take somewhere between five to ten years, even less for Russia, to hike up its military capacity to the level where it was when the war actually began.

The second base case we have is that Russian foreign policy will not change, it will still be based on a zero-sum calculation on what could be called traditional Russian imperialism, and strong scepticism towards the West, towards the international institutions and towards a rules-based world order. No matter who runs Russia now, in five, ten or twenty-five years, remember that in August, Putin will have been “de facto” in charge for 25 years and we don't see much of a change in this field.

And the third base case is that Russia will not change its aim of a total defeat, destruction of Ukraine. So, this is what we, sort of, base our overall calculation on. We're not naive about the direction in which Russia will go. I’ll just finalize this way- It is very unlikely that Russia will become a normal liberal democracy anytime in the near future. So, we're probably looking at almost a generation of a rather divided Europe.

Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General:
First of all, I share those analysis but, second, just to reflect back to 1999, and also the years preceding now, it was an historic opportunity that it was right to try to utilize. So, I was among those Nordic politicians who really believed in the idea of trying to establish a better relationship with Russia after the end of the Cold War. And at that time, it was not possible to say with certainty that that was not possible. I don't think we should regret that we made an effort to try to improve the relationship between NATO and Russia and this had broad support across the Alliance.
And, it has happened before. I mean, I often refer to the Nordic area, we used to fight each other for centuries. Big war, small wars. Now we live as the best friends. Even more so, if you look at the continental Europe, Germany, France, United Kingdom, they used to fight each other until the Second World War and now they live together in European Union, [as] the best friends.
So, of course, there is not a law by nature or written in stone that forever we need to have a bad relationship with Russia. And after the end of the Cold War there were signs pointing in the direction that this was going to change and was the right thing to do, to try in order to seize that opportunity.

Then you can discuss when should we have understood that it didn't work. You will never agree on that. But the good thing is that at least since 2014, in NATO we realized that we needed to strengthen our defences, to be able to respond to Russia. So, in those days, as of 2014 up till recently, we had this idea of a dual track approach to Russia, deterrence and defence, and dialogue.
So, we didn’t believe it was a kind of contradiction between being strong, united in NATO. We actually believe that as long as we were strong and united in NATO, we could also talk to the Russians for arms control on confidence building measures. And that was also right as long as we ensure that we have our strength in order and since 2014 we have implemented the biggest reinforcement of NATO’s collective defence in a generation, with more defence spending, more forces on high readiness.

But until the 24th of February 2022, we tried to combine that with some kind of meaningful dialogue with Russia. After the full-fledged invasion, that's not possible anymore. There's no room for a meaningful dialogue with Russia. When that could be possible again, I would not speculate, but as long as they continue to invade another country, there is no way we can have a meaningful dialogue with Russia.

So, the last thing I'll say is that the question – some will say that this has been obvious all the way. I don't agree. I was Prime Minister back in 2000. Then, President Putin was newly elected. From then, and actually until 2013 I met him quite regularly. We made progress on a very practical level, especially bilateral things Norway - Russia, on everything from fishery, energy, but also the big delimitation line in the High North. We had actually opened up for visa free travel between Northern Norway and Russia. So, these were efforts, also this is no longer in place. But I don't criticize those who believe that in 1999 it was possible to significantly improve relationship with Russia.

Alexander Stubb, President of Finland:
I agree with Jens and I think Putin’s [inaudible] has been based really on three wars. The first one was Chechnya, and I think no one really, not many, sort of, realize the significance of that to Russia and to Putin. Then the second war was, of course, Georgia. That was, for me, at least personally, the wakeup call in August 2008, where I felt that, you know, Russia had gone back to its roots and was starting to change the international order and challenged the territorial integrity and sovereignty of another state. And then the final wake up call for all of us should have been when the war actually in Ukraine began, which was, you know, 10 years ago in 2014, and then we can argue about whether we took the right measures or the wrong measures.

The big worry I have about this war is that it's too big for Russia, or for Putin to fail and I'm the last person to over rationalize the past but if you look at the revolutionary aspects of Russian society after they lose a war, the Crimean War, the Russo-Japanese war, World War One or Afghanistan, they've all led to huge societal change. And I think power in Russia right now is so centralized around Putin and his persona that a lot of people are afraid to let that go. So that's why I think to all of those people who last mid-summer, were excited about Prigozhin, you know, marching into Moscow or expecting things to change, when Putin changes I would say, please hold your horses, it could actually get worse. It will most certainly get more chaotic.

Laura Saarikoski, Moderator:
We will open up for questions very soon, but maybe a last one, then. You say that the divide might go on for another generation and we should expect for more tumultuous time from Russia. How should Finland and NATO prepare for that?

Alexander Stubb, President of Finland:
I have two base cases. One is that the kinetic or conventional warfare will continue in Ukraine. That’s strategy number one for Russia. The second one is that they will continue to test us with different types of hybrid attacks. You know, it can be linked to cyber, it can be linked to information. There are many different ways in which it can do. It can spill over to sabotage. So, there I think the key is pretty much to stay cool, calm and collected, to have a good, sort of, overall assessment what the situation is and continue to prepare.

Now, is the rhetoric that I am providing here today or Jens or we have in public discourse, too belligerent or too much based on war? I would argue that yes, there is. We also need to start talking about peace and a pathway towards peace. And of course, that's what we'll be doing in a little bit less than two weeks in Switzerland with President Zelenskyy and over 100 other countries. We need to start finding a pathway towards a ceasefire and towards peace. And then after that, a negotiation of a new type of relationship. But I think it's quite safe to say that the security structure established in Helsinki in 1975 with the OSCE doesn't exist anymore in the way in which we believed and we'll have to start trying to get a dialogue. But what I'm saying is that when the war ends, and the Russian economy tends to stay in it for a little while, but it will be so de-modernized that Russia will go back to pretty much the same situation that it was in when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. And that's the type of Russia we'll be dealing with in the future.

Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General:
I agree with the President so I think you should allow the audience to ask…

Laura Saarikoski, Moderator:
Yeah, please raise your hand and also, please introduce yourself, when asked. Gentleman in the middle here. The mic will be handed to you. Thank you.

Jarmo Lindberg, MP and former Chief of Defence of Finland:
Okay. Okay. Jarmo Lindberg, member of Parliament and former Chief of Defence. So, my question is that the Norwegian chief of Defence, General Kristoffersen just again voiced his concern that Russia could be back in one or two years. So that is his concern. And then my question is, is that because also political leaders from other nations have voiced the concern, maybe in years of three, four or five years. So, how do you see that the capability of EU to ramp up the diesel engine for defence production, as opposed to the Russian war economy that has already ramped up the production and has been able to recruit more soldiers. So, how convinced or concerned are you that Europe is able to match it with what Russia now has or after the war and also for NATO? What is the time span for NATO to activate the new command structure and make the realistic change to the new regional operational plans?

Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General:
These are actually many different questions, but they're all about whether NATO is able to defend the Allies and yes, NATO is today and it has been for 75 years able to defend all Allies. So, we should not go into the trap that NATO needs one, two, three, four, five years before we are prepared. We are prepared now. We will be prepared tomorrow and in five years time. Because we are by far the strongest military power in the world. NATO Allies, we represent 50% of the world's military capability, or military expenditure, and we have the United States as our biggest Ally.
I say that because sometimes you get the impression that it's kind of inevitable that there will be a war in two, three, four or five years. I don't believe that and the purpose of NATO is to prevent that from happening. That's the reason why we have NATO. NATO's main task is actually not to fight the war, but to prevent the war. And we have done that successfully for 75 years and will continue to do that as long as we ensure that Europe and North America stand together in NATO. But we are successful because we have been able to unite, but also because we have been able to adapt and of course when the threats are increasing when we see both Russia, so aggressive behaviour against neighbours, ramping up defence production, we also see the challenges from China, then we need to adapt and NATO is adapting. And we didn't start the adaptation now. The big change started after the annexation of Crimea in 2014. And then we build on that with the new defence plans, with the new command structure that will be agreed soon. And it will demonstrate that we are adapting NATO, all the time.

Then just lastly, let me say that we don't see any imminent threat against, any imminent military threat against, any NATO Ally now. Not least because Russia is more than occupied with the war in Ukraine. They moved forces from the vicinity of Finland but also other NATO Allies down to Ukraine. Then you can discuss how rapidly they will be able to reconstitute after the war, after the fighting stops. But even if they are able to reconstitute in one, two, three, four or five years, you can speculate about how long term they will need to do so, we will still be able to deter them as we did before the war. So, I feel it is dangerous to question, we should not at all question our own deterrence. We are strong. We are there to deter, we have done so for 75 years. We'll continue to do it for many more decades.

Alexander Stubb, President of Finland:
I agree with the Secretary General of our Alliance.

Laura Saarikoski, Moderator:
Gentlemen next.

Pekka Toveri, MP:
Hello. I'm Pekka Toveri, a member of the Finnish Parliament, ex-military too, but he outranks me. For Secretary General. We know that we have several threats to Europe, we have the Russian military threat. If it's low now it will be higher in the future, for sure. And then we have the hybrid threat. And actually, the military threat is easier to defend against, NATO has done it for 75 years successfully. But the hybrid threat is something which is much more demanding. We have an EU which is finally starting to wake up to the fact that they have a big role in the European security and defence too. How do you see what should be the EU’s role in the European defence considering that we have the two parts - the military defence and the hybrid defence and how should we coordinate, so that we don't overlap and these capabilities we are building both in NATO and EU. Thank you.

Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General:
Well I strongly believe that NATO and the European Union should work closely together. One of the things I'm quite proud of is that together with Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker, when they were in the leadership of EU not so many years ago and now also with Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel we have been able to strengthen the cooperation, the partnership between NATO and the European Union to unprecedented levels. That's very good. We should do more of that because we complement each other and we face many of the same challenges and have the same neighbourhood.

I also welcome very much the EU’s efforts on defence as long as that's about increasing defence spending. The fact that European Allies are now investing more in something NATO has been calling for, for many years. It's very good for NATO, it's good for Europe, it's also good for the European Union, and also welcome very much every effort by the European Union to try to overcome the fragmentation of the European defence industry. That's very much welcomed.
At the same time, we need to understand that EU cannot defend Europe. And this is partly about resources. 80% of NATO's defence expenditure comes from non-EU Allies. And it's not only about the United States, but also other Allies. So, 80% is outside EU. So, this is about resources. But it's also about geography. Norway and Iceland are perhaps not the biggest military powers in the world. But if we look at the map, they're very important for the transatlantic link, ensuring link over the Atlantic. In the south we have Türkiye, extremely important for all the threats we face on the southern flank, fighting terrorism, Iraq, Syria, our fight against ISIS. And then in the West, you have United States of course, you have Canada and United Kingdom. So, if you look at the map, you realize that the defence of Europe is more than EU countries.

And then most important is about politics. Because any kind of attempt to weaken the transatlantic bond will not only weaken NATO, it’ll divide Europe. So, again, I welcome EU’s efforts on defence, if they complement and underpin NATO, but not if they duplicate and weaken the idea of NATO as the defining framework for defence of Europe. And that's because NATO has to be also the bedrock for defence of Europe. And NATO has some unique responsibilities that should not be challenged. We have a command structure. That's the backbone. The reality is that there are some empty [inaudible] posts in that command structure, because Allies are not providing all the offices they should. If the EU starts to build a parallel command structure, even though it may be small in the beginning, then actually we’re weakening the NATO command structure. And there is no, we have [inaudible] command structures, we should not build competitive command structures. Defence planning, NATO and non-NATO, it’s not end of the two sets of capability targets, one from EU and one from NATO. And the most important thing perhaps is standardization. We need standardization, only one set of standards, NATO standards. So, I say this just because we should have absolutely no confusion about, that NATO has to be, and is the bedrock, kind of defining framework for defence of Europe. That they have one more thing - there are 450 million Europeans in the European Union. There are 600 million Europeans in NATO. So, EU is not the same as Europe. So, again, I'm a strong supporter of the European Union. I tried to get Norway into the European Union twice, [I] failed. So, I've campaigned more for European Union than most of you have ever done. But, EU is not there to defend, EU is there to do trade and environment and economy, all those things, but for defence we have NATO as the Alliance and now even stronger with Finland.

Laura Saarikoski, Moderator:
Do you want to comment this Mr President, or shall we?

Alexander Stubb, President of Finland:
I think my compatriots know my points on this, so…

Laura Saarikoski, Moderator:
Lady in the back, please.

Tytti Tuppurainen, MP:
Your Excellencies, my name is Tytti Tuppurainenand and I am a Member of Parliament and leader of the Social Democratic parliamentary group. Now that Finland and Sweden are finally both members in the Alliance, it certainly strengthens NATO’s Arctic footprint and Arctic posture. Given the fact that the Arctic could be even increasingly important for Russia because the Baltic Sea is becoming a sort of NATO sea, what should be the task for NATO in the Arctic? For Russia, the Kola Peninsula, the White Sea is ever more important. So how far should NATO go in the Arctic in order to secure the open sea routes? How far should we stretch to work towards the North Pacific? Thank you.

Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General:
NATO is in the Arctic. Out of the eight Arctic countries seven are members of NATO and now with Finland and Sweden, of course that’s even more obvious. So, we are there from Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland. So, we are present in the Arctic and we are investing in heavy new high-end capabilities, fighter jets, maritime patrol aircraft, submarines that can operate in the Arctic. So, we are increasing our presence and our capability to operate in the Arctic. What we see is that Russia is also increasing their presence or they have done that for many years, they’re reopening old Arctic bases. And one of the consequences of climate change is that the ice is melting. So, it's at least more accessible for ships. It has been an issue for many, many years that this North-Eastern passage also might open. It remains to be seen that it actually happens, but with more melting, it may at least be more likely that there will be more commercial shipping. So, NATO is present, NATO is ready and NATO has seven great Arctic countries as members.

Alexander Stubb, President of Finland:
I think it's an excellent question because sometimes when we talk about Finland and NATO we only look east bound. And in many ways, we have to think, convince our Allies and actually our approach is very much 360. So, we look down to the south, west and then up north as well. And I think one example of the work that we do there is that our biggest ever international military exercise took place early March, “Nordic Response 24”, where we had over 4.000 Finnish soldiers in this exercise, which is an indication of how we work together. I think it's important that we work very closely with all the Arctic NATO countries, but I want to add that there is a very strong Nordic component to this. In other words, that we know exactly what we do together with Norway and Sweden. But I think you're right to point out that from a security perspective, from a climate perspective, and perhaps even in the future, from an economic perspective, it's going to be strategically one of the most important areas for the Alliance.

Laura Saarikoski, Moderator:
Lady in the third row.

Pia Rantala-Engberg:
Thank you very much, Pia Rantala-Engberg, foreign ministry, former Finland’s NATO ambassador from 2011 to 15. Mr Secretary General so my question is related to the decision making, and we very much know that the consensus decision making is the core of the Alliance. And we also know that during the past many years, there has been discussion that in case of a crisis, decision making requires time and the time where decision making is really needed. This is one aspect of my question that is –is this debate still there? We know that, for example, SACEUR has been delegated more powers to act in times of more serious crisis. But is this discussion still there and also related to this one is then the situation where –what is a very speculative question in what would never speculate but I still do it now. In case of Syria crisis, what would happen if a member state would not be ready to agree of a concrete military action? What would happen? So at least to some extent, I have seen in some academic discussions, references made to be made on qualified majority voting, for example, for decision making.

Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General:
So first of all, NATO has proven that we are able to make decisions quickly when needed. The reality is that there are some decisions we spent years to make, but that's not the most important and critical decisions. The really critical decisions. We have demonstrated again, very quickly just hours after 9/11. We activated Article Five, when Allies came to NATO after have actually launched the Libya operation without NATO that was a non-NATO thing. Then they came to NATO and asked for help. And we, within days, we have taken over the whole Libya operation. Then, on the morning of the invasion of Ukraine. We made big decisions, including by activating our defence plans and by doing that we're handing over the authority to our military commanders to SACEUR to make decisions without having to go to the North Atlantic Council to seek consensus on every deployment, at every movement. These plans gives him significant authorities just with the aim to prevent any others as I say, slow decision making when rapid decisions are needed. So I'm absolutely confident than when needed, we are able to take the relevant decisions at the speed of relevance or as fast as necessary. Then, of course, being a Secretary General, sometimes you dream about having a majority vote to vote down the others, but then that will undermine it. And the beauty of consensus is that when you have a decision, it's very strong because then all Allies are behind. So there's always a big advantage. Maybe it takes some more time. But the advantage is at the end of the day, we have 100% percent support for all the decisions because we have made them by consensuses, ownership throughout the Alliance. So yeah, so I'm also –I'm not so concerned about that. And the last thing I would say that's I have great respect for academics, but sometimes they make things a bit difficult, to have a reason to write PhDs or –so because –the beauty of the Washington Treaty, you know, it's only 14 paragraphs. You can have a legal approach and can write PhDs about all those paragraphs but it's fundamentally a political document. It's a document where it says that we are a North Atlantic Alliance, North America and Europe. You have to invest in our defence that's, that's our Article Two is that we need to be friends and trade and so on and Article Three is that you have to invest in your own defence. Article four, I can't remember, Article Five –

Alexander Stubb, President of Finland:
Democracy and NGOs.

Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General:
Article Five is that we protect each other and that's a collective and individual responsibility. So, we will not end up in lengthy discussions about you know, consensus, will act, we –as an attack one will be regarded as an attack on all and we have an individual and collective responsibility to protect. So, again, if we ask too many questions about these things, we actually undermine the whole idea of that we defend each other.

Alexander Stubb, President of Finland:
As a former academic who wrote his PhD in international relations, I shall refrain from –

Laura Saarikoski, Moderator:
We may have time for two more, please.

Jukka Kopra:
Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. Secretary, I'm Jukka Kopra, I’m the chair of the Defence Committee of the Finnish Parliament. Now you said earlier and actually a couple of occasions before too that we are a regional Alliance, but our threats are global. And you pointed to Indo Pacific Area, since we Finns are very pragmatic people. Could you elaborate a little bit more what this means in practice?

Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General:
Well, it means in practice, first, that we are a regional Alliance that's defined in the Washington Treaty that we are –NATO is not –for Canada and United States. It's actually not for all America, it's also Canada and United States. And then for European countries, so other countries cannot become members of NATO unless we change the Washington Treaty. And there are no plans to change that. So we are a regional Alliance, North America and Europe. But then this region faces global threats. And that's actually not nothing new, terrorism is fundamentally a global threat. That brought NATO to Afghanistan and Iraq. Cyber is fundamentally global. So the regional thing is a global thing. You can have cyber attacks from wherever in the world against North America and Europe. Space is becoming more and more important for our defence. And that's really global, space. And then, of course, the war in Ukraine demonstrates how our security is interlinked with what happens in Asia. Because if you look at –what are the friends who are the friends of Russia, of Moscow that helps them to conduct this war. It's Iran, providing drones, helping Russia to set up a factory to build more of these Shahed drones. It's North Korea, the country in Asia has provided more than 1 million artillery rounds in return. Russia shares technology for their missile and nuclear programs. So it's Europe and Asia connected together in the war in Ukraine, and then of course, China. China is now really the country that is underpinning the war efforts of Russia with dual use equipment, with microelectronics, with a lot of technology which Russia is using to build the missiles, the bombs, the battle tanks. So without the enormous support from China, the economic support of trade, Russia would not have been able. So it demonstrated the war in Ukraine, demonstrates the link with Asia and they follow the war in Ukraine very close in Asia because they know that if President Putin prevails or wins there, that will increase the possibility of any use of military force in Asia, Taiwan, South China Sea. So as the Japanese Prime Minister said, what happens in Ukraine today can happen in Southeast Asia tomorrow. So therefore, we need to work with our partners. And that means, as I mentioned, the four partners in Asia Pacific, and everything from cyber, technology, how to help to develop NATO capabilities, without having Article Five and NATO extend to Asia. But working with these partners to address common global challenges.

Alexander Stubb, President of Finland:
Perhaps I can use that as a segway to say that the way in which I see this, the Alliance is regional, but its reach is global. And the reason for is quite simple. We used to live in a simple bipolar world during the Cold War. Then it shifted post-cold war to a unipolar world. And then at some stage with the emergence of the others, we witnessed the sort of post American world which became multipolar. I would now argue that we have gone beyond that and we are in what could be called a multi aligned world, where you have strategic partnerships across continents. Some of them are unholy alliances like BRICS, there's nothing that holds this letter combination together, that has to do with values it's pure interest and the interest is to undermine the West and international institutions and current order. At the same time, we in the Alliance are also building strategic alliances. That's why Japan, that's why South Korea, that's why New Zealand and Australia will be in Washington. That's why the United States has alliances or alignments in the court with Japan and India and in AUKUS with Australia and the United Kingdom. So we are in a slightly patchwork system and that's why I think it's important, though we are here to defend ourselves to remember that the reach of the Alliance is also global.

Laura Saarikoski, Moderator:
We have time for one more, gentleman in the back, please.

Kimmo Kiljunen:
There seems to be a competition among parliamentarians. I'm Kimmo Kiljunen, and I'm the chair of Foreign Affairs Committee. My colleague from defence committee asked, my duty also to ask I suppose so. We are just now actually in the parliament addressing the question about defence cooperation agreement with the United States. Major step for Finland we are following very clearly a Nordic model here because all Nordic countries do have after this process in Finland, similar type of arrangement United States, how you see these type of bilateral arrangements what we are doing, is it uncompetitive element of complementarity element on the collective defence what we are having within NATO. One basic issue in this Nordic model of DCA of yours is that Nordic countries are more or less clearly indicating as part of the DCA that the Nordic area’s nuclear free. How you address that question of nuclear free Nordic within the NATO structures.

Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General: 
First of all, the bilateral defence agreements between Finland but also the other Nordic countries with the United States is really complementing, underpinning the NATO Alliance and collective security guarantees because as I said, Article Five is about an individual responsibility to protect each other so it just fits into that message. So I welcome that. That's great. And it just shows how deep you are now integrating into NATO and with NATO Allies. That's good. On the nuclear issue. Well, Nordic countries has since NATO was founded, first, Norway and Denmark and then now, Finland and Sweden, has not asked for any deployment of any nuclear weapons and NATO Allies and NATO has not asked for it either. So that's not an issue. So again, we should or not, we should not make a problem out of something which is not the problem. There is no demand, there is no interest to expand the deployment of nuclear weapons in Europe, we have the NATO or what we call the sharing arrangements where we have US weapons deployed in Europe, but then we have European Allies, providing the forces, the planes, the logistics to make this a joint NATO nuclear deterrent, which has tried and tested structures. And there is no plans whatsoever to deploy those weapons to more countries.

Alexander Stubb, President of Finland:
The [inaudible] and I fully agree with the Secretary General, I think the question is very good, but it's important, I think mentally to separate between the DCA agreement and the nuclear issues. DCA agreement is basically hardware and there, as the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Kimmo Kiljunen said it's very much complimentary. In other words, we benefit from the fact that the United States wants to store military equipment and rotates its military staff in Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, and I think it's extremely good to –we were able to sign that agreement early on that –the parliament is currently dealing with it, on the nuclear issue, which is completely separate. It's important to keep in mind as the Secretary General said that we do not want any nuclear weapons. No one is offering us any nuclear weapons, but at the same time, NATO's deterrence is based on three pillars, forces, missiles, and the nuclear umbrella provided by the United States, my personal take is that the less we talk about nuclear, the better the deterrence.

Laura Saarikoski, Moderator:
Thank you. This concludes our conversation today arranged by the Atlantic Council of Finland. Thank you, Secretary General. Thank you, Mr. President. And thank you audience for active participation.