COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH EASIER SAID THAN DONE:

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. -------------- HELSINKI 00000015 002 OF 003 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. HELSINKI 00000015 003 OF 003 -------------- 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