COMMENTARY: "...is Fat, Fat, and Fat."

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By Perttu Kauppinen
     
      From the perspective of the credibility of Finland's national defence, the most important issue is picking one's adversary correctly.
      Having too large an enemy carries the fatal flaw that the bigger foe can always press the shiny red button, and then we're all going to get fried.
      Credibility in this instance is not overly large, whether we have infantry landmines or not.
      Then again, what of too small an enemy? Well, in the case of the credibility of a small country's military, no opponent can be too insignificant.
     
Seen from this viewpoint, the future Chief of Defence of the Finnish Defence Forces Lt. Gen. Ari Puheloinen is a veritable military genius.
      As almost his first action after his appointment (he takes up the job in August), Puheloinen named fat as Finland's worst enemy.
      Roughly one in three of new conscripts entering military service is overweight, and the sizeable majority of the remainder are not is the sort of trim shape the 57-year-old general can boast (2,990 metres in the Cooper Test is not to be sneered at).
     
Skirmishes against the forces of flab have admittedly been part of the military doctrine of former holders of the Chief of Defence position, but the weapons used have only been traditional, in the shape of propaganda barrages.
      The fresh security policy line opens up a new generation of opportunities in the War on Lard, particularly now that the government has promised a EUR 50 million increase in the defence budget.
      By using 60% of the increment on liposuction for conscripts, Puheloinen could wipe out five or six kilos of flab from every overweight serviceman.
      If the entire sum were put to the task, the enemy could face attrition-figures of 100,000 kilos a year.
      Even in peacetime.
     
Liposuction is a better approach than traditional weapons, since the fat cells removed from the ranks do not return, no matter how many sticky doughnuts get scoffed in the garrison canteen.
      In these days of recessionary pulling together for the homeland, there would also be advantages in that the money provided for military acquisitions could stay inside Finland, and would eventually return to the State's coffers through corporate taxation on beauty clinics.
      The fat could also be refined as biofuel for the Pasi armoured personnel carriers and the tanks.
     
Further, we could harness the monies generated by RAY, the Finnish Slot Machine Association, to national defence work.
      Ray's mission, after all, is "to raise funds through gaming operations to support Finnish health and welfare organisations".
      After Puheloinen's term at the helm, the FDF could appoint to the job Pekka Puska, the head of the National Public Health Institute of Finland.
      He's even a reservist Lieutenant in the Medical Corps.
      And Martti Ahtisaari's recent Nobel would not be Finland's only Peace Prize.
     
     
Translator's Note: The somewhat strange headline has a background in a speech made in Washington in 2007 by the Minister of Defence Jyri Häkämies, concerning Finland's most important security challenges. All is revealed in the linked article.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 27.1.2009


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Häkämies speech: Difficult talk about actual issue (11.9.2007)
  Ari Puheloinen to be new Chief of Defence (22.1.2009)
  Chief of Defence-designate worried about poor physical condition of conscripts (27.1.2009)

PERTTU KAUPPINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
perttu.kauppinen@hs.fi