NEWS ANALYSIS: Confusion over Afghanistan peacekeeper effort a typically Finnish muddle

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By Kari Huhta
     
      This could come as a disappointment, but there are no sinister plots in the strange confusion over the additional Finnish forces sent to Afghanistan, nor is there a single guilty party. The story of how Finland became the only country to bring back its reinforcements from Afghanistan before the election process was over, is nevertheless interesting and educational.
      Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre) promised in Parliament last week that the events would be examined. They can be examined right now.
     
At the outset it is clear why only Finland brought back its forces before the second round of Afghanistan’s presidential elections: only in Finland could this mess have occurred the way that it did. The one-off compiling of a fixed term crisis management force coincided with the unique structure of the Finnish Defence Forces, and the labyrinthine decision-making system of Finnish foreign and security policy.
      Most other countries send professional soldiers to Afghanistan.
      Finland sends volunteer reservists, and even the officers are in Afghanistan as volunteers.
      Making decisions on Finnish foreign policy are the President, the Prime Minister, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and the Minister of Defence; Parliament also needs to be informed.
     
The explanation that is most frequently given for the confusion is that of a break in information, and it is not without good reason. There have been many breaks in information both between ministries and government offices, and inside them as well. The most important break was between the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Ministry in September.
      When the events started to unfold in February, nobody was concerned that the forces would come home too soon. Quite the opposite was true.
      When the sending of additional forces was discussed in the Parliamentary committees of foreign affairs and defence, the MPs of the Left Alliance saw the project as a secret plot to enact a permanent increase in the forces. It seems that President Tarja Halonen suspected the same thing.
      The foreign affairs committee approved the government’s report on the forces without any worries that they would come back too early.
     
The report included the assumption that the operation wold take a total of 5-6 months, but the mandate contained in the proposal, which was approved by the President in March, was for a mandate of just 4-5 months.
      The contracts drawn up at the Army Staff were for a deployment of four months, ending at the end of October. At that time the speculation was that a possible second round of the elections would have been over by the end of September at the latest.
      According to Defence ministry officials, the offices of the President and the Prime Minister, as well as the Ministry for Foreign Affairs were informed of the contracts. Parliament’s foreign affairs committee was told on June 16th in a confidential memo that the forces’ operations in Afghanistan would end on October 25th.
     
The forces went to Afghanistan. Everyone else went on summer holiday, apparently forgetting all of the above.
      In the autumn, the Afghan elections proved chaotic, and the second round was not scheduled to be held until November 7th.
      In a Foreign Ministry report on current issues submitted to Parliament, the ministry said that the Finns would be brought back in October or November, depending on the schedule for the second round.
      At the same time, the problem posed by the termination date of the contracts was noticed at the Ministry of Defence. According to the Army Staff, not many peacekeepers would have been willing to extend their contracts, and the staff itself was not very enthusiastic about the idea.
     
Minister of Defence Jyri Häkämies (Nat. Coalition Party) told the Finnish News Agency STT in Washington on September 15th that the Finnish forces would return according to their original schedule, and said the same thing in Sweden later in the month.
      The speeches were drowned out by the flood of information, and no official information on the matter had apparently been exchanged between the offices of the different ministries. Some were up to speed, and others were not.
      The mess finally burst out at the weekend two weeks ago when the Foreign Ministry and the President thought that the forces could stay, but the Minister of Defence knew that they would not.
      When the idea that the soldiers would stay was published in Helsingin Sanomat, the Ministry of Defence confirmed for a second time that it was not possible. The information reached the Foreign Minister, but it did not yet get all the way to the President or Prime Minister.
     
What is the lesson to be learned from this? We should be positively surprised whenever information flows among Finland’s foreign policy leadership.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 31.10.2009


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Foreign Minister Stubb apologises to Finnish peacekeepers (26.10.2009)
  Finnish soldiers return from Afghanistan (29.10.2009)
  Government ponders Afghanistan confusion (28.10.2009)
  Foreign Minister Stubb apologises to Finnish peacekeepers (26.10.2009)
  Prime Minister promises clarification of confusion over Afghanistan (23.10.2009)
  Defence Forces never considered extension of Afghanistan mandate (22.10.2009)

KARI HUHTA / Helsingin Sanomat
kari.huhta@hs.fi