Finland applied for NATO membership on May 17, 2022 – less than three months after Russia started its war of aggression against Ukraine. The NATO countries signed the accession protocol on membership on July 5, 2022, when Finland became an observer member. Finland became a full member of NATO on April 4, 2023.

The process was controlled, but fast. The long-standing political way of talking about Finland’s NATO option became history when both the citizens and the political leadership turned in support of NATO membership in a few weeks in the spring of 2022.

At that time, Ajatuspaja Toivo and Wilfried Centre for European Studies published the collection of writings “Finland’s NATO Spring 2022”, recording the views of researchers and other experts on what membership would mean for Finland, how the process is progressing and what kind of historical change in our security policy is involved. Our publication produced new information to support political decision-making, which is our main task.

Now, two years later, we return to the NATO topic. What should Finland consider in its NATO strategy? What is essential from the point of view of Swedish or Nordic cooperation? How are the security policies of the EU and NATO interrelated, and what is happening in the Arctic region? Conscript service and, of course, Russia’s perspective are also discussed in this work.

The publication is a cross-section of the security situation, it takes part in the discussion about Finland’s role in NATO and it gives an opportunity to review and comment on the foreign and security policy reports that will be published later. Thanks to all the expert authors and thanks to Elina Riutta for her cooperation in editing the book.