Allied Corps Commanders Meet in Finland

ROVANIEMI, Finland - Commanders from across NATO’s respective army corps headquarters and land forces met here September 15-16 to discuss plans to experiment and field new technologies critical to establishing ground deterrence and providing ready land forces to the Alliance.

Hosted by LANDCOM commander U.S. Army Gen. Christopher Donahue, the Land Corps Commander’s Conference is a semi-annual event hosted by NATO’s Allied Land Command that brings together senior land forces leaders to align efforts and drive transformation into tangible land domain investments.

“LC3 brings together leaders from the land domains, special forces, and component commands to plan how we strengthen our deterrence posture, said Donahue.

The two-day event served as a platform to discuss cohering LANDCOM’s ability to support NATO’s Regional Plans through the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line.

“We convened this group in Finland, one our Alliance’s newest members, to ensure we have unified approach across the eastern flank,” said Donahue. “This is accomplished through the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line – a forward looking all-domain approach to ensure we protect every inch of alliance territory.”

Donahue explained that the concept leverages unmanned and minimally-manned systems, backed with an integrated mission command network using live data to accelerate decision-making, to complement Allied forward posture along NATO’s Eastern Flank to sense, disrupt and defeat adversaries.

The concept and related capabilities are already being tested by Allied Land Command and NATO members at exercises and demonstrations in the field, as well as upcoming simulations of large-scale operations such as the upcoming exercise Steadfast Duel in October.

September’s conference was co-hosted by the Finnish Army and its commander Lt. Gen. Pasi Välimäki at the Finnish Jaeger Brigade in Northern Finland, to provide attendees an orientation to the arctic terrain.

“LC3 provided an excellent opportunity to our allies to familiarize with operating under the conditions of the High North,” said Välimäki. “This event gave concrete additional criteria for continuing the planning of Eastern Flank Deterrence Line.”

“Finland holds NATO’s longest direct land border with Russia,” said U.K. Air Marshal Johnny Stringer, commander of NATO Allied Air Command. “Holding the conference at Rovaniemi underscores NATO’s commitment to defending its northeastern flank and adapting to the security environment in the High North and Baltic region.”

Nordic Allies also provided their perspective as NATO’s newest members.

This conference was a strong confirmation of the unity in NATO and to the fact that all Nordic countries belong to NATO now,” said Chief of the Norwegian Army Maj. Gen. Lars Lervik. “It was a great opportunity to talk about the land power and what is needed today and in the future. Also, we Nordic countries could point out how we can use our capabilities, what we can offer.”

For more information on NATO’s Allied Land Command, please visit https://lc.nato.int/.