Permanent NATO Land Forces Staff to Arctic Finland

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Finland has decided that NATO’s Forward Land Forces (FLF) Multinational Staff Element (MNSE) will be established in Rovaniemi, in Finnish Lapland. The decision was announced by Finland’s Ministry of Defence on 16 February 2026, with Defence Minister Antti Häkkänen arguing that Rovaniemi offers the best synergies and support conditions for a permanent staff presence tied to operations in Northern Finland.

To be situated in Rovaniemi, NATO’s permanent allied command-and-control staff will support FLF Finland. It links day to day planning, exercises, reception of reinforcements, and scaling in a crisis. Finland will host the MNSE permanently, while allied troops are expected to rotate in for exercises and, if the security situation requires, for an increased presence.

“The focus of FLF Finland’s battlegroup activities will be in Northern Finland and, largely supported by Rovaniemi and Sodankylä. Considering the synergies and the ability to support the activities, Rovaniemi is the best location for a permanent FLF Staff Element in Finland,” Defence Minister Häkkänen in the Finnish ministry’s release.

MNSE Rovaniemi’s Arctic Role

Finland’s Ministry of Defence frames FLF as part of NATO’s peacetime activity. Under normal conditions, it trains and exercises with national defence forces, and it is embedded in NATO operations planning.

MNSE Rovaniemi has four core functions.

  • Make reinforcement a drilled routine
    The bottlenecks of rapid reinforcement are reception, staging, onward movement, sustainment, and command relationships in extreme terrain and weather. A permanent staff element exists to make those processes habitual.
  • Anchor FLF Finland battlegroup activity in the north
    The FLF battlegroup’s focus is Northern Finland, supported largely by Rovaniemi and Sodankylä.
  • Integrate Lapland into NATO operational planning
    FLF is part of NATO operations planning, which is the difference between symbolic presence and an executable structure.
  • Provide the scale up mechanism
    The FLF presence could be scaled up to brigade size if the security situation changes. This could be around5,000 troops, with Sweden as the framework nation and other allies contributing.

Finnish and Swedish Personnel

According to the ministry, the MNSE structure will evolve over the coming years. Häkkänen has said its peacetime strength is intended to reach the same level as the Multi Corps Land Component Command in Mikkeli, and that it “should eventually have a few dozen employees”.

Around half of the tasks will be carried out by Finnish and Swedish personnel, with the other half by other NATO countries.

The Finnish Jaeger Brigade, with units in Sodankylä and Rovaniemi, is the obvious local military backbone for Arctic land training and host nation support in Lapland. Sweden is positioned as the framework nation for FLF Finland. Reuters reported in June 2025 that Sweden would lead FLF Finland with other allies contributing, and that the first troops were expected to arrive in 2025 in the Rovaniemi and Sodankylä area.

NATO’s Northern Command Map

At the top end, NATO has been reshaping how the northern region is commanded. In December 2025, Reuters reported that NATO would place all Nordic countries under Joint Force Command Norfolk, shifting them from JFC Brunssum to Norfolk’s area of responsibility in the North Atlantic and High North.

NATO needs staff nodes where forces can arrive, train, plug into plans, and be sustained. MNSE Rovaniemi is built to be that node for Northern Finland.

NATO Command Ecosystem

Rovaniemi joins a dense European NATO command ecosystem that includes:

  • NATO Headquarters, Brussels
  • SHAPE, Mons
  • Joint Force Command Brunssum, the Netherlands
  • Joint Force Command Naples, Italy
  • Allied Air Command, Ramstein, Germany
  • Allied Land Command, Izmir, Turkey
  • Allied Maritime Command, Northwood, United Kingdom
  • Joint Support and Enabling Command (JSEC), Ulm, Germany
  • CAOC Bodø, Norway, NATO’s third Combined Air Operations Centre, inaugurated in October 2025
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