Finnish Soldiers in Afghanistan?

[Edward L. Hsiao]

I just came across the number of soldiers of different nations that were killed in action in Afghanistan. The information is from Wikipedia. I didn't know that Finland had sent soldiers to Afghanistan which was not many. According to Wikipedia source,two finnish soldiers were killed overseas in Afghanistan. Now I know Finland very rarely sent her soldiers overseas far away. Finland's biggest enemy if she has to go against would probably be Russia if a serious conflict would have happened near her territory. Let's hope not!

Edward L. Hsiao

[Stiltzkin]

Finnish forces have expertise in asymmetric conflicts, so they are occassionally deployed in such missions.

[Edward L. Hsiao]

What does asymmetric conflicts means?

Edward L. Hsiao

[Edward L. Hsiao]

Does anyone really know what asymmetric conflict means?

Edward L. Hsiao

[Helmut0815]

Google knows.

"Asymmetric warfare (or asymmetric engagement) is war between belligerents whose relative military power differs significantly, or whose strategy or tactics differ significantly. This is typically a war between a standing, professional army and an insurgency or resistance movement militias who often have status of unlawful combatants." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymmetric_warfare

[Arto O]

Hi,
I don´t know what year we are speaking. But could they have been members of United Nations peace keeping forces: observes for example.
cheers
Arto

[JTV]

Finnish military has been in Afghanistan since year 2002 - first as part of ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) and lately as part of Operation Resolute Support, both of which are NATO-led operations. At the moment the Finnish unit in there has only about 60 men, while it used to be larger.

Finnish military has been taking part in international operations since 1950's and the total number of operations is about 70 or so, most of which have been peacekeeping operations of United Nations, but there have also been some European Union and NATO lead operations among them. The first operation that Finland ever took part was in UN peacekeeping operation in Sinai in 1956 - 1957. Finnish contribution to these operations always been a battalion size force at most. At the moment the largest Finnish contribution is uni of about 200 men in UNIFIL in Lebanon, which is somewhat familiar place to Finns, since our blue berets have been there multiple times ever since year 1958. The third active operation of notable size at the moment is Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) in northern Iraq with Finnish unit of about 80 men.

In case anybody is wondering the units sent to these operations are combination of professional soldiers (officers and some senior NCOs) and reservists who have volunteered for this sort of operations.

Info above is based on this page of Finnish Defence Forces about Finnish participation in active international crises management operations:
https://puolustusvoimat.fi/en/web/kansa ... /frontpage

EDIT: I discovered info about Finnish losses in Afghanistan. The first loss was in year 2007 due to roadside bomb and second one in year 2011 due to patrol vehicle driving on antitank-mine.

Jarkko