Northern Europe’s most pressing problem is transforming at speed to combat Russia, according to a panel of European military leaders speaking Oct. 15 at the Association of the U.S. Army’s 2025 Annual Meeting and Exposition in Washington, D.C.

“Where we sit [geographically] is really shaping our perspective. For us, it's all about Russia,” Maj. Gen. Jonny Lindfors, commander of the Swedish Army, said during a northern European seminar focused on transformation in the region. “We have pretty capable armies … [and] we have capable air forces. … We have neighbors that can operate from the Arctic, in the Baltic Sea and in all the domains.”

Two major transformation challenges have been bureaucracy and resistance to new solutions, said Maj. Gen. Peter Boysen, chief of the Royal Danish Army. “I'm fighting bureaucracy every day in order to get to speed,” he said. “Sometimes we apply yesterday's solutions to tomorrow's problems, so sometimes we are reinforcing failure instead of finding new ways to do things.”

As Russia’s war in Ukraine has continued, maintaining a sense of urgency across the force has been more challenging, said Lt. Gen. Pasi Välimäki, commander of the Finnish Army.

The war in Ukraine has lasted more than 1,300 days, he said. “It's sort of a normal thing. It's not normal. The sense of urgency needs to be [raised], and we have to adjust people, processes and products,” he said.

Though Russia has the advantage of a larger military, northern European forces are ready to outcompete Russia in other ways, Sweden’s Lindfors said.

“We will never be able to outmass Russia,” he said. “So, we need to outrange them from fires. We need to shoot longer. … We need to sense further. … We need decision support to be able to decide and act quicker than Russia.”

— Karli Nelson