Sverige och Finland har en ambition att skapa en gemensam sjöstyrka, SFNTG (Swedish Finnish Naval Task Group). Länderna har historiskt mycket gemensamt men har också olika utgångspunkter för sina respektive säkerhetspolitiska lösningar. Med sjömaktens betydelse för nationerna – den nationella uppfattningen om sjömakt, jämförs ländernas förutsättningar för att i framtiden fördjupa det marina samarbetet. I uppsatsen används Alfred T Mahan, Geoffrey Till och Eric Grove som teoretisk grund för att utifrån strategiska och doktrinära nationella dokument tydliggöra avgörande skillnader i ländernas syn på sjömakt. Den svenska utgångspunkten för sjömakt är global där den finska utgångspunkten är terri­toriellt försvar med en internationell ambition. Grundstenen i den finska marinen är kamp- och försvarsvilja medan det i Sverige snarare är internationellt samarbete och nätverk. Avgörande skillnader är nödvändigtvis inte begränsande utan kan ligga till grund för ett bättre gemensamt slutresultat där olika system kompletterar varandra på ett effektivt sätt.

A decision has been made that the Swedish and the Finnish Navy will expand their cooperation by creating the “Swedish-Finnish Naval Task Group” (SFNTG). Based on Michael Codner’s theory of interoperability, this essay’s aim is to investigate if the Swedish and the Finnish currently are interoperable with each other, due to their military strategic concepts. According to Codner, similarities between the cooperating nation’s military strategic concepts are required in order to reach a high degree of interoperability. This essay will analyze and compare Sweden and Finland’s military strategic concepts, based on three categories; Global Projection, Territorial Defence and Combat Capability. The conclusion is that there are differences between the Swedish and the Finnish military strategic concepts in every category, of varying degrees. By looking at the results of this investigation, it is clear in what direction the two nations have to adapt their concepts to enable a high degree of interoperability for the future of the SFNTG.

In recent decades, Sweden's and most of Europe's defense budgets have fallen. It has created a greater need between countries for the cost-effective maintenance of defense capabilities. The Swedish Finnish Naval Task Group (SFNTG) is a part of this trend. It will be operational in 2023 and aims to jointly use the marine forces of the countries in a cost-effective way. In this case study, the cooperation in SFNTG between Swedish and Finnish combat boats is investigated. Based on the increased need for defense cooperation, different concepts for describing and applying collaborations in the short and long term have been created. In this work the term Joint Force Generation was used to analyze the different systems of the Swedish and Finnish combat boats. The term Pooling & Sharing was used to analyze cooperation in the longer term. The purpose is to explore how the political and strategic plans will work on the tactical level of cooperation. Empiricism has been gathered through interviews by officers from both countries. Literature study of reports on the meaning of cooperation have been made. The work was limited to research & development, maintenance, management and material purchases. The interviews showed that the different communicationsystems in the combat boats required extra human resources and a common communicationsystem was desirable. Conclusions are that there are shortcomings of a functioning relationship for the combat boats to meet the requirements of the year 2023. The use of each other's bases as another goal must coordinate logistics, training and warehousing to create better impact. In the longer perspective a greater political understanding must be for the importance of the joint material purchases. The major gain is in cost savings through various forms of collective research development.