security interests, and that it has opposed Russia by challenging it through many actions. Russia has mostly abandoned the cooperation-based security thinking. Rather, it now challenges the European security system. Russia has publicly promoted its goal of a sphere-of-influence-based security regime and demonstrated the will and capacity to employ military force in prosecuting its objectives. Russia’s leadership try to avert internal disorder, and have been unable to reform the economy, which, in the short term, will suffer from energy price fluctuations and, in the long term, from different structural problems. Finland, for the sake of its security, must carefully monitor the military capabilities and aspirations of the actors that impact our immediate surroundings, in particular. The picture of war has become more complex. In order to achieve political objectives, political, economic and military pressure, forms of information and cyber warfare, combinations of all of the above and other forms of hybrid influencing, among other things, are used in a coordinated fashion on top of the constantly developing military means. Influencing can rapidly begin already in normal conditions. The goal is to instigate pressure, damage, uncertainty and instability on the target. The line between internal and external security becomes blurred and the early-warning period becomes shorter. Nuclear weapons and their role in the use of force have returned to the security policy agenda. Yet another threat is the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction as well as associated hazardous materials and know-how. New weapon technologies, especially missile defence systems and conventional precision-guided weapons, and their significance receive increasing attention in international relations. A growing number of non-state actors have emerged alongside states. The goals and modi operandi of some non-state actors pose a threat to international security or the security of individual countries and their inhabitants, Finland included. While terrorist organisations and networks are adept in changing form and in taking advantage of other cross-border crime, they are also able to utilise new technology such as IT networks and materials used in weapons of mass destruction. Extremist ideologies such as violent extremism are often their lifeblood. They breed in conditions plagued by social exclusion, unemployment and negligible prospects for the future, a fragile or failed government, the absence of a security structure which respects basic freedoms and human rights as well as violence and inequality. The history and practices of the ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) founded in Syria and Iraq are characteristic examples of this. 14