NATO and the Middle East

Olli Ruohomäki (PhD) is a Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Global Security and Governance research programme of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. He is also a government official working on conflict issues in the political department of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland. His areas of expertise include terrorism, armed non-state actors, peace processes, fragile states, crisis management, development policy, and foresight.

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Klaus Korhonen is Ambassador for Policy Planning at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland. He is also Chairman of the Board of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA). He was Ambassador of Finland to NATO 2019-2023 and, after Finland’s accession to the Alliance, the first Finnish Permanent Representative 4 April – 31 August 2023. Korhonen served as Ambassador for Arms Control at the MFA 2013-2017 and he was President of the international Arms Trade Treaty 2016-2017 (ATT Third Conference of States Parties). He started working for the MFA in 1987 and has since worked in numerous positions representing Finland.

Silvia Colombo is a Researcher and Faculty Advisor in the Research Division of the NATO Defense College (NDC) in Rome. She is also Associate Fellow at the International Affairs Institute (IAI) where she previously acted as the head of the Mediterranean and Middle East Programme. Her research work focuses on contemporary politics in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, the EU and US foreign policy towards and their role in conflicts in the Middle East as well as the implications for NATO. Among her research interests there are also the relations between the EU, NATO and the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). She holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Politics from the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa and a Master’s Degree in Near and Middle Eastern Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London.

Juha Mäkelä is Chief of Information Technology Division at the Finnish Defence Research Agency (FDRA). Lieutenant Colonel (G.S.) Mäkelä specializes in the study of Middle Eastern armed forces and security policy, including issues of regional power balance and the military interests of major powers in the broader Middle East. In 2011, he worked as a visiting researcher at the al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Research (ACPSS) in Cairo, Egypt. From 2019 to 2022, he served as Finland’s defence attaché in Turkey with cross accreditations in Lebanon and Georgia. In his current role, he serves as the head of department at the Finnish Defence Research Agency. He holds the title of Dr. Mil.Sci. and earned his PhD in 2023 on the topic of the role of securocracies in the Middle East: the security elites of Egypt and Jordan after the Arab Spring from 2011 to 2021.

Susanne Dahlgren works as the director of FIME in Beirut since June 2023. She is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Helsinki and studied social anthropology in the University of Edinburgh, the London School of Economics (LSE) and Helsinki University. Her research focuses on Yemen and its social dynamics, movements and state building. She has also studied Islamic law and written on legal practice in the Middle East.

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Toni Alaranta is a Senior Research Fellow in the European Union research programme at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. Before joining FIIA in the spring of 2014, Alaranta conducted his post-doc studies at the Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara, Turkey, and at the Tallinn University in Estonia. His areas of expertise include Turkey’s domestic and foreign policies, in particular Turkey’s relations with the EU, the US and Russia, the Kurds in international relations, the Middle East in world politics, Europe-Middle East relations, the Cyprus question, strategic cultures, and political Islam.

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Iro Särkkä is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the research programme for Finnish Foreign Policy, Northern European Security and NATO. Her areas of expertise include Finnish, Nordic, and European foreign policy, NATO, French foreign and domestic policy, as well as questions of political behaviour. Recently, her research interests have included national NATO collective defense and deterrence, security in Northern Europe and the Baltic Sea area, Finnish foreign policy, as well as French foreign and security policy.

Särkkä has previously worked as a Senior Advisor of the Doctoral School for Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki, as a Researcher and Special Advisor in the Finnish Defence Forces, as a Visiting Lecturer at the National Defence University in Finland, and as a politics teacher at the University College London, UK.

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Hiski Haukkala is the Director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. He is also an Adjunct Professor of International Relations at the Faculty of Management and Business, Tampere University, Finland, and a Senior Research Associate at RAND Europe. Before joining FIIA in November 2024, he worked as a Professor of International Relations at Tampere University. Until spring 2024, Haukkala was the Secretary General and Chief of the Cabinet at the Office of the President of the Republic of Finland. Haukkala has previously held positions at the University of Turku, Tampere University, the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, as well as visiting positions at the University of Oxford, the Wilson Center in Washington D.C., the College of Europe in Natolin in Warsaw, the EU Institute of Security Studies in Paris, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London and the University of Stirling in Scotland. He is the author of numerous books and articles on EU foreign policy, Russia and international relations.

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