Editing Finnish Defence Forces (section)

===Cold War===
The demobilization and regrouping of the Finnish Defence Forces were carried out in late 1944 under the supervision of the Soviet-dominated [[Allied Commission|Allied Control Commission]]. Following the [[Paris Peace Treaties, 1947|Treaty of Paris]] in 1947, which imposed restrictions on the size and equipment of the armed forces and required disbandment of the Civic Guard, Finland reorganized its defence forces. The fact that the conditions of the peace treaty did not include prohibitions on reserves or mobilization made it possible to contemplate an adequate defence establishment within the prescribed limits. The reorganization resulted in the adoption of the brigade -in place of the division- as the standard formation.<ref name="LOC">Text from PD source: US Library of Congress: ''[http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/fitoc.html A Country Study: Finland]'', Library of Congress Call Number DL1012.A74 1990.</ref>

For the first two decades after the Second World War, the Finnish Defence Forces relied largely on obsolete wartime material. Defence spending remained minimal until the early 1960s. During the peak of the [[Cold War]], the Finnish government made a conscious effort to increase defence capability. This resulted in the commissioning of several new weapons systems and the strengthening of the defence of [[Finnish Lapland]] by the establishment of new garrisons in the area. From 1968 onwards, the Finnish government adopted the doctrine of territorial defence, which requires the use of large land areas to delay and wear out a potential aggressor. The doctrine was complemented by the concept of [[total defence]] which calls for the use of all resources of society for national defence in case of a crisis. From the mid-1960s onwards, the Finnish Defence Forces also began to specifically prepare to defeat a strategic strike, the kind which the Soviet Union employed successfully to topple the government of [[Czechoslovakia]] in 1968. In an all-out confrontation between the two major blocs, Finnish objective would have been to prevent any military incursions to Finnish territory and thereby keep Finland outside the war.