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TOM
VANDENKENDELAERE
Is this Europe’s
nal wake-up call?
JIM TOWNSEND
A somber 75th
anniversary
celebration at
NATO’s summit
in Washington
KAARLE
WIKSTRÖM
Defence courses
keep up with the
times
ARTIS
PABRIKS
In defence of
freedom
April 2024
ISSUE no. 2
SPECIAL ISSUE ON NATO
BALTIC RIM ECONOMIES
The Centrum Balticum Foundation publishes
the Baltic Rim Economies (BRE) review
which deals with the development of
the Baltic Sea region.
In the BRE review, public and corporate
decision makers, representatives of
Academia, as well as several other experts
contribute to the discussion.
ISSN 1459-9759
Editor-in-Chief | Kari Liuhto
(responsible for writer invitations)
Technical Editor |
Sonja Lavonen
Centrum Balticum
Vanha Suurtori 7
FI-20500 TURKU, Finland
www.centrumbalticum.org/en
centrumbalticum@centrumbalticum.org
Data protection description
Centrum Balticum
3
Baltic Rim Economies4.4.2024 ISSUE # 2
www.centrumbalticum.org/en
EXPERT ARTICLES
Antti Kaikkonen 6
Finland, NATO, and the Baltic Sea security
Artis Pabriks 8
In defence of freedom
Andrei Sannikov 10
NATO’s challenge in Eastern Europe
Raimundas Karoblis 11
NATO’s collective defence in the new
security environment
Jim Townsend 12
A somber 75th anniversary celebration
at NATO’s summit in Washington
Dominik P. Jankowski 14
What priorities for the 2024 NATO Summit?
Jukka Kopra 15
Finland – Guardian of Nato´s Eastern Flank
Tom Vandenkendelaere 16
Is this Europe’s nal wake-up call?
Leonīds Kalniņš 17
Objectives and reasons for the renewal
of compulsory service in Latvia
Robert Brieger 19
EU-NATO cooperation
Vesa Virtanen 20
On changing mentality after Finland’s
NATO accession
Heinrich Brauss 21
NATO 75 – Bolstering deterrence and
defence
Nick Childs 22
NATO/EU: room for maritime manoeuvre
in the Baltic?
Kaarle Wikström 23
Defence courses keep up with the times
Alvydas Šiuparis 24
Professional military education in
the Baltic States
Asta Skaisgirytė 25
Vilnius NATO Summit: Success for
the Eastern Flank
Teija Tiilikainen 26
NATO’s role in countering hybrid threats
Meelis Oidsalu 27
Estonia’s two decades in NATO
Piritta Asunmaa 28
Deterrence and defence in the Baltic
Sea region: One year of Finnish NATO
membership
Imants Lieģis 30
From dream to reality to nightmare
Žaneta Ozoliņa 31
The presence of NATO troops in the Baltic
States
Mikkel Vedby Rasmussen 32
Hedgehogs and Foxes
Håkan A. Bengtsson 33
Sweden in NATO - the end of non-alignment
Gunilla Herolf 34
Accession in a time of challenges
Iro Särkkä 35
Finland and Sweden in NATO - Bridging
the gap between hard and soft security
in the Baltic Sea region
Kristian Søby Kristensen 36
NATO’s northern enlargement –
consequences for Denmark
Tomas Janeliūnas 37
A steely gaze, not panic: NATO‘s response
to rising anxieties
Hanna Wass & S.M. Amadae 38
Security and defense policies need dynamic
democratic support
Albert Weckman 39
The formation of security policy attitudes
in Finland
Sten Rynning 40
Will Europe return to balance of power
politics?
Tormod Heier 41
Does NATO prepare for the right war?
Trine Flockhart 42
Is NATO ready for the multi-order world?
Ludwig Decamps 43
NATO’s digital transformation: Evolution,
assessment and opportunities in the Baltic
region
Neville Bolt 45
The dilemma of strategic communications
Ben O’Loughlin 46
The role of communication in NATO’s
inuence
Claire Wardle 47
Mitigating misinformation - Baltic Rim
Flemming Splidsboel Hansen 48
The ever-increasing threat from
disinformation
Kate Hansen Bundt 49
Russian imperialism and NATO enlargement
Maria Stenroos 50
If Putin called you… Finland’s new rhetoric
a search for identity
Sarah Wiedemar 51
NATO Article 5 - Collective defense in
cyberspace
Stefan Forss 52
US and NATO nuclear policy - a Finnish
perspective
Caroline Kennedy-Pipe 54
The impact of IEDs on warfare
Zbigniew Korzeb & 55
Paweł Niedziółka
The importance of natural gas supply
security for NATO countries
Kadri Liik 56
Russia and NATO enlargement
Kari Liuhto 57
NATO accession harmful for national military
spending-GDP ratio before war in Ukraine
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Baltic Rim Economies4.4.2024 ISSUE # 2
www.centrumbalticum.org/en
We welcome you to join the audience
in Turku or to follow the event online.
See the programme and get to know the
speakers here:
Registration for the Baltic Sea Region
Forum 2024
The 16th Baltic Sea Region Forum
is organised on Monday, May 20, 2024,
at the University of Turku with the theme
The NATO 2024 and Arctic Europe.
6
Baltic Rim Economies4.4.2024 ISSUE # 2
www.centrumbalticum.org/en
ANTTI KAIKKONEN
Finland, NATO, and the Baltic Sea
security
Expert article • 3598
Changed security environment
A signicant change occurred in the security and operational
environment of Finland, the Nordic countries, and Europe
when Russia attacked Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
The war in Ukraine continues, and there are no
indications of rapid changes in the current situation. The front lines may
uctuate, but Russia poses a long-term threat to Europe. Finland has
delivered 23 defence aid shipments to Ukraine, totaling nearly two billion
euros in value.
The European Union must continue to support Ukraine and its people
for as long as necessary through political, nancial, humanitarian, military,
and diplomatic means. The EU has allocated a support package of 50
billion euros for Ukraine for the years 2024-2027, including 17 billion euros
in grant assistance and 33 billion euros in loan assistance. This support
aims to aid the country’s recovery, reconstruction, and integration into the
Union.
Ukraine needs the continued strong support of the European Union,
its member states, and the United States. If the support is not suciently
robust, the consequences will be visible on the battleeld.
The implications of the changed security situation are continuously
assessed in Finland as well. Preparedness is being strengthened according
to the comprehensive security model, requiring investment in crisis
resilience, security of supply, internal security, cyber security, countering
hybrid inuence, and securing critical infrastructure.
Finland’s national defence
In March 2024, I visited the Nordic Response exercise in Northern Finland
and Northern Norway. Sweden and the United States also participated
in the exercise. Intensive training with our allies is part of our normal
operations. Through this, we strengthen our deterrence and security.
During the exercise, Sweden’s NATO membership was also conrmed. It
was great to see rsthand how well our cooperation functions. I was also
pleased with the high motivation of our reservists and conscripts.
Finland’s national defence will continue to be the foundation of
Finland’s defence. This includes general conscription, a trained reserve,
defending the entire country, and a high national defence spirit. Finland
has up-to-date equipment and skilled defence personnel. Defence
resources have also been strengthened in recent years. In terms of maritime
defence, the Squadron 2020 project is constructing four Pohjanmaa-class
multipurpose corvettes by 2028. These vessels will be used for year-round
and long-term presence at sea in all Baltic Sea weather conditions –
including all ice conditions. The Air Force is leading the introduction of
F-35 multi-role ghters.
Maritime surveillance capabilities have been and will continue to be
strengthened. The sabotage targeting the critical infrastructure of the
Baltic Sea is a good example of the need for adequate monitoring of
underwater activities as well. This decade will also see the introduction
of a new surface-to-surface missile system, torpedoes enhancing
underwater warfare capabilities, and modernized mines. In addition to a
strong national defence capability, Finland has strengthened its security
through diverse international cooperation.
Finland becomes a Nato member state
Since 1994, Finland has participated in the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty
Organization) Partnership for Peace program and, since 2014, in the
Enhanced Partnership in line with NATO’s closest partners. From the
perspective of military cooperation, diplomatic rapprochement, and our
own national defence capability, the prerequisites for Finland’s full NATO
membership were strong.
Because of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the process of Finland’s full
NATO membership began. The Finnish government presented a report
to the parliament on the change in the security environment, and thus,
the parliament committed to Finland’s path towards NATO membership.
At the same time, Finland laid the groundwork for membership through
discussions with alliance member states to ensure support for Finland’s
membership.
Shortly after the star t of the war in Ukraine in March 2022, the President
of Finland, Sauli Niinistö, and the President of the United States, Joe Biden,
agreed to deepen Finland’s defence cooperation with the United States.
As Minister of Defence, I visited the United States a week later. I continued
negotiations on the same topic with Defence Minister Lloyd Austin at the
Pentagon. Our cooperation has deepened since then, and the parliament
will soon approve the bilateral DCA defence cooperation agreement
between our countries.
The Finnish parliament voted on Finland’s application for NATO
membership on May 16, 2022, with a vote of 188-8. Membership came
into eect on April 4, 2023.
Finland as a Nato member state
As part of NATO’s arrangements for Northern European defence both the
Baltic Sea region and the Arctic region must be considered. In its rst year
of membership, Finland has integrated into NATO structures, defence
planning, and alliance training activities. Finland is committed to the
security of the entire alliance and participates in NATO’s peacetime tasks.
These tasks also enhance Finland’s interoperability with allies. Finland
will participate in NATO’s standing mine countermeasure task in the Baltic
Sea with the Katanpää-class vessel with a maximum of 40 personnel in
April and May. Finland will also participate in air surveillance tasks in the
Black Sea in the summer with an eight-aircraft squadron and a maximum
of 100 personnel.
In the future, Finland should consider participating in NATO’s
peacetime tasks with Land Forces. Finland already has strong national land
forces. Finland and Norway are the only eastern NATO countries without
NATO Forward Land Forces. The development of the security environment
must be closely monitored, and Finland must be prepared, if necessary, to
host NATO Land Forces in peacetime conditions.
Finland’s NATO membership doubled the alliance’s border with
Russia. Russia is now targeting Finland with hybrid inuence through
instrumentalized migration. Ensuring security along the eastern border is
a shared concern of Finland, the European Union, and NATO.
The northern and Arctic regions are important focal points for Russia.
Russia has signicant military capabilities on the Kola Peninsula, and we
are likely to see further investments in the future. The military-political
signicance of the Arctic region is growing.
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Baltic Rim Economies4.4.2024 ISSUE # 2
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Expert article • 3598
Deepening cooperation in the Baltic Sea reagion
The Baltic Sea region is critical for the security of the Nordic countries.
With Sweden’s NATO membership, all Nordic countries are now NATO
members, deepening Nordic defence cooperation and strengthening
stability in Northern Europe. From a defence planning perspective and
with the growing signicance of the Arctic region, it is natural that all
Nordic countries are integrated into NATO’s Norfolk command structure.
Sweden is one of Finland’s most signicant partners. With both
countries as a NATO member, cooperation is deepening further. With
Finland and Sweden’s NATO membership, comprehensive cooperation
covering all Nordic countries within the alliance also strengthens the
position of the Nordic countries as NATO members. The trilateral defence
cooperation initiated in 2018 between Finland, Sweden, and the United
States complements the promotion of security in the Baltic Sea region.
Central to this is the development of defence policy dialogue, information
exchange, and interoperability.
The United States is the most signicant external actor in Northern
Europe. The DCA agreement between Finland and the United States is a
continuation of the previous good cooperation with the United States.
The DCA agreement between Finland and the United States provides
the framework and legal basis for regular defence cooperation between
the two countries. The agreement also creates conditions for intensifying
cooperation if the security situation requires it. The United States is an
important and close ally for Finland. Defence cooperation with the United
States enhances Finland’s defence capability.
The security environment continues to deteriorate. This requires all EU
and NATO member states to invest in defence with at least a 2% share.
It is also possible that military tensions will become more evident in
the Baltic Sea region. Russia may increase its various activities in the area.
Our cooperation with the Baltic countries and other NATO countries in the
Baltic Sea region must be seamless so that we can face the challenges of
the future.
Antti Kaikkonen
Member of Finnish parliament,
former Minister of Defence (2019-2023)
Finland
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Baltic Rim Economies4.4.2024 ISSUE # 2
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ARTIS PABRIKS
In defence of freedom
In the summer of 2022, Madrid hosted a NATO summit to discuss
the new realities in the European security environment. Already ve
months have passed since Russia initiated a full-scale invasion in
neighboring Ukraine. It was a war whose violence, crimes against
civilians, number of casualties, and number of refugees reminded of
the Second World War. The consequences of this war, whenever it will end
or expand, would have a dramatic impact on European and world security
comparable to WW2. This war is not about Ukraine only, it is about the
existing world order, Western value system, and the future of the Western
alliance, including the transatlantic alliance.
In 2022, most of the member countries of the EU and NATO Alliance
did not expect and were not prepared to face such a war in their close
proximity. Militarily, during the last decades, most Western countries
have been eciently disarming, dismantling their armies, and closing
many production lines of military equipment. Their warehouses were
left half-empty. It was broadly assumed that the main Western challenge
is international terrorism, and military engagement was expected to
be mainly expeditionary. As a result, in 2022, formerly well-trained and
armed Western armies were only a meager shadow compared to those
of the Cold War era. Western public views were focused on culture wars
and discussing the consequences of global warming but neglected
threats to their fundamental freedoms challenged by the growing Russian
totalitarian threat and rising alliance of authoritarian regimes around the
globe.
Despite the fact that territorial defense was always on our minds,
also Latvia, after joining NATO in 2004, somehow started to follow this
widespread pattern. General assumptions of Allied priorities and analysis
slowly eroded our alertness to danger as well. Compulsory military service
was abolished, and we started to rely on professional troops and voluntary
National Guard service.
Latvia intensively prepared its military for international missions. The
military budget was slowly giving in to other national needs of the country
in transition, like health, road infrastructure, education, and social aairs.
As a result, in 2010, Latvian military spending was only about 1% of GDP.
It was very dicult to argue in favor of larger military spending when
most of our allies, further to the West, simply disregarded any possibility
of military conict on European soil. Also, the nancial crisis took its toll
on military spending in NATO despite our warnings that Russia continues
to invest in its military and could potentially pose a danger to Europe. At
large, the mainstream West did not see and did not want to see Russia
as a threat despite these warnings from mainly Eastern European and
Baltic analysts, who were frequently labeled by their Western colleagues
as warmongers and troublemakers, among others, undermining lucrative
Western business with Russia.
As Wesley Clark puts it in his brilliant CSIS interview, the misreading
of Russia was huge, with disastrous consequences. The West, for years,
was concerned about Putin’s red lines, not about the Western red lines,
which were either not dened or allowed to be crossed without any
consequences, and it happened for years, encouraging Russian aggression
against neighboring countries.
The Madrid Summit of NATO was an attempt to change it. Among
other things, it envisaged additional troop stationing along the eastern
borders of the Alliance. Finland and Sweden applied to NATO seeking a
security umbrella against future threats from Russia, thus abolishing their
long-established policies. NATO declared it would support Ukraine in its
rightful defense and provide it with additional military equipment and
humanitarian aid. Later on, it became a slogan “to stand with Ukraine as
long as it takes.” Within the Alliance, as far as Baltic requests were taken
into account, promises were made to station allied troops of brigade
size in each of the three Baltic states, and there was a political promise
to defend their territories from the rst centimeter, inch, or meter. It was
a change of NATO posture, since previously it was frequently argued that
Baltic states are dicult to defend, and in the event of an unlikely Russian
invasion, some territories would be lost to invaders and to be liberated
later. In Madrid, this attitude changed, which has meant that its military
and defense planning should be adjusted accordingly.
Changes happened also in the Baltic countries, which increased their
military readiness and spending already since the 2014 Russian invasion
in Ukraine and annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. Lithuania and later
Latvia revived compulsory military service, military spending was aimed at
3% of GDP, new purchases of equipment were ordered, industry adapted
to military needs, and volunteers were joining National Guard formations.
In January 2024, defense ministers of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania agreed
to coordinate their activities and strengthen their respective borders with
Russia militarily. There were public requests by the author of these lines to
construct a modern Mannerheim Defense Line stretching from the north
of Finland to the south of Poland in order to safeguard independence from
uninvited Russian intruders.
Baltic observers were carefully analyzing the Russian invasion in
Ukraine and faced quite a bleak picture. Russians followed their historic
tradition, and just like in previous wars, they were ready to sacrice great
numbers of their soldiers in order to achieve even relatively small gains.
Russian society was under massive information control of the regime, and
there were no signs of unrest that could threaten the totalitarian rule of
the Kremlin. During the last two years, the Russian economy was put on
a military footing, while the Western economy was not. Western support
to Ukraine was decreasing due to internal quarrels in member states and
among member states, thus forcing Ukrainian troops to save ammunition
and adopt defensive strategies. Even in 2024, there is still murmuring in
some countries further to the West from the Baltics about supporting
Ukraine, but few want to admit that support is not sucient and it comes
too late. Politically, there is not yet a clear message that Ukraine must win
and Russia must lose this war; rather, reality can be described by political
strategy which does not make Ukraine lose and Russia win.
I would argue it is a defeatist strategy, a naked blindness that
encourages Moscow for new wars, challenges Western unity by eroding
trust of mutual military assistance, weakens Transatlantic unity, and
encourages authoritarian regimes across the globe to unite against
Western liberal democracies and, rst of all, against the USA.
Looking from the Baltic perspective which, if common sense would
prevail, in fact should be the Western perspective, Ukrainian victory is
crucial for the future peace and security of Europe.
At this moment, countries at the Russian border are fed with promises
that if one of NATO “houses” is put on re, others will immediately come
and extinguish it. However, currently, we are letting the arsonist run
around the village and burn another house without proper response. With
every day, this arsonist becomes more self-condent, more willing to try to
burn one more house, including a NATO member country. His target is to
challenge the status quo, restore the Russian Empire, and dismantle NATO.
Expert article • 3599
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Baltic Rim Economies4.4.2024 ISSUE # 2
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The right deterrence would be to stop him from running around with
matches now, but this is not what happens due to continuous and deep
misinterpretation of Russian policies in many capitals of our Alliance.
During the last years among the Western leadership, there were a number
of false claims that too large assistance to Ukraine would lead to escalation.
As a result, fear of escalation has led to the failure of credible deterrence,
including nuclear deterrence, since more and more observers doubt that
in the event of a Russian attack on a NATO member state, the USA would
risk a nuclear response. The outcome of doubting deterrence is obvious,
namely, the arsonist is getting closer to the Alliance. If the USA and other
nuclear allies are not willing and ready to risk nuclear war to deter Russian
invasion in the Baltics, it has to win the war against Russia in Ukraine now.
We also must calm our fear about possible internal upheaval inside Russia
which leads to another fear that if Russia perceives its war in Ukraine as
lost, it might have regime changes in Moscow and destabilize the monster.
Such a scenario is much less dangerous than Ukrainians losing the war
because we give in and appease totalitarian claims.
Due to these political inconsistencies, the Baltic states and other
countries in the region feel an increasing existential threat to their
freedom and are ready to do what it takes not to let the history of
1939/1941 repeat. Therefore, the Mannerheim Line at the Eastern border
with Russia, comprised of defense fortications, roadblocks, bunkers,
mineelds, and a number of modern 21st-century installations, should be
built in the nearest time. There is a search for deeper military cooperation
with new NATO members Finland and Sweden, as well as Poland, and in
fact with any ally ready to join the coalition of willing to defend values and
freedoms on which our countries are built. Of course, it happens along
with persistent assistance to Ukraine, which is the last bastion separating
the rest of Europe from a new war.
The alternative is not an option, and the sooner other Western
leaderships will understand it, the better. The alternative would include
not only the loss of independence for some countries bordering Russia
but also the failure of the whole Western system and their values, possible
dismantling of NATO with subsequent threats of new global wars in
Europe and the Pacic. Therefore, the arsonist must be stopped in Ukraine
if we are not willing to face re at our home.
Artis Pabriks
Dr., Director
The Northern Europe Policy Centre
Latvia
Expert article • 3599
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ANDREI SANNIKOV
NATO’s challenge in Eastern Europe
Speaking at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and
International Studies (CSIS) in February 2024, former President of
Poland Lech Walesa confessed to feeling guilty for not securing
NATO membership for Ukraine and Belarus during his tenure,
conning his eorts to Poland alone.
While Walesa’s sentiments are aspirational, they reect a poignant truth.
In the early 1990s, greater eorts by both the democratic world and
emerging democracies to foster democracy in Eastern European regions
of the former Soviet Union could have bolstered security in Europe and
globally. However, the democratic world seemed more preoccupied with
exploiting market opportunities following the USSR’s demise than with
fortifying the independence of newly emerged states.
Poland, alongside other Central and Eastern European nations, swiftly
opted to join NATO following the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the
disintegration of the so-called “socialist camp.” Their accession unfolded
from the latter half of the 1990s through the millennium years. This period
coincided with the rise of neo-totalitarianism in Belarus and Russia,
marked by the ascendancy to power of Lukashenko and subsequently
Putin. The deteriorating situation with democracy in the European
segment of the former Soviet Union proved instrumental in advancing
NATO membership for the former “socialist” states west of Belarus. This
backdrop also facilitated the NATO accession process for the Baltic states,
leveraging the looming threat from Russia, as was demonstrated by
Belarus under Lukashenko, at their borders. While serving the immediate
interests of future NATO members, this approach adversely impacted
long-term security dynamics in Europe.
Belarus, particularly under Lukashenko’s regime, was primarily viewed
not as a security threat but rather as a perpetrator of gross human rights
violations and democratic infringements. This perception persisted until
2024 when Belarus became a springboard for Russia’s full-scale assault on
Ukraine. A critical yet overlooked factor precipitating Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine was Belarus’s geopolitical signicance.
Geopolitical signicance of Belarus
Belarus occupies a pivotal position in Europe for several reasons. Its
geostrategic importance stems from two adjoining geographical regions:
the Smolensk Gate and the Suwalki Corridor. The Smolensk Gate, situated
between the Western Dvina and Dnieper rivers, serves as a vital strategic
corridor for cross-border trade between East and West, crucial not only for
Russia but also for the world’s second-largest economy, China. Historically,
the Belarusian Smolensk Gate has been the route through which the
Russian Empire repeatedly invaded Europe, a legacy perpetuated when
the Russian Federation attacked Ukraine with intentions to seize Kyiv.
Consequently, Belarus emerged as a crucial geopolitical terrain with far-
reaching implications for European security.
The Suwalki Corridor, another strategically signicant area, gained
prominence following the collapse of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact.
This corridor holds immense importance for Baltic region security as it
separates Russian ally Lukashenko’s Belarus from the Russian exclave of
Kaliningrad. Serving as the sole road and rail link between Central Europe,
Poland, and the Baltic countries, any invasion threatening this corridor
would isolate the Baltic states from continental Europe. Some experts
even dub the Suwalki corridor “NATO’s Achilles heel.” During periods
of heightened tension between Russia and the West, Belarus assumes
a pivotal geopolitical role, with its policy orientation inuencing the
potential escalation or détente in the region.
Andrei Sannikov
Chairman
European Belarus Foundation
Poland
The anticipated unforeseen war
Russia’s initiation of a bloody conict in Europe stemmed not only from the
Kremlin’s aggressive agenda but also from a series of missteps by the West,
which chronically underestimated the gravity of developments in post-
Soviet states. The West’s delayed and misjudged responses to unfolding
events granted the aggressor the strategic initiative. To safeguard
European and international security, addressing the entire network of
dictatorships under Putin’s leadership, entrenched in the former USSR
territories, is imperative. An accurate and comprehensive analysis of the
situation is vital to formulate eective strategies for dealing with the Putin
and Lukashenko regimes, especially in light of the evolving hybrid warfare.
The misjudgments made by the West proved costly, especially at
the onset of the conict, where accurate information about the invasion
coexisted with a prevailing narrative of Ukraine’s imminent fall to Russian
forces. Similar erroneous presumptions were made regarding Belarus,
despite the well-known nature of the Lukashenko regime. The reluctance
to perceive Lukashenko’s regime as a threat to international security
allowed it to become an active participant in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,
enabling Putin to exert control over Belarusian territory and escalate
military aggression against Ukraine.
Following the initial weeks of warfare, during which Ukraine endured
signicant sacrices and urgently required substantial support, the West
persisted in diplomatic negotiations with Putin and Lukashenko, urging
Ukrainians to engage in dialogue. Ukraine’s resilience thwarted Russia’s
designs and challenged the West’s assumptions, highlighting the failure to
adapt to the realities of contemporary warfare.
Challenge for NATO
The full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Kremlin aggressors unequivocally
exposed security vulnerabilities in Europe, dispelling any lingering
doubts regarding Russia’s expansionist ambitions. Eorts to establish a
robust European security framework founded on international law and
agreements with Russia proved futile. The failure to address authoritarian
regimes on the EU’s borders transformed the issue into a pressing concern
for NATO.
Ukraine’s pursuit of security guarantees highlights the crucial role of
Belarus within the broader European security framework. Put dierently,
ensuring the security of Ukraine and Europe as a whole necessitates the
renewed free and democratic Belarus.
Securing future NATO membership for both Ukraine and Belarus is
imperative to fortify Europe’s borders and uphold regional stability.
Expert article • 3600
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RAIMUNDAS KAROBLIS
NATO’s collective defence in the new
security environment
Expert article • 3601
Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has dramatically altered the
security landscape in Europe. With Putin’s imperial ambitions on
full display, a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia is no
longer unthinkable. This calls for a renewed focus on bolstering
the Alliance’s preparedness for collective defence.
As a starting point, one should recognise that one of the causes of
the ongoing war in Ukraine is Western naïveté, complacency, and political
divisions vis-a-vis Putin’s Russia. The invasion of Georgia in 2008, the
annexation of Crimea, and the aggression in Donbas should have served
as wake-up calls. Instead, even today, after two years of Russia’s endless
war crimes and atrocities, there are voices in the West calling for a show of
restraint in providing military support to Ukraine (because it could be “too
provocative”). For the Kremlin, this is a clear sign of weakness, which will
only invite further escalation.
NATO’s military preparedness for collective defence is key for
curtailing Moscow’s revisionist ambitions. Since 2014, the Alliance has
taken important steps to bolster its Eastern ank. NATO has revised its
regional defence plans and increased its presence in the Baltic states and
Poland by forward deploying allied battle groups and strengthening the
Baltic Air Policing mission. The Alliance also established the Very High
Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) to rapidly reinforce the region in case of
attack. These adjustments involved a limited number of the allied forces
yet they signalled NATO’s determination to defend every ally from day
one.
The war in Ukraine has provided a reality check for NATO by exposing
substantial shortfalls in the Allied readiness for a major conict. In
particular, the hardware and ammunition stocks in the NATO countries
turned out to be woefully inadequate, leaving Ukraine comprehensively
outgunned on the battleeld. Furthermore, the Western defence industry
was unable to keep up with the demands of a high-intensity war. After two
years of war, Russia keeps outproducing the collective West in the critical
areas of artillery munitions, missiles, and equipment despite having a
much smaller economy than that of the combined NATO.
Another element of concern for the Alliance should be the new
technics and technologies that increasingly dominate in this war. With
the help of China and others, Russia is actively integrating unmanned
systems and articial intelligence into their forces, with a transformative
impact on the battleeld. These developments may reduce or negate the
technological advantages that Western militaries held over Russia.
None of this suggests that Putin is winning. Far from it. Ukraine’s
heroic resistance has denied the Kremlin victory in its blitzkrieg attempt
of February 2022. Over the past two years, Russia’s military has suered
colossal losses in terms of men and equipment, was forced to retreat from
swathes of occupied Ukrainian territory, and the remnants of its Black
Sea eet were pushed out from Crimea. Finally, the recent accession by
Finland and Sweden to NATO is another symbol of Putin’s strategic failure
in starting the war.
Looking ahead, the collective West should intensify its work on both
tracks: assisting Ukraine’s military resistance and preparing itself for
collective defence. Putin’s geopolitical folly should not be underestimated.
Ever an opportunist, he will be looking to exploit the West’s weaknesses
and divisions. Therefore, NATO’s readiness for a full-scale war is also the
most eective way to prevent it from happening.
In this context, the action plan for the NATO allies seems pretty
straightforward.
• Increase defence spending. Resources are critical for developing
defensive capabilities. Unfortunately, there are allies still spending
below NATO’s minimal 2 percent target.
• Enlarge the pool of forces capable of high-intensity warfare. The war
in Ukraine has shown that numbers matter, particularly when the
frontline extends over thousands of kilometers.
• Address short-notice aggression scenarios. NATO should invest in
the forward defence of the most vulnerable regions rather than rely
on arriving reinforcements. Indeed, another lesson from Ukraine is
that holding prepared defensive lines is considerably less costly than
recapturing territory.
• Strengthen the defence industry. In the new security environment,
revamping the European defence industry is the highest priority task.
This is a natural area for the European Union to take the lead.
• Invest in air defence. With Russia increasingly reliant on missiles
and drones in Ukraine and continuously ramping up its production
capacity, bolstering NATO’s air defence capabilities should be another
immediate priority.
With Putin’s Russia on the revisionist path, the likelihood of a direct
military confrontation with NATO has increased, particularly in the mid-
term perspective. Avoiding this worst-case scenario calls for a considerable
boost of military assistance to Ukraine and a clear focus on ramping up
NATO’s collective defence capabilities.
Raimundas Karoblis
EU ambassador to Tajikistan,
Former Minister of Defence of Lithuania
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JIM TOWNSEND
A somber 75th anniversary
celebration at NATO’s summit in
Washington
All eyes will be on Washington DC on July 9th 2024 as the now
32 member NATO alliance will come together to celebrate
NATO’s 75th anniversary. As alliances go, this 75th anniversary
is remarkable in that rarely do alliances stay together, if not
enlarge, once the threat that pulled them together dissipates.
As the Cold War ended and NATO decided to remain together despite the
dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, it wasn’t a sure thing that NATO would
remain around for its 75th anniversary. But it survived and is on track to
celebrate a 100th anniversary as well.
Like the 50th anniversary, the summit will take place during a time of
conict in Europe. The 50th anniversary, also celebrated in Washington,
witnessed war in the Balkans as NATO launched an air campaign to stop
ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. However, the conict for the 75th anniversary
takes place on a much larger scale both in terms of violence and
geopolitical impact. Russian President Putin’s second invasion of Ukraine
has sparked the worst ghting in Europe since World War II. While not a
combatant like in Kosovo, NATO and the allies themselves have rushed to
the support of Ukraine. Ukraine is not in NATO but allies agree that Ukraine
has the right to defend its sovereignty and the rules-based international
order developed by the West after World War II needs to be protected.
Towards that end, billions in assistance both military and economic have
poured into Ukraine.
The war in Ukraine makes this summit, while a celebration, a very
somber one. A successful summit will send a message to many audiences.
The most important audience is Ukraine, and the message must be one of
strong, long-term support by NATO for the people of Ukraine, no matter
how dark the day may be. The second audience is President Putin, who
must see in the summit a unied NATO both now and into the future.
Any assumption Putin has made that he should be patient and wait for
the West to succumb to fatigue must be dispelled and replaced with
the understanding that support for Ukraine by the West is steadfast no
matter the political rhetoric sometimes heard coming from NATO capitals.
Another audience is the American people, who should see what a critical
role NATO plays in their national security and how American security rests
in the success of Ukraine’s ght against Russia. And nally, Beijing has an
audience of one for the summit. If President Xi concludes from a failed
summit that the West is in decline and the US is overstretched, he may
take risks in the Indo-Pacic based on a misreading of US resolve. There is
much riding on the success of this summit and the right message reaching
a multitude of audiences who will be watching closely.
This summit will occur just days before the Republican national
convention, which will anoint the Republican challenger to run against
Joe Biden for President. At this writing, that challenger will likely be former
President Donald Trump. The former President has been quite vocal about
his disregard for NATO, about some of the allies in it, and has questioned
whether NATO is still relevant. Former Trump aides have said that he
seriously considered withdrawing the US from NATO during his term in
oce. The summit in Washington will make an attractive target for Trump
as he stirs up his core supporters against “globalists” and especially against
allies who he sees as taking advantage of the US. He will demand more
loudly that European allies “pay up” what he wrongly assumes are dues
owed to NATO. The alliance will need to have a strong public presence and
media dominance to overshadow US political rhetoric coming from the
hotly contested presidential race. This is not a US summit…it is a NATO
summit, showcasing the Alliance, not US presidential candidates. NATO
needs to strive to keep the summit above US politics and focused instead
on the seriousness of the climate of war in Europe and the threat to the
alliance, including the US, of an emboldened and aggressive Vladimir
Putin.
While NATO may have its own ideas for what the agenda will be, the
issue of Ukraine membership in NATO will attract the most attention.
The alliance has agonized over this issue beginning in 2008 with the
contentious Bucharest summit where the most the alliance could agree
on was stating that Georgia and Ukraine will be in NATO, but could not
agree to a timetable. NATO and allied nations have worked closely with
Ukraine since then to help it overcome obstacles to membership, such as
corruption, and to modernize its military forces. As Ukraine progressed
towards NATO and EU membership and the idea of membership grew
more popular among the Ukrainian people, Putin became concerned
that Russia would lose inuence in Kiev. His two invasions of Ukraine were
meant to x that problem. The urgency of protecting Ukraine under the
NATO ag grew; but giving Ukraine membership before they were ready
and while they were at war with Russia made it hard to reach consensus
on forward movement towards membership. As the battleground in
Ukraine shifts in the coming months, what to do about membership and
extending alliance protection over Ukraine will become acute. NATO will
need to have a credible plan about NATO membership at the Washington
summit that gives condence to Ukraine that membership is at hand,
while warning Moscow that NATO is not walking away.
For Americans watching the summit, especially the political class,
there will be expectations that NATO will announce signicant increases
in defense spending by NATO nations. Burdensharing has always been
the top complaint from the US for many years and from all political
parties and administrations. Donald Trump raised the US complaint
to a new level, xing the perception in the public mind that Allies were
taking advantage of the US, even going so far as saying the US should
not protect allies who do not “pay up” and that he did not care what may
happen to those allies who are in arrears. Obviously ignorant about the
detail of the burdensharing issue, he nonetheless continues to spread the
false impression that Allies are free-riders. The data says something else in
Expert article • 3602
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terms of the number of Allies reaching the 2% of GDP defense spending
goal this year and expectations for the years to come. An aggressive
President Putin can be thanked for the increases in defense spending, not
Donald Trump, but however funding is being put into military coers, the
summit needs to highlight that Allies will buy the equipment and troop
readiness to fulll what NATO planners say they need to ll out the new
regional defense plans. Ensuring the defense plans are not hollow due to
Allies not contributing their fair share of well-equipped forces must be the
top priority for NATO and a message received loud and clear by Americans
during the summit.
Finally, after a torturous year of waiting, the summit will welcome
Sweden into NATO. This is no small matter. With Sweden joining Finland
in NATO, the Nordic/Baltic area - NATO’s northern ank - is solidly in the
Alliance. A geopolitical and military disaster for Putin, this is but one
example of the negative consequences resulting from his brutal invasion
of Ukraine. Sweden will bring a top class military to NATO, as well as skilled
diplomats, civil servants and military ocials to help NATO deal with
the challenges that are piling up in the North Atlantic Council. Swedish
submarines will patrol the Baltic, its Gripen ghters will patrol the skies
and its land forces will take their place along the ramparts on the Baltic
frontier. Equally important are Swedish defense industries that will churn
out weaponry to help rell European arsenals.
Thanks to President Putin, the Russian military planners now have a
problem. The critical Russian Northern eet area in the Kola Peninsula,
home to Russia’s SLBM submarines, surface combatants and strategic air
forces now has two new NATO neighbors. The famous Russian bastion
will come under pressure as the two formerly non-aligned nations that
in the past Russian planners could assume would stay out of any regional
conict are no longer sitting on the sidelines, but now have completed a
defensive NATO wall against Russian aggression in the High North.
NATO’s 75th anniversary will be like no other anniversary. Not since
World War II have the nations of Europe faced the possibility of a broader
war breaking out in Europe. The United States faces a challenge as well:
will the US commitment to NATO and to European defense remain solid
and fulll the promises made since 1949 to stand with its allies in a time
of war? Or will the US commitment prove to be hollow, undermined by
fractious political division and isolationism at home? The answer will
come in November when US voters will be faced with two competing
visions of America’s future. Only one of those visions will include a strong
transatlantic alliance, and that vision was forcefully outlined in President
Biden’s State of the Union address in March. It is that vision that will give
NATO a 100th anniversary to celebrate:
“In January 1941, Franklin Roosevelt came to this chamber to speak to
the nation. And he said, ‘I address you at a moment unprecedented in the
history of the Union’. Hitler was on the march. War was raging in Europe.
President Roosevelt’s purpose was to wake up Congress and alert the
American people that this was no ordinary time. Freedom and democracy
were under assault in the world.
Tonight, I come to the same chamber to address the nation. Now it’s
we who face an unprecedented moment in the history of the Union. And,
yes, my purpose tonight is to wake up the Congress and alert the American
people that this is no ordinary moment either. Not since President Lincoln
and the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault at
home as they are today. What makes our moment rare is that freedom and
democracy are under attack at — both at home and overseas at the very
same time.
Overseas, Putin of Russia is on the march, invading Ukraine and sowing
chaos throughout Europe and beyond. If anybody in this room thinks
Putin will stop at Ukraine, I assure you: He will not…America is a founding
member of NATO, the military alliance of democratic nations created after
World War Two prevent — to prevent war and keep the peace. And today,
we’ve made NATO stronger than ever…If the United States walks away,
it will put Ukraine at risk. Europe is at risk. The free world will be at risk,
emboldening others to do what they wish to do us harm. My message to
President Putin, who I’ve known for a long time, is simple: We will not walk
away. We will not bow down. I will not bow down.”
Expert article • 3602
Jim Townsend
Adjunct Senior Fellow
Center for a New American Security (CNAS)
Washington D.C., USA
US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense
for European and NATO Policy (2009-2017)
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DOMINIK P. JANKOWSKI
What priorities for the 2024 NATO
Summit?
Expert article • 3603
In 2024, NATO entered its seventy-fth year as an organization
committed to safeguarding transatlantic security, freedom, and
democracy. Yet, the 2024 NATO Summit in Washington, D.C., will be far
more than just a celebratory event. In 2024, NATO will have to prove it
has successfully embarked on the biggest adaptation since the end of
the Cold War. The Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) will play a crucial role
in this process, as NATO’s political and military centre of gravity has been
shifting towards the Eastern Flank.
There are three main objectives for CEE in the context of the upcoming
2024 NATO Summit. First, bringing Ukraine closer to NATO. In fact,
Ukraine’s membership in the Alliance is the cheapest and most credible
deterrence option against Russia. As James Goldgeier notes, “without
NATO membership for Ukraine, the Russian threat against the country will
continue, as will the need for the West to respond to Moscow’s aggression.
The only way to take care of that threat over the long term is to bring
Ukraine into NATO and deter a future Russian invasion.” Moreover, CEE
Allies should promote practical long-term military projects with Ukraine.
These projects should enhance sustainability of NATO’s support to Ukraine,
boost Ukraine’s interoperability with NATO and oer the Alliance unique
insights into Ukraine’s methods of ghting Russia. In this context, CEE
Allies should lead the process of both enhancing NATO’s coordination role
with regards to military support to Ukraine as well as establishing a NATO-
Ukraine Joint Analysis, Training, and Education Centre (JATEC) in Poland.
In fact, JATEC will become the rst ever NATO-Ukraine military structure,
with a goal of applying lessons that the Ukrainian military is learning in
operations against Russian forces to NATO defence plans and training.
Second, continue to enhance NATO’s deterrence and defence posture,
including by increasing defence spending and procuring new military
equipment. Indeed, it requires years of sustained eort to rebuild forces
that in many instances had become quite hollow. The substantial increases
underway allow CEE Allies to pursue three equally important objectives:
to rebuild forces at the right level of readiness and military eectiveness;
to address capability shortfalls in domains that had been neglected and
focus on rebuilding industrial capacity; and to better prepare for the future
by developing the next generation of equipment and enablers as well as
ensuring that NATO stays competitive in new domains of operations such
as space or cyberspace.
Third, help NATO to be ready for a long-term strategic competition
with Russia and China. To achieve this goal, CEE Allies should continue
to invest in national and collective resilience, which are an essential basis
for credible deterrence and defence and the eective fullment of the
Alliance’s core tasks. CEE Allies should lead by example by developing
national resilience goals and implementation plans, which will help to
identify and mitigate strategic vulnerabilities and dependencies, including
with respect to critical infrastructure, supply chains and energy systems. A
lack of appropriate urgency in bolstering collective resilience in Europe will
imperil the Alliance’s ability to eectively address the looming threats. At
the same time, CEE Allies should actively engage in the works of the civil-
military Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA)
and the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF) to boost their technological edge.
DIANA will work directly with top entrepreneurs, from early-stage start-
ups to more mature companies, to solve critical problems in defence and
security through deep technologies. NIF is a EUR 1 billion venture capital
fund which will provide strategic investments in start-ups developing
dual-use technologies. NIF will have three strategic objectives: seek out
cutting-edge technological solutions that solve the Alliance’s defence
and security challenges; bolster deep-tech innovation ecosystems across
the Alliance; and support the commercial success of its deep-tech start-
up portfolio. The recent decisions to establish the NIF Regional Oce in
Warsaw as well as to launch the Krakow DIANA Accelerator conrm that
CEE Allies have an important role to play in NATO’s technological eorts. In
fact, both DIANA and NIF can have a transformative eect on the CEE civil-
military technological ecosystem as they provide the right framework to
prepare for technological strategic competition. In this broader resilience-
technology context, the CEE Allies should lead the discussion on economic
deterrence in NATO. Indeed, it would be appropriate for NATO to develop
its own economic deterrence agenda to be agreed as part of the 2024
NATO Summit deliverables.
Dominik P. Jankowski
Deputy Permanent Representative
Permanent Delegation of the Republic of
Poland to NATO
Brussels, Belgium
The author writes in a personal capacity.
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JUKKA KOPRA
Finland – Guardian of Nato´s Eastern
Flank
Expert article • 3604
Finland punches above its weight in the alliance
Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine in February 2022 had
an immediate eect on the Finnish foreign and security policy.
President Sauli Niinistö stated this very clearly: The masks have
been taken o, showing only the cold face of war.
Views on Nato membership changed very quickly in Finland.
According to dierent polls, 80 % of Finns support Nato membership. The
change has been drastic: before Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine,
approximately 20-25 % of Finns were supporting the membership.
Finland is happy to be in the Alliance, and the Alliance should be happy
to have us. Why? Because Finland is a serious military player. We have
general conscription, and the wartime strength of the Finnish Defense
Forces is 280 000 soldiers. Total size of the reserve is approximately 900
000 soldiers. Nato members pledge to spend 2 percent of GDP on defense,
and Finland reaches this goal and is committed to maintaining this 2 %
level in the coming years.
Finland has the largest artillery capability in Western Europe along
with Poland (over 1 500 artillery pieces). We also have long range
precision-guided weapons for all services. Besides the Army, our Air Force
and Navy are very capable. In December 2021, Finland decided to buy 64
F-35 ghters to replace our aging Hornet Fleet. Our Navy is acquiring 4
multipurpose corvettes by the end of this decade.
It goes without saying that credible defense requires strong will
to defend the nation – Ukraine has once again demonstrated what this
means. The polls show that over 80 percent of Finns are ready to militarily
defend the nation, should we face an armed aggression. This is the highest
number in Western Europe.
Finland intends to be a Nato member, who continues to invest in a
strong national defense capability and brings signicant added value
to alliance’s collective defense. Our accession to Nato strengthens the
security and stability of the Baltic Sea region and Northern Europe.
Not just the military but the whole Finnish society is well prepared for
any crisis. This is based on the concept of comprehensive security, which
is the cooperation model, where vital societal functions are handled
together by authorities, businesses, NGOs and citizens. The aim is that
during whichever type of crisis, the entirety of Finnish Society can rapidly
mobilize resources where needed, recover quickly, and adapt its functions.
Ukraine ghts for all of us
Supporting Ukraine in their ght is a common goal of the democratic
world. Finland has given 1,8 billion euros worth of military assistance to
Ukraine, and there is a very strong political will to continue this support,
no party in the Finnish parliament opposes this policy line.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has succeeded in uniting the
democratic world to a degree not seen in decades, but its response to
the war continues to be hampered by excessive fear of provoking Putin.
Moscow is openly preparing for a long war and Western leaders have so
far failed to convince Putin that he has no hope of success in Ukraine. Until
this changes, the war is likely to continue. The reluctance to declare that
Ukrainian victory is the ultimate objective of Western policy is striking. This
encourages Moscow to draw out the war and leaves room for dubious
“peace” negotiations or other compromises with the Kremlin.
Ramping up defence material production
In the early 1990s Nato countries capitalized on the so-called peace
dividend. They cut defense budgets in the belief that a major land war
on the continent was no longer plausible. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
ended that illusion. Now, governments across Europe have committed
to signicantly increasing military spending to prepare themselves to
a prolonged, high-intensity conict. The results so far are raising the
questions of whether Europe will be ready for future security challenges.
The war in Ukraine show that industrial warfare is back. So called
experts around the West were certain that Russia’s small economy could
not endure a drawn-out conict. Russia would run out of missiles, and
then it would run out of shells, and then eventually everything else.
Recent information reveals us, that Russia can produce more than ever
ammunition, missiles and other material.
GDP in unadjusted dollar terms matters for nothing when it comes to
making war, because artillery shells are made of steel, not paper money.
Thus, having the steel industry and factories but no money counts for
quite a lot, while having money but no steel industry and no artillery
factories counts for little. For example, US, the world’s largest economy
is nearly out of conventional ammunition to send to Ukraine. Same goes
with European nations: we haven’t been able to full our promises to
Ukraine. Is this is really the best that Europe can do?
Many US administrations have complained that the burden-sharing
is not fair when it comes to defense spending among allies. They have a
point. European Nato allies must show that they are taking defense issues
seriously, and thus weakening the argument that Europeans are free
riders when it comes defense spending. Positive steps have already been
taken and Sweden is the 19th country in the Alliance reaching the 2 %
GDP level. EU has many initiatives and projects which try to boost defense
materiel production, and especially the production of 155 mm shells. But
more needs to be done, and quicker. It is our moral obligation towards
Ukraine to guarantee that they are successful in their legitimate and just
war against Moscow.
Jukka Kopra
MP, Chairman of the Defense Committee
Parliament of Finland
Finland
Jukka.Kopra@parliament.
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TOM VANDENKENDELAERE
Is this Europe’s nal wake-up call?
Our history of European integration in the eld of security and
defense is marked by slow but steady progress with crises
serving as impulses to move forward with smaller and bigger
steps.
In recent years, Europe has realized that we are far too
dependent on others and far too unable to stand on our own feet. Russia’s
annexation of Crimea back in 2014 served as a strong wake-up call. As did
Trump’s ‘America rst’ policy and the overnight retreat from Kabul.
Decision-making processes were initiated in the EU and NATO
to demonstrate a growing awareness of threatening geopolitical
developments. These security challenges have led to new commitments
and strategies. The still young EU Strategic Compass and the updated
NATO Strategic Concept created necessary momentum to substantially
strengthen political support for more and better European security and
defense policy.
Unfortunately, however, it took a full-scale invasion in Ukraine in 2022
to really change the rules of the game. It made threats in Europe much
stronger and the impact on our society much more tangible. The ensuing
energy crisis putting the supply and aordability of energy at peril, and
energy infrastructure at risk after the attacks on Nordstream, but also
the global impact on food security for example were felt by citizens and
business alike.
Under this persistent external pressure, the political will for much
stronger integration in the eld of security and defense policy has never
been so eective, as evidenced by debates and decisions at the level of
European leaders. At the same time, the challenges are enormous and
constantly increasing in a way that urges us to drastically strengthen our
security and defense policy by making European decision-making more
exible in this eld, in the rst place on the basis of a contemporary, more
dynamic and result-oriented understanding of national sovereignty in
defense matters - if major challenges are common, then the way to tackle
them must be common too. We just need to look at the alarming rise of
hybrid warfare, new technological developments in the military eld,
years of neglect of our own defense industry, budgetary problems in the
eld of defense, fragmentation of defense capabilities with disturbing and
even irresponsible overlaps and gaps between Member States.
Political will is a crucial factor, but maintaining unity even more so.
Also, this has been an ongoing challenge. Add to this the acceleration of
political decision-making, so that policy becomes much more operational
on the ground. The EU Strategic Compass distinguishes itself by
formulating ambitious but achievable objectives with concrete initiatives,
measures and timelines. Above all, it has the full support of all EU heads
of state and government. This is a basic strategy that we must continue to
support actively. It is now all about timely and decisive implementation
as much as continuous updating and further elaboration, as with the
recently presented European Defense Industry Strategy.
One of the pillars of the strategy is strengthening our partnerships,
primarily with NATO. We need more, wider and deeper EU-NATO
cooperation which has already shown reciprocal added value - think of
the EU-NATO task force on the resilience of critical infrastructure, which
14 recommendations are now being implemented. But we also need
to strengthen our own EU defense that is complementary to NATO’s
ambitions. My conviction is clear: the policy choice is not ‘either EU or
NATO’, but a strong EU for a strong NATO and vice versa. The expansion of
T o m
Vandenkendelaere
Member of the European Parliament,
Chair of the Delegation for relations with
the NATO Parliamentary Assembly
NATO with Finland and Sweden is historical and a good thing for Europe.
Let us hope this also is a trigger to denitively change discussions in
European member states about the future of NATO and our budgetary
contributions to it.
Of course we also need to take a look at transatlantic security relations.
In the US, Ukraine fatigue is growing in public opinion. This trend is also
becoming visible in Europe, but less so for the time being. With the
recently concluded €50 billion support package for Ukraine, Europe
is showing that it is not giving up on Ukraine in the years to come. But
the American conviction that Europe has beneted too much from them
for too long and still takes insucient responsibility towards Ukraine
and other security challenges in general, is - alas but understandably
- a deep-rooted one that is shared across the congress aisle. A possible
Trump comeback risks severely jeopardising trust between the US and its
European partners, precisely on the basis of that deep-rooted conviction.
In the light of Russia’s war of aggression, it is evident that we must
substantially upgrade our common security and defense policy. It is not yet
clear how this architecture will look like in the end, but in all scenarios two
principles will turn out to be nothing less than imperative: (1) the EU has to
urgently and adequately continue to invest in reducing its dependencies
from third countries in all strategic areas, and in reinforcing its resilience
in its multiple relevant aspects, and (2) NATO has to continue to play a key
role in meeting the security needs of the EU, with the EU-NATO partnership
continuously being updated and upgraded accordingly.
Expert article • 3605
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LEONĪDS KALNIŅŠ
Objectives and reasons for the
renewal of compulsory service
in Latvia
The rather long discussion which perhaps previously had
remained largely unnoticed in the public – since exchange of
views took place mainly on the platform between political
parties and military experts mostly representing the leadership
of the National Armed forces, in 2022 resulted in a decision
being made by the Parliament of Latvia – to restore compulsory service.
What were the main reasons for the restoration of compulsory
service? To begin with, a signicant driving force was consistent increase
in Russia’s aggression, which was clearly manifested by Russia’s full-scale
brutal attack on Ukraine on 24 February 2022. Next, the sharp increase of
Latvia’s defense capabilities required a much larger number of personnel.
In addition, a signicant reason was the modernization of the system
of reserve soldiers, considering them as an essential aspect of combat
readiness and an integral part of the comprehensive national defense
system.
Obviously, there are some other secondary reasons, such as the
considerable number of vacancies in the National Armed Forces for whose
it has not been possible to draft enough soldiers for ve-year contract.
Besides, the unsatisfactory volume of recruitment in Latvia is aected by
the poor demographic situation, strong competition between other state
bodies – especially between the Ministry of the Interior and the National
Armed Forces. Also, private sector is highly competitive oering much
higher salary than the military service is even able to do, and much greater
freedom and exibility – allowing to employees achieve better work-life
balance.
A broad discussion was on the cost of setting up the conscript
service and the provision of human resources. There was an opinion that
the new type of service could be created without providing additional
funds but then, as a result, the analysis showed that signicant nancial
and personnel resources would be needed for the conscript service to
be rationally implemented, able to function optimally and not to lose
society support. Thus, it was necessary drastically increase the number
of junior ocers and noncommission ocers. So that they would not
be removed from professional units for, conscript service needs. Lack of
the infrastructure for this task required a reorientation of priorities in the
construction plan. The increase in funding is related to the creation of
new structures for the management of conscript service, the contracting
of medical institutions for the selection process and the provision of
social contributions. The measures mentioned above also phased the
implementation of the conscript service with a set number of four-year
intervals. According to the idea, Latvia plans to reach the optimal number
of conscripts to 4000 in 2028. To what extent it will succeed depends on the
potential recruitment volume taking into the consideration demographic
impact, available resources, and society support.
In order not to raise negative associations with the previously abolished
mandatory service that existed until 2007, new term – State Defense Service
– was developed. Moreover, the new type of service was created from “0”.
Thus, a radically new approach was achieved with minimized exceptions,
for instance, health restrictions and non-acceptance of criminal records,
simultaneously oering a fair and comprehensive motivational package
to encourage youth to apply voluntary for the new Service. Meanwhile,
a wide range of options including a variety of choices was established for
the citizens who might choose one of them, as follows:
• Serving 11 months in the Regular Forces, for instance, Mechanized
Infantry Brigade, Air Force, Navy etc.
• Applying for ve-year’s service in the territorial units of National
Guard that determine at least 28 days a year active participation in
military training and exercises.
• Completing an ocer’s training course during studies at a university.
As the reader of this article might guess, a great emphasis in the
new type of military service is placed exactly on the voluntary principle.
For instance, if a citizen applies voluntarily for the service, he receives
compensation 600 EUR a month – twice as much as a conscript who
will be recruited by the system and will be paid 300 EUR. However, if
not enough young people have volunteered, the missing quantity shall
be lled by organizing a random selection from the general population
register. Male citizens (women can apply voluntarily) between the ages of
18 to 27 are subject to compulsory service. Taking into the consideration
information mentioned above, the rst two conscriptions have been fully
based on the application of the voluntary principle. Meanwhile, the third
conscription falls short of meeting the required number of soldiers on a
voluntary basis, enlisting only 330 out of 480 needed. To address this, a
randomized selection process was implemented, utilizing a specialized
computer program to choose conscripts from the citizen register. This
poses a new challenge: devising a strategy to prevent potential divisions
between volunteer and non-volunteer conscripts in the future.
To determine the optimal length of the new type of service, from the
perspective of National Armed Forces it was of utmost importance to
balance two aspects – desire of the armed forces and desire of youth:
1. Making mandatory service to young people as attractive as possible,
because the desire of the armed forces is to obtain a certain number
of soldiers for a certain period – as long as possible.
2. The desire of young people that is to lose as little time as possible
from their lives while fullling their mandatory duty to the country.
Expert article • 3606
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As a result, the duration of the service was set 11 months. This time
includes basic training and specialty training that is four and a half
up to ve months. The rest of the time is service in the unit - in exact
military specialty and participation in various collective exercises. After
completing boot camp, a conscript if he has joined to the State Defense
Service voluntarily, in principle, receives equivalent compensation as a
professional soldier and is provided with identical conditions, daily routine,
and must meet the same requirements. The only dierence is the length of
service – professional soldier has a ve-year contract, while conscript has
to serve 11 months. In addition, it must be recognized that conscripts in
the units full positions and perform such specialties, the value of whose
is not prohibitively expensive, and which will not require investing a lot of
time and nancial resources in terms of renewing the personnel.
To conclude, it is important to highlight that by introducing (not
renewing but creating a new type) compulsory military service in the
defense system, Latvia has not changed the concept of National Defense.
The structure of the National Armed Forces will not be radically changed
moving from a professional armed force to a mandatory service/reserve
army structure. Still, it will be based on the regular forces with the
dominance of the professional component. The compulsory service will
be an auxiliary part of the armed forces and by the regulation; the number
will not exceed more than 30% of the regular unit’s composition. When
conscript soldiers complete the 11 months service, they will be included
in the reserve units, thereby providing a high-readiness reserve in the
defense system.
Expert article • 3606
Leonīds Kalniņš
LTG, Chief of Defence of Latvia
Latvia
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ROBERT BRIEGER
EU-NATO cooperation
The EU-NATO cooperation in the new world order is of paramount
importance given the evolving geopolitical landscape and
security challenges facing the international community. Both,
EU and NATO share common interests in promoting peace,
stability, security, and prosperity in Europe and beyond. In the
face of emerging threats such as cyber-attacks, terrorism, hybrid warfare,
conventional threats and geopolitical tensions, collaboration between
the both organizations has become increasingly vital in order to show our
strength together towards other geopolitical actors.
However, what does an honest inventory look like? And, how can we
synergistically foster the development of the EU within NATO? In any case
the war in Ukraine, which has entered its third year, really brought EU and
NATO closer together!
One of the dogmas we have to take for granted is that EU and NATO
are and remain inherently dierent, in nature. There are good and solid
reasons for that, not least the conditions and intentions that were behind
their establishment. When NATO is a clear military and defence alliance
the EU is rst and for most a political and economic institution. Only since
20 years the EU became a credible actor in the security architecture. Many,
though, say that this has caused an unnecessary rivalry, when they deal
with the same or similar matters. Truth is that both organizations can
support each other, especially since many Allies and Member States have
started to develop a common threat perception.
However, the EU should appear more complementary to NATO, but at
the same time it should clearly express its own interests. There is a need
for EU strategic autonomy in defence, where Europeans should address
military capability gaps within the EU and in NATO. It is important to avoid
duplication and to seek for synergy. With the many force requirements
both in EU and in NATO context, we need to allocate the single set of
forces in a smart way and show exibility.
To set accents, Europe must reinforce the European component
of NATO, primarily through EU structures. Strengthening the already-
launched European Defence Fund (EDF), Permanent Structured
Cooperation (PESCO) and the Coordinated Annual Review on Defence
(CARD) initiatives. Backing the European Sovereignty Fund is necessary,
given their potential to boost Europe’s armament industry and make the
EU able to provide for itself.
The EU has a crucial role to play in enabling defence investment and
encouraging EU Member States to cooperate more in defence research,
development and procurement. Something that NATO would also benet
from. The EU is especially well placed to deal with those security issues
that do not need a conventional military element – for instance relating
to regulations or economic sanctions. NATO’s Strategic Concept and the
EU’s Strategic Compass talk about strengthening EU-NATO partnership.
However, the Strategic Compass emphasizes cooperation with NATO
more than the other way around.
Robert Brieger
General, Chairman of the European Union
Military Committee (CEUMC)
Brussels, Belgium
Looking at it from a political and strategic angle, the EU should be the
framework for dening political and strategic interests of the European
nations. EU-NATO cooperation is then a mechanism for implementing
common interests. We therefore have to clearly dene what we want and
see how we can best implement it.
In summary, it can therefore be stated that EU-NATO cooperation
serves as a cornerstone of regional and global security architecture,
fostering stability, resilience, and eective response to emerging threats.
Strengthening this core partnership is essential for addressing the
multifaceted challenges of the 21st century.
Expert article • 3607
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VESA VIRTANEN
On changing mentality after
Finland’s NATO accession
Expert article • 3608
The nalization of the Finnish NATO accession was symbolically
celebrated with ag raising ceremonies in key NATO
headquarters and Finnish military installations on 4 April 2023.
This day ended a long era of neutrality and what in the post-
Cold War years evolved into a policy of military non-alignment.
Despite the approach of not relying on foreign assistance in national
security, Finland has decades of experience in international defence co-
operation. Starting from the 1950s, various peacekeeping operations
have familiarized us with working side-by-side with other nations. In
the 1990s, the scope broadened further when Finland joined the NATO
Partnership for Peace programme and actively took part in international
crisis management as well as in multinational exercises. Worth noting is
also the long-lasting systematic policy of procuring interoperable western
military equipment.
All the aforementioned means that nearly the whole Finnish active-
duty military cadre have served their whole career in an environment
where international co-operation in various forms has been the norm.
Thus, NATO membership can be seen more as a continuum of leaning
westwards that has long been ongoing.
Prior to the NATO membership, the Finnish military ethos has strongly
emphasized the national defence of our own borders and doing this solely
with our own resources. Partner nation assistance has been regarded as
an add on that has been prepared for, but not relied on in any way. This
sets the foundation of what Finland brings to the Alliance – a solid and
comprehensive defence plan that is based on existing capabilities and
well trained, suciently resourced and mainly reserve-based troops. As
NATO Article 3 requires, Finland has through the years maintained an
independent capacity to resist an armed attack.
Finland’s accession to NATO sets a requirement for a new mindset for
Finnish military thinking. We are no longer preparing to ght alone, but
together with our Allies. Finland’s eastern border stands for approximately
half of NATO’s border with Russia. Thus, it is undoubtedly also in the interest
of all the allied countries that Finland concentrates rst and foremost on
the defence of its own territory. Simultaneously, there is a need to ensure
our capability, willingness and commitment to defend the whole Alliance
in accordance with NATO’s 360-degree approach to security.
On a larger scale, the Finnish NATO accession can be described as plug-
and-play. The message heard from the NATO military leadership has been
“come as you are” all the way. We are irrefutably interoperable with NATO.
Underneath this surface, there are naturally countless bigger and smaller
adjustments to be made. Some of these are more urgent actions, but
mostly it is a question of long-term development. The guiding principle to
determine all necessary changes has been and will be to proceed within
the limits of the carrying capacity of our organization. The current security
environment does not entail jeopardizing force readiness. Any risk of
overwhelming changes has to be mitigated to constantly ensure our
ability to regulate our posture according to need and, if necessary, ght
here and now.
The shorter-term changes of joining the Alliance are more of a technical
nature. The harmonization of operational plans, as well as ensuring proper
command and control capabilities are examples of functions that started
immediately after the membership application. These were actually
already nished to a large extent, or at least in good progress, when the
accession was nalized.
There are a number of legislative adjustments that have been initiated
to ensure our ability to participate in the deterrence and defence of the
Alliance. These include, among others, revising the Finnish Defence Forces’
tasks, as well as clarifying the legal framework for receiving and sending
out units, capabilities and personnel.
In the longer term, there are several lines of eorts to work on. The
NATO Defence Planning Process sets requirements on member nations
that have to be considered in the mid- and longer-term development of
capabilities. Assigning personnel into NATO command structure positions
is vital on one hand to fulll our obligations, but also to build a broader
understanding within our personnel of working in the Alliance. The
estimated amount of 100+ ocers and NCOs will temporarily stretch our
resources, but in the long run serving in various NATO structures will be an
integral part of the career paths for people in uniform.
Finland’s NATO accession does not require a total defence reform. The
foundations for defending Finnish territory according to NATO Article 3
are in place. There is a strong commitment to ensure our ability to also
fulll Article 5 requirements. Step by step, we will gather experience and
develop our interoperability accordingly. The further integration should
not be looked at as a project, but rather a process. We are NATO and we are
stronger together!
Vesa Virtanen
Lieutenant General
Chief of Defence Command Finland
Finland
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HEINRICH BRAUSS
NATO 75 – Bolstering deterrence and
defence
Expert article • 3609
On 4 April 2024, NATO will commemorate its 75th anniversary.
It will not be a happy celebration. Times are tough. Russia’s
war against Ukraine and President Putin’s revisionist
objectives have smashed the European security order.
Ukraine is ghting for its existence. Russia is “the most
signicant and direct threat to Allies’ security and to peace and stability
in the Euro-Atlantic area” (NATO Strategic Concept). NATO Allies therefore
face two concurrent major challenges: maintaining substantial military
support for Ukraine so that she can hold out and eventually prevail; and
signicantly strengthening NATO’s own deterrence and defence posture
against Russia.
NATO embodies the unique security partnership between North
America and Europe. Over 75 years, it has experienced several strategic
eras: the Cold War; after its end, focusing on international crisis
management; opening to new members from Central Eastern Europe and
partnership with Russia and Ukraine; and since Russia’s 2014 invasion of
Crimea and the war in the Donbas, rebuilding deterrence and defence.
Deterrence happens in the mind of the adversary. If considering an
attack, the Russian leadership in its risk analysis must always come to the
conclusion that it either cannot win, that military success would at least
be doubtful and the likely costs would be higher than the desired gains
and, in extremis, i.e., in the event nuclear weapons are used, an attack
could result in an unacceptably high damage for Russia itself. If NATO’s
deterrence succeeds, war will be prevented, thus, attempts at coercion in
a crisis be thwarted and Allies’ freedom of action preserved.
To this end, NATO’s Deterrence and Defence Posture must provide a
broad spectrum of conventional forces and nuclear capabilities that oer
NATO a variety of options for deterring Russia from aggression. In doing
so, NATO leaves it uncertain, which option would be selected in which
scenario. Russia should not be able to calculate and possibly control the
risk associated with a threat of force. Yet, it should conclude at any time
that an attack, wherever and however launched, would immediately be
encountered by NATO as a whole, including the U.S. – for Russia cannot
prevail against the American potential, and confrontation with the U.S.
carries the risk of nuclear escalation and thus, in the worst case, Russia’s
self-destruction. For this reason, the U.S. is present in Europe with strong
armed forces and nuclear weapons, and all European Allies enjoy the
protection of America’s extended nuclear deterrence.
NATO’s focus would obviously be on the ability and will to repel a
possible aggression through collective defence with conventional forces
and to end any war as quickly as possible. One example: NATO’s “enhanced
Forward Presence” of multinational battlegroups in the Baltic states and
Poland, i.e., the most exposed region, reinforcing the national defence
forces, signals to Moscow that even a limited incursion would immediately
lead to war with NATO in its entirety, as 20 nations are providing troops,
including the U.S. However, given Putin’s imperialist goals, his brutal war
against a neighbour and the war crimes committed by his army, “enhanced
Forward Presence” is no longer sucient. It must evolve into “enhanced
Forward Defence”. The battlegroups must therefore be able to grow into
armoured brigades, divisions and army corps within a short period of time.
For example, Germany will permanently station a combat brigade of some
5,000 troops in Lithuania, once the required infrastructure has been built.
Also, NATO must gain the ability rapidly to reinforce Allies located
along NATO’s entire eastern ank. To this end, it is building up 300,000
forces at high or very high readiness. Yet, there is still a long way to go,
as many Allies have signicantly reduced their armed forces over the
past 25 years, constantly underfunded and restructured them for crisis
management missions with light, multinational contingents. Today, they
once again need large, mechanised units with state-of-the-art equipment
and technology for large-scale defence operations. All Allies spending at
least two percent of their GDP on defence and meeting NATO’s capability
targets as quickly as possible will also strengthen the credibility of NATO’s
deterrence and defence posture.
In this context, Finland’s and Sweden’s accession to NATO is a strategic
win-win. During the Cold War, NATO consisted of 12 nations, today
there are 32. The Alliance is getting bigger and stronger. Both new Allies
contribute signicantly to the Alliance’s deterrence and defence with
modern forces and military capabilities. The entire Nordic-Baltic area,
including the Baltic Sea, is now a coherent major region virtually under
NATO control. Finland’s and Sweden’s accession is further proof of NATO’s
credibility, value, and trustworthiness as the world’s largest and strongest
politico-military alliance.
Heinrich Brauss
Lieutenant General (retd),
NATO Assistant Secretary General for
Defence Policy and Planning (2013-2018),
Senior Associate Fellow
German Council on Foreign Relations
Berlin, Germany
brauss@af.dgap.org
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NICK CHILDS
NATO/EU: room for maritime
manoeuvre in the Baltic?
Expert article • 3610
On Monday 11 March Sweden’s ag was raised for the rst time
at NATO headquarters in Brussels following the country’s
accession four days earlier as the Alliance’s 32nd member
state. Coming on the heels of Finland’s accession in April
2023, the development makes it even more tempting to
describe the Baltic Sea now as a ‘NATO lake’. But the character of the Baltic
as a maritime domain and the potential threats to maritime security in
the region mean it remains more complicated than that. In fact, the latest
developments may help clear the way to greater co-operation between
NATO and the European Union on security challenges in these waters.
Nobody’s lake
With the new accessions, all the Baltic rim and Nordic states (except
Russia) are now NATO members, while all but Norway belong to the EU.
What is more, most are engaged in programmes to enhance their naval
capabilities. Sweden aims to grow its navy with a new generation of larger
and more capable surface warships and new submarines. So too, to a
lesser extent, does Finland. Poland has an ambitious naval development
programme including sophisticated new frigates. And Germany’s navy
should also see its capabilities boosted under its 2035+ eet plan, while
the Baltic states are taking steps to bolster their coastal anti-ship missile
batteries.
All this increases the strategic headaches for Russia and the pressure
on its positions in the Kaliningrad exclave and around St Petersburg. Its
Baltic Sea Fleet, which for a long time has been less than imposing in a
conventional sense, looks even more exposed now.
However, Moscow still has formidable oensive capabilities invested
in Kaliningrad, as well as the ability to pose severe unconventional threats
in the murky waters of the Baltic Sea with its criss-cross of shipping routes
and undersea cables and pipelines. In addition, the incidents with the
Nord Stream pipelines in September 2022 shone a glaring spotlight on
the West’s decits in being able to counter threats to such infrastructure.
Exactly who was behind these incidents remains shrouded in uncertainty.
But Moscow’s investments in the capabilities of seabed warfare are well
known.
A NATO/EU opportunity
Hence the hesitation of many still in using the term ‘NATO lake’. Moreover,
while the NATO position may have been reinforced, the dierent security
priorities and perspectives of both the new and established NATO
members in the region – which include not just the Baltic but also the
Arctic and the High North and the North-East Atlantic – will mean the
Alliance will have its hands full satisfying everybody. So, paradoxically, the
fact that NATO’s primacy as the main hard-power defence provider has
been reinforced may help overcome the scepticism of some – not least
the Baltic states – that others such as the EU can play a role in lling some
of the security gaps that will remain below the threshold of armed conict
and Article 5. Indeed, the same impulse of Russia’s renewed aggression
against Ukraine which drove Finland and Sweden into the arms of NATO
also was the spur behind Denmark ending its opt-out of the EU’s Common
Security and Defence Policy.
The EU has itself been evolving its CSDP to account both for the
more urgent security agenda and a broadening view of what constitutes
security, although not in the view of some critics far or fast enough. And,
while there is an increased emphasis placed in its updated maritime
security strategy on the challenges in many areas, it was perhaps a missed
opportunity not focusing more specically on key maritime arenas, not
least the Baltic. It barely gets a mention in the EU’s Strategic Compass.
Nevertheless, it would surely count as an obvious area of priority. In
fact, there may be room for a tapestry of dierent frameworks to cover what
is now acknowledged as a more complex set of security threats ranging
from below the threshold of armed conict. As well as the EU potentially
playing an enhanced security role now in the region, there may be more
life in an enhanced framework of co-operation between the Nordic states,
and the same for the Baltic states. Also, the Joint Expeditionary Force
grouping led by the United Kingdom seems to be carving itself out a ‘grey
zone’ role in the region, including seeing it activated in January 2024 to
carry out a security operation focused on critical undersea infrastructure.
It is in this area where there is perhaps the greatest opportunity for
the EU to fashion a complementary role with NATO. Indeed, the Alliance
and the EU established a joint task force on the resilience of critical
infrastructure which made a number of recommendations for enhanced
co-operation, including through more information exchanges; work to
identify alternate transport routes for civilian and military mobility; and
closer ties in security research.
Specically in the maritime domain, NATO has set up a Critical
Undersea Infrastructure Cell at its headquarters and has also announced
the creation of a centre focused on this issue at Allied Maritime Command
at Northwood in London. These are spawning multiple other activities
within the NATO framework. But governments and international
organisations are still only just getting to grips with the international
and inter-agency complexities of the challenges in this area, the critical
capabilities required, and the need to involve industry. It seems a ripe area
for NATO/EU co-operation as the EU too explores its potential, including in
the broader but related context of general maritime situational awareness
under the Common Information Sharing Environment initiative. In all of
this, the Baltic Sea would seem to oer a highly suitable arena in which to
test the waters of collaboration and division of labour.
Nick Childs
Senior Fellow for Naval Forces and Maritime
Security
The International Institute for Strategic
Studies
United Kingdom
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KAARLE WIKSTRÖM
Defence courses keep up with
the times
Expert article • 3611
Defence courses were established 63 years ago to improve
Finnish society’s crisis readiness, awareness of and will for
national defence. The long, total war that shook the entire
society from 1939 to 1945 required a total defence for the
nation to survive. After the war, society adapted to a new
situation and circumstances, still keeping in mind the experiences of
dicult world war II years. It was on this basis that the planning for
Defence Courses began in the late 1950s.
Looking at today’s courses, it’s astonishing how the fundamentals and
objectives set for the planning and implementation of the national and
regional defence courses, remain relevant over sixty years later. The current
security situation in Europe and the ongoing shift in the international
order make these courses more relevant than ever.
The following focuses on the three-and-a-half-week-long National
Defence Course. The week-long regional courses are implemented
following the same principles. For our small team of ve, whom organises
the national courses, the most important consideration are the 50
participants invited from various sectors of society and the high-level
experts who speak to the participants with the latest information. While
organising four courses a year, the aim is to achieve the following set for
the courses.
Since the birth of the courses, the entire society in Finland has been
involved in crisis preparedness. Over the decades, the concept of total
defence has evolved into comprehensive security, providing a framework
for the course content. A comprehensive view of Finnish foreign, security,
and defence policy, both nationally and within the European Union,
as well as as a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is a
key topic of our syllabus. The goal is to familiarize participants with the
tasks of comprehensive security in various elds in our society, their
implementation possibilities, as well as their interrelationships and
interconnectedness in society’s normal, emergency, and crises situations.
However, the course has the most lasting impact by promoting the
interaction among participants who come from a various sector of
society. The teaching, conducted in a versatile and pedagogically diverse
manner, addresses security policy and defence, as well as border and
internal security, macro- and microeconomics, security of supply, social
and healthcare, educational and cultural matters, cyber, information,
and hybrid inuence, as well as climate change and its economic and
security implications, without forgetting the importance of psychological
resilience. This provides participants with a comprehensive outlook of the
importance of security, stability, and prosperity of a nation. The days are
long, starting at 8 am in the morning and generally ending at 8 pm in the
evening. Presentations, panel discussions, excursions, table top exercise,
conducted as group work during rst three weeks, and a three-day visit
to a military base are included in the syllabus. The visit exemplies the
signicance of defence and ensures the course spirit and fellowship.
What makes the course particularly special, however, is its participants.
Based on a Government Decree, a broad-based Advisory Committee for
National Defence Education selects the participants based on proposals
from society. We aim for a diverse participant group. Forty percent of
the participants are women and sixty percent are men. Participants who
receive personal invitations to the course represent various sectors such as
economy, infrastructure, and services, dierent branches of government,
media, third sector, church congregation, as well as science, universities,
and cultural gures who are inuential in their respective elds. All
members of parliament are oered the opportunity to attend the course.
Together with the smallest group, representatives of the armed forces,
an exceptionally wide-ranging group of expertise is gathered together.
The course selects its own trustees, who are responsible for the esprit de-
corps and re-unions. Participants from various sectors of society provide
a network that can keep each other up to date on events in Finland and
around the world.
After the intensive course, participants are also oered the
opportunity to become a member of the Defence Course Association.
Alumni activities focus on deepening knowledge of security policy and
participating in societal discussions. The association organises seminars
and discussion events and publishes a high-quality Defence magazine
four times a year. Course participants are invited to advanced and
refresher courses ve and again ten years later, which last from one to two
days. This oers participants the opportunity to update their knowledge
on comprehensive security, security policy, and defence matters.
What motivates individuals in leading positions and in key expert
roles in Finnish society to clear their calendars for almost four weeks to
voluntarily participate in National Defence Course? In Finland, defence
is perceived as a concern for the entire society. Through compulsory
military service for men and voluntary military service for women, most
citizens, families, and communities have a connection to concrete national
defence. When personal invitation arrives, individuals almost invariably
respond armatively. Courses are prestigious in Finnish society. Based
on feedback, the course is perceived to oer comprehensive and up-to-
date content in an interestingly organized manner. The extensive network
provided by the courses is also considered valuable. Yet, only through
continuous improvement can the reputation be maintained. Defence
courses keep up with the times.
Kaarle Wikström
Captain (N), Director of National Defence
Courses
National Defence University
Finland
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ALVYDAS ŠIUPARIS
Professional military education in
the Baltic States
Expert article • 3612
The current year holds signicant historical resonance for the
Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, marked by two
notable anniversaries. Internationally, it commemorates their
accession to the European Union and NATO in 2004. It was a
pivotal achievement in their foreign policy objectives. Regionally,
this year marked the Baltic Defence College’s 25th anniversary, a milestone
underscoring the collaborative decision made by the Baltic nations in 1999
to merge their eorts to create a unique tri-national Professional Military
Education (PME) institution, which aimed not only to meet modern
educational standards but also to prepare ocers to facilitate their nations’
accession NATO, constituting another critical foreign policy objective.
Beyond delivering high quality education at the operational and strategic
levels, the College has played a key role in facilitating the alignment of the
respective armed forces with Western models. The College is an integral
constituent of the PME system of the Baltic nations in which the tactical-
level education and training are delivered nationally by Estonia, Latvia,
and Lithuania including joint intermediate specialized courses.
The twenty-ve-year milestone not only represents the growth of
the Baltic Defence College (BALTDEFCOL) but also reects maturity and
stability. Recognized as the most successful defence related joint project
of the Baltic nations, BALTDEFCOL boasts a distinguished alumni network
occupying various prominent civilian and military positions, thereby
contributing to regional security awareness and bolstering the security of
NATO’s eastern ank. The College’s commitment to advancing the quality
of education is evidenced by its alignment with the ambitious goals of
the Framework Nations – Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. This commitment
is further underscored by the expansion of course oerings and student
enrolment to address regional imperatives, while also encouraging NATO
member states and partners to contribute to education by deploying
faculty and sending students. The international ethos of BALTDEFCOL is
a dening attribute, fostering an environment of mutual comprehension
and cooperation conducive to the eective problem-solving and
innovative thinking essential for addressing multifaceted security
challenges. Noteworthy is the recent agreement signed by the Finnish
National Defence University expressing its intent to participate in the
BALTDEFCOL-led Combined Joint Sta Exercise, while the Swedish Defence
University has also expressed a keen interest in future involvement. This
exercise, conducted in collaboration with Poland’s War Studies University,
represents a signicant stride towards harmonizing education with NATO
standards and signies trust in the BALTDEFCOL as a premier institution
for professional military education.
In Tartu, there exist distinctive and innovative educational
opportunities, such as the Command Senior Enlisted Leader’s Course
and the Civil Servants Course, which are pioneering initiatives in their
respective elds. The College remains committed to enhancing the quality
of education in response to the evolving landscape of military aairs and
contemporary educational standards. Recognized in the Allied Command
Transformation’s Education and Training Opportunities Catalogue, the
courses oered by the College have met stringent criteria, contributing
to its attainment of unconditional institutional accreditation status in
July 2022. This accreditation, valid for six years, represents a signicant
milestone in arming BALTDEFCOL’s commitment to delivering high-
quality education and its relevance to NATO. While this accreditation
underscores the College’s status as a premier PME institution, it also
necessitates continued eorts to meet the expectations of the Framework
Nations, NATO, and partner institutions.
The College’s commitment to excellence in education has garnered
widespread recognition. One of its key priorities involves actively assisting
in the development of the Ukrainian Professional Military Education
system, achieved through close collaboration with the National Defence
University of Ukraine. Concurrently, the College is engaged in educating
Ukrainian ocers and NCOs. Recognized by Ukrainian partners as a model
of successful cooperation spanning over 25 years, the College plays a
pivotal role in these endeavours, contributing to Ukraine’s pursuit of
sovereignty and freedom. This ongoing partnership operates in tandem
with the NATO Defence Education Enhancement Programme (DEEP),
ensuring coordinated eorts towards shared objectives.
The mission of the College, as outlined by Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania,
imposes a signicant responsibility to uphold rigorous standards and align
with NATO’s evolving strategies, ensuring that graduates are equipped
with information founded on veriable truths. This mission is inherently
challenging, given the dynamic nature of the contemporary battleeld,
which necessitates providing students with a deeper understanding of
Multi-Domain Operations, cutting-edge technologies, AI, and digitalization
within the realms of operational planning and execution. Insights drawn
from Russia’s aggression against Ukraine have already been integrated to
adapt to the realities of modern warfare. These adaptations are further
reinforced within an international setting, creating an environment where
students acquire the knowledge and analytical tools necessary to make
informed decisions in both domestic and international contexts.
Lennart Meri, during a speech on the opening the Baltic Defence
College in February 1999 recognized it as an “example of our will of
defence… to secure our national sovereignty and regional stability and
make our contribution to the strengthening of global security”1. This
contribution is embraced and implemented at the Baltic Defence College,
representing the Framework Nations’ commitment to regional and
European security amidst the backdrop of Russia’s imperialistic ambitions.
1 Speeches of the President of the Republic 1092- 2001, Eesti Vabariigi
Presdient 1992-2001, https://vp1992-2001.president.ee/eng/
k6ned/K6ne.asp?ID=4315 (Accessed: 03 March 2024).
Alvydas Šiuparis
Brigadier General, Commandant
Baltic Defence College
Tartu, Estonia
alvydas.siuparis@baltdefcol.org
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ASTA SKAISGIRYTĖ
Vilnius NATO Summit: Success for
the Eastern Flank
Expert article • 3613
On 11-12 July 2023, the NATO Summit took place in Vilnius,
Lithuania. Was it just another big gathering of Alliance
leaders or a turning point in the Alliance’s history? Let’s try
to nd the answer.
A year before Vilnius, at NATO’s Madrid Summit, the
Allies recognized that Europe was no longer at peace. Russia attacked a
sovereign country – Ukraine. The war was being fought on the European
soil, in the vicinity of NATO. It was clear that further adaptation of the
Alliance was urgently needed to counter the Russian threat – as well as
other growing challenges.
It was not by chance that NATO leaders gathered in Lithuania. The
Eastern Flank and particularly the Baltic countries are the most exposed
region of NATO. Placed between the heavily militarized Kaliningrad region
and Belarus they are linked to the rest of the Alliance through a very
narrow Suwałki corridor. As a deterrence measure, NATO has deployed the
Enhanced Forward Presence in these countries since 2017 alongside with
the already existing Baltic Air Policing. Was it enough for the Baltics? Was it
enough for the Eastern Flank?
Meanwhile, the military integration of Russia with Belarus has been
steadily growing. The public announcement of stationing nuclear weapons
in Belarus territory was yet another step of many already undertaken.
The arrival of Russian Wagner mercenaries to Belarus – so close to NATO
borders was yet another important factor to add.
It was vivid proof of yet another violation by Russia of the NATO-Russia
Founding Act. Consequently, the Founding Act could no longer dene or
in any way restrict the Alliance’s actions aimed to ensure NATO’s security
and defense.
Just before the Vilnius Summit, NATO approved new regional defense
plans. It was a crucial element boosting NATO’s readiness to defend every
inch of Allied territory.
However, these plans would mean little if not resourced properly.
Allies need to pull their eorts together and make them fully executable.
NATO needs to have assigned forces and capabilities. Allies have to ensure
the prepositioning of ammunition and armaments on the Eastern Flank.
Allies must make a push for military mobility, making it a true agman and
a real success of NATO-EU cooperation.
The war in Ukraine once again proved the importance of air defense.
The Vilnius Summit endorsed a rotational air defense model which was the
rst step in building up NATO’s Air Defense Shield. Allies understood that
they have to invest in the much-needed air defense systems – and in deep
precision strike capabilities, too.
All these eorts required appropriate nancing. Allies welcomed the
renewed Defense Investment Pledge (DIP) with 2% of GDP for defense as
a new minimum. It went down in history as the V-DIP (Vilnius – DIP).
NATO leaders underlined the need to invest even more to ensure
360-degree security. They discussed new incentives to boost defense
industries. Allied support for Ukraine cannot be late or insucient. Allies’
own stocks cannot stay depleted, and gaps in their own defenses unlled.
It remains a big task even now, one year later.
The Vilnius NATO Summit welcomed Finland to its rst summit. A day
before the start of the Summit, a long-awaited meeting between Türkiye
and Sweden took place. Türkiye assured it has no more objection to
Sweden’s membership in the Alliance though it took another few months
to complete the necessary ratication procedure. At the time of writing
this article, NATO has 32 members. The Baltic Sea is secure as never before.
A big step forward was taken towards Ukraine on its path to join
the transatlantic family. Establishing the NATO-Ukraine Council (NUC)
and removing the Membership Action Plan (MAP) requirement were
concrete deliverables of Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration. The rst NUC
meeting at the level of Heads of State/Government took place on July
12, immediately after the NATO Summit. From then on, Ukraine has been
sitting at the table with the Allies as an equal and very valuable partner.
To bridge the gap towards full NATO membership, the G7 countries
oered to sign security assurances for Ukraine. The G7 initiative was joined
by many Allies and is in the process of concluding bilateral agreements.
Last but not least, the Vilnius Summit welcomed four NATO partners
from the Indo-Pacic region. Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South
Korea had the opportunity to exchange views with the Allies on global
challenges. The Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacic areas are both on the
geopolitical frontlines. Their security is closely intertwined. China’s
increasing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacic region and North Korea’s
nuclear saber-rattling are challenging the rules-based international order.
The united response across the globe would be much stronger.
To conclude, the Vilnius NATO Summit was a great success for the
Alliance and especially for its Eastern Flank. Concrete steps were taken to
strengthen deterrence and defense. Allies once again armed their unity.
These are the strongest messages to all adversaries. NATO will defend
every inch of Allied territory.
All for one and one for all!
Asta Skaisgirytė
Chief Adviser on Foreign Policy to the
President of Lithuania
Lithuania
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TEIJA TIILIKAINEN
NATO’s role in countering hybrid
threats
Expert article • 3614
Ever since its establishment, NATO has demonstrated a strong
ability to adapt to the changing security environment. In the
aftermath of the Cold War, its strategic concept was amended to
include elements of cooperative security as well as a capacity to
engage in out-of-area operations. Both developments decisively
changed the Alliance’s strategic approach.
The current growing confrontation between Russia and the West has
redirected NATO’s focus towards concrete tasks of territorial defence and
deterrence. In parallel with this shift, NATO has undergone multiple rounds
of enlargement, which have changed its geopolitical form. The accession
of Finland and Sweden to NATO means that an overwhelming majority of
EU members, 23 out of 27, are now also members of NATO.
As the geopolitical confrontation deepens, the conict between
Western democracies and their challengers is taking on more
comprehensive forms. The traditional tools of power projection against
the West are increasingly being supplemented with unconventional
instruments. The notion of hybrid threats has consequently become part
of the security strategies and policies of both the EU and NATO and their
members.
In this context of an ever-deepening conict, NATO has also had to
dene its own role and responsibility in protecting its Allies. It has also
had to ensure that its own collective defence system cannot be paralysed
by the use of broader threat instruments. Using hybrid threat instruments
against NATO could mean, for instance, attacking or disrupting its key
military infrastructure. It could also involve attempts to hamper NATO’s
consensus-based decision-making by systematically undermining the
commitment to or trust in NATO’s collective defence among one or more
Allies. NATO’s eciency could also be weakened by the deliberate conduct
of operations which, for political or legislative reasons, make it dicult or
even impossible to use NATO’s common tools.
For the past ten years, NATO has increasingly addressed hybrid
threats by developing its policies and preparedness. NATO’s tools in
countering hybrid threats can be divided into those aimed at enhancing
resilience and those seeking to deter hostile action. NATO’s resilience
to hybrid threats has been strengthened by enhancing its intelligence
capabilities and restructuring them to meet the needs of the new threat
environment. The Alliance has also set baseline resilience requirements
for its Allies in strategic sectors, which serve as yardsticks for national self-
assessment. These requirements cover the continuity of government and
governmental services, communications and transport systems, as well as
the resilience of critical commodities such as energy, food and clean water.
More recently, NATO’s resilience work has been further strengthened, both
through some institutional reforms and through more specic objectives
set in 2023 for collective and national resilience work. Strengthened
cooperation with the EU in countering hybrid threats is another policy
tool in enhancing resilience against such threats. Cooperation and joint
exercises conducted at many levels will facilitate the preparedness of both
organisations to deal with the new threat environment. NATO can also
deploy counter-hybrid support teams to support an Ally in enhancing its
resilience.
Apart from resilience, NATO has also created a set of deterrence
tools to counter hybrid threats. The most powerful of these has been the
interpretation and communication since 2016 regarding NATO’s readiness
to invoke collective defence in response to a hybrid threat operation.
This policy is in line with NATO’s earlier decision to make cyber defence
a recognized part of its collective defence. To ensure the credibility of
its deterrence, NATO has not specied the character or scale of a hybrid
threat operation that would be serious enough to warrant invoking Article
5. Its deterrence has been supported by the active inclusion of hybrid
threat-related scenarios in NATO exercises and other measures to enhance
preparedness. Strengthened cooperation with NATO’s partner countries
in Europe as well as in the Indo-Pacic region can also be seen as serving
NATO’s deterrent function. The greater the support NATO receives from
partners and like-minded countries for its policies and instruments in
countering hybrid threats, the more perpetrators of hostile activities will
need to factor in serious countermeasures.
Ever since its establishment, NATO has proved to be a highly versatile
tool for addressing the security needs of its Allies. The current security
environment is once again testing the consensus among Allies regarding
the extent to which the collective defence obligation can be broadened
without compromising its credibility.
Teija Tiilikainen
Director
The European Centre of Excellence for
Countering Hybrid Threats
Helsinki, Finland
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MEELIS OIDSALU
Estonia’s two decades in NATO
Hi, my name is Donald Rumsfeld, how are you?” said a man
who held out his hand and stepped on the balcony where I
was just about to nish my pre-meeting cigarette and chatted
with desk ocers from other Baltic and Nordic countries. It was
August 2001, we were in Copenhagen where the meeting of
Baltic, Nordic and U.S. defense ministers was about to start. Mr Rumsfeld
had no clue that the event that changed the way his country thinks about
security and global politics was only a month away.
Defense secretary Rumsfeld made an honest mistake presenting
himself to a 25-year old junior ocial, as the real head of the Estonian
delegation, minister of defense Jüri Luik was not much older, only 35. At
that age, Mr Luik was already a veteran diplomat. In 1994, aged only 24, he
had successfully led the Estonian delegation during bilateral negotiations
with the Russian Federation on the departure of Russian troops from
Estonia. Now he was about to ask Donald Rumsfeld to exploit the historic
window of opportunity for NATO’s enlargement to the Baltic “peninsula”.
Of course, in reality, NATO does not enlarge. Nations can apply to join
NATO once they have proven to be worthy of the North Atlantic Treaty.
9/11 provided Estonia and other Baltic nations with the opportunity
to prove their military vigor to their future Allies. Operation Iraqi Freedom
was Estonia’s rst military operation since the end of the Soviet Union.
Unlike many other allied countries, the Estonian Parliament had not set any
restrictions on Estonian “crusaders”. The medical reports show that the rst
military operation was a “real thing” – eight men from the Estonian infantry
company, which was the rst to arrive in Iraq, were wounded - as much as
a quarter of the unit. The Estonian state blindly trusted its warlords and
those allied units under whose command the Estonian infantry group was
placed. The trust paid o. In March 2004 Estonia together with six other
Eastern European countries became NATO member states.
What have we learned about NATO and ourselves as an Ally during
the following years? First of and foremost — that collective deterrence
really works. After the 2008 war with Georgia Russian Federation has been
periodically projecting military power in the vicinity of its borders with the
Baltic and the Nordic neighbours conducting massive exercises “Zapad”
imitating direct blatant military attacks. Russia has, nevertheless, not once
really dared to test Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.
Second big lesson from two last decades is that NATO is an immense
Alliance, and not only in terms of military strength its member states
possess, but also in terms of inertness – the inevitable feature of its
immensity. Civilians tend to look at military organizations as clean cut,
ecient, fast, proactive structures. But military bureaucracy can be the
worst kind of bureaucracy. This inherent problem gets even worse when
there are thirty two countries trying to coordinate diering political
interests. And all this happens simultaneously on two levels of NATO - the
diplomatic and the military.
One could say that In theory NATO should not be functioning, it is
far too complex. In practice, none of this matters. It may sound like naive
hippie-talk, but it is not the formal structure that makes NATO work, but
rather the myriad of informal networks and personal relationships forged
between diplomats, defense ocials and military personnel of dierent
member states.
Meelis Oidsalu
Editor for Defense and Governance Issues
Postimees Media
Former Undersecretary for Defense
Ministry of Defense
Estonia
NATO was established because in the last century Europe was a
scarefully messy place. Our ancestors witnessed two industrial scale mass
wars with tens of millions of casualties. For Europe NATO was the only
feasible way of survival on the continent where Stalin led Soviet Russia had
very clearly established its intention to go all the way with the democratic
West. For some time after 9/11 NATO focused on out-of-area operations
and forgot about its original mission of collective defense against ever
expansionist Russia. This changed in 2014 after the occupation of Crimea.
Even Germany, for the rst time since the Second World War, established
a permanent military presence in a foreign country (NATO Battle Group in
Lithuania).
After two decades the refurbishment of collective defense has not
been nally resolved. Things got a bit ugly before the NATO Madrid Summit
of 2021, when Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas told Financial Times that
our country would be wiped from the map under existing NATO plans.
The response was quick, plans were redesigned and additional forces
were assigned to reinforce NATO’s Eastern Flank. NATO’s collective defense
is – nevertheless – still a work in progress. Two years after the start of the
biggest war in Europe since the Second World War only 18 of 32 member
states spent the agreed minimum of 2% of GDP on defense. We can and
must do much better. And we most certainly will, because despite all, NATO
has proven extremely eective in delivering its main promise – preserving
peace to allow Western democracies and econonomies to ourish.
Expert article • 3615
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PIRITTA ASUNMAA
Deterrence and defence in the Baltic
Sea region: One year of Finnish NATO
membership
When Finland became a NATO Ally one year ago, NATO
Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated that “Finland’s
membership will make Finland safer and NATO stronger”.
This was well said, but what does membership in NATO
mean for Finland?
On one hand, it can be seen as a big step that the country has taken.
Finland had previously only relied on its own defence, but is now part
of the most successful military alliance, with all its benets as well as
responsibilities. On the other hand, it is fair to say that joining NATO was
only a small and logical step for Finland. We have now completed our
Western integration, which started with membership in the European
Union after the end of the Cold War.
However, in my view, the more interesting question is what kind of a
NATO did Finland and Sweden join?
Transformation of NATO and changes in Finnish security and defence
thinking had already started in 2014 when Russia attacked Ukraine. First,
in this new security environment, the Baltic Sea countries understood
that they were now the frontline of confrontation between the West and
Russia. During the Cold War, this frontline had been located in Central
Europe and the Baltic Sea region had only been a side stage. Second, it
was clear that no one could look at the Baltic Sea region in isolation. The
Baltic Sea was now part of a frontline that started from the North Atlantic
and continued via the Baltic and Black Sea to the Mediterranean. Lastly,
both NATO and Finland understood that neither could plan nor defend
their own area eectively unless we knew what each party was doing.
These developments lead to the deepening and widening of defence
cooperation based on mutual interests, even though legally binding
treaty obligations and guarantees were missing.
Based on these realizations, the Finnish and Swedish decision to apply
for NATO membership seemed like a logical step. At the Madrid Summit,
NATO decided to invite Finland and Sweden to become members of the
Alliance. The Summit was also an important milestone for NATO. In Madrid,
the Allied heads of state and government approved the new Security
Concept for the Alliance, which clearly states that “Russia is the most
signicant and direct threat to Allies’ security and to peace and stability
in the Euro-Atlantic area”. Because NATO’s decision-making is based on
consensus, it is important what the ocial documents state as they direct
further planning and action. In this case, the wording meant that NATO
started to develop new plans on how to defend its own area. New plans
also meant that NATO had to re-evaluate what kind of command and
control structures it needs, what kind of troops are needed to execute the
plans and what kind of authority should be given to the SACEUR to carry
out the plans.
The rst opportunity to evaluate progress on NATO’s new baseline
for deterrence and defence came at the Vilnius Summit a year later.
For Finland, the Vilnius Summit was even more important because it
was the rst time Finland was able to participate as a full Ally. Because
Finnish accession had happened only months before the Summit, Vilnius
became a starting point for the integration of Finland into NATO. This was
something that was also clearly stated in the Summit Communiqué.
Today, we can see the rst examples of what Finland’s integration
into NATO means in practice. In February, Finland stated that it is willing
to participate in NATO’s peacetime collective defence activities. This
summer, the Finnish Navy will participate in the Standing NATO Mine
Countermeasures Group One in the Baltic Sea and the Finnish Air Force will
participate in NATO’s Air Shielding Mission in Romania, Bulgaria and the
Black Sea region. These actions show that Finland is willing to participate
in burden sharing according to NATO’s 360-degree principle. In February,
Finland also made some proposals on how NATO could contribute to the
collective defence of Finland. First, Finland declared willingness to host a
multinational headquarter that could help in the command and control
of NATO land forces in the northeast of Europe. Second, Finland proposed
that NATO forces could increase their presence in the country through
training and exercise activities. This will require further investments in
Finland’s host nation support capabilities. The last of the Finnish proposals
concerned Finland’s willingness to support NATO’s intelligence and
surveillance activities to improve situational awareness in the northeast of
Europe.
Swedish accession to NATO took place in March 2024. Like Finnish
membership, Swedish membership will make Sweden safer and NATO
stronger. Swedish membership also allows Finland and Sweden to deepen
and widen their bilateral defence cooperation even further. NATO and
collective defence sets a new framework for that cooperation.
The next key event for NATO, Sweden and Finland will be the Summit
in Washington DC this July. For NATO, the Summit is an opportunity
to further evaluate progress towards achieving the new baseline for
deterrence and defence. For Sweden, the Summit will be a starting point
and a rst chance to give guidance on how Sweden wants to be integrated
into NATO’s deterrence and defence. In the case of Finland, we can expect
rst reporting on the work done to integrate Finland into the Alliance.
The agenda for the Summit is set in cooperation with all the Allies,
but in addition, the host nation always plays a special role. Therefore, we
can expect that defence investments, NATO’s unwavering support to and
strengthened relationship with Ukraine as well as NATO’s partnerships
with the so-called IP4 countries (Australia, Japan, the Republic of Korea
Expert article • 3616
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and New Zealand) will be high on the agenda. Russia’s war of aggression
in Ukraine is of particular importance to Finland and Europe. Finland, as a
new member in NATO, works to advance Ukraine becoming a member of
the Alliance, as rearmed in the Vilnius Summit.
After the Washington DC Summit, NATO will set its sights on the next
Summit in the Netherlands in 2025. Strengthening NATO’s deterrence and
defence against Russia will remain a priority but NATO needs to also keep
an eye on long-term trends and developments. How should NATO prepare
itself for the era of strategic competition? How will developments in the
Indo-Pacic region inuence the security of the Euro-Atlantic region?
How can we boost our defence industry and how can we make sure
future technologies can be used to enhance our defence capabilities? Day
by day, NATO is better prepared to the threat posed by Russia, but how
should NATO react to instability in the regions surrounding Europe?
Thanks to our strong defence capabilities and strong bilateral defence
relationships, Finland has a chance to punch above its weight in the
Alliance. This can be achieved with active foreign and defence policy and
an active participation in NATO activities. At some point, Finland should
consider whether it wants to host a NATO Summit. This would allow
Finland to further NATO’s common agenda and Finland’s national interest,
which go hand in hand from now on.
Expert article • 3616
Piritta Asunmaa
Ambassador, Permanent Representative of
Finland to NATO
Permanent Representation of Finland to
NATO
Finland
Photo Joona Suni.
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IMANTS LIEĢIS
From dream to reality to nightmare
In the lead up to Latvia joining NATO in 2004, there were sceptics in the
country who considered that our being part of the world’s strongest
military Alliance will remain an unfullled dream. As Latvia’s NATO
Ambassador at the time, I tried to convince them that this was a reality
within our reach. With the unprecedented turmoil in international
relations that has evolved over the last years as a result of, amongst other
things, Russia’s imperialistic aggression in Ukraine and elsewhere, the
reality of NATO membership for the past two decades is that it is more
demanding today than it has been in the past.
Latvia joined NATO 13 years after regaining freedom and with half a
century of Soviet occupation as a legacy. Post-Soviet troops left Latvia in
1994, with the nal military installation – a radar base – being blown up
one year later. The compromise for this agreement with Russia was that
“retired” troops and their families were allowed to continue living in Latvia.
Some 80,000 in total. Latvia’s border with Russia was nally agreed after
we joined NATO, with the country also ceding part of its pre-occupation
eastern territory to Russia. Astute political leadership and determination
guided Latvia’s path to NATO. This was based on a strong desire to “return
to Europe” and to engage the United States, Europe and other allies in
militarily guaranteeing our security.
Persuading existing NATO members that we had something to
contribute to the Alliance and that we would not be “free-riders”, was also
important. It was never a given that events would turn out in our favour.
A leading US diplomat in around 2000 suggested to me at one time that
Estonia could join the EU and Lithuania NATO. “Leaving Latvia to Russia?”
was my rhetorical response. In the event, President Putin’s attempts to
have a veto over NATO enlargement was defeated by allies uniting to
invite seven new members in 2002, with their accession taking place two
years later.
Twenty years ago, NATO was preoccupied with out of area operations.
“Out of area or out of business”, was the mantra. Terrorism was the major
threat to global security following the attacks on the United States on 11th
September 2001. The following day, for the rst and only time in NATO’s
history, article 5 of the Washington Treaty was activated. Latvia contributed
with troops to operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan, suering loss of
life along with our allies. Just before the twentieth anniversary of 9/11,
in August 2021, NATO troops withdrew from Afghanistan. By then the
main threat to the Alliance was clearly identied as coming from Russia.
Hence NATO’s focus since the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine in 2014
has moved from the war on terror, to the defence of Allied territory, in
particular the defence of those allies on the front line with Russia.
The nightmare being experienced by the people of Ukraine since
Russia’s full-scale war on 24th February 2022 has created instability to
the European and global security order. Existing international and rule-
based norms have been trampled on and rejected by Russia. Further
instability emerged on 7th October 2023 with the brutal terrorist attack
by Hamas against Israel. A wider Middle East war still remains a possibility,
compounded by attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. A potential conict
in the Asia- Pacic region as a result of China’s increasing assertiveness
cannot be ruled out.
Imants Lieģis
Senior Research Fellow
Latvian Institute of International Aairs
Latvia
NATO is not a global policeman, but the Alliance is undeniably
aected by the global instability that confronts us today. From a Latvian
perspective, the response taken together with the Alliance has met our
immediate security concerns about collective defence. Today, we focus
on NATO’s regional military plans being fullled. This is being done both
through or own and allies’ eorts. Latvia has a budget already at around
3% this year enabling procurements covering air, sea and territorial
defence needs. A large new training base is being constructed. We are
increasing the number of our armed forces. Meanwhile, the Canadian led
NATO enhanced Forward Presence of allied troops and infrastructure in
Latvia is enlarging to brigade level. With Finland and Sweden now in NATO,
strategic depth has been given to our regional defence. Sweden will send
some 600 troops to Latvia.
The most immediate challenge is to ensure Ukraine’s victory against
Russia’s brutal attempt to wipe the country o the map of Europe.
Ammunition, equipment, drones and other needs of Ukraine must be
supplied urgently to stop the revisionist imperialistic ambitions of Russia,
which are a threat to NATO.
On our 20th anniversary in NATO, Latvia will continue to be in the
forefront in supporting Ukraine and contributing to the crucial collective
defence of the world’s greatest military Alliance.
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ŽANETA OZOLIŅA
The presence of NATO troops in the
Baltic States
Expert article • 3618
In 2024 the Baltic States celebrate the historical moment – twenty years
of being members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Upon joining the alliance, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania sought security
guarantees outlined in paragraph 5 of the Washington Treaty. From the
outset of their membership, the Baltic States consistently emphasized
the potential threats posed by Russia, in terms of its ambitions and
intentions. The Balts constantly encouraged their partners to invest in the
strengthening of NATO’s eastern border.
A decade passed before Western partners acknowledged that the
threat was not merely a matter of perception but implementation of Russia’s
foreign and security policy aims, as outlined in numerous documents and
ocial statements. Events such as the occupation of Crimea, the military
conict in Eastern Ukraine in 2014, and the subsequent brutal war against
Ukraine in 2022 signicantly altered the security landscape in the Baltics
and NATO’s eastern ank. This in turn, prompted an increase in NATO
presence.
Following accession to the alliance in 2004, NATO’s presence in the
Baltics was substantiated by assuming responsibility for air-policing of the
Baltic States on a rotational basis. NATO’s commitment to the Baltic States
was manifested in investments in infrastructure, regular training, exercises,
and joint projects. Participation in international operations, including Iraq,
Afghanistan, and Kosovo with other Allies, formed a substantial part of
Estonia’s, Latvia’s, and Lithuania’s security and defence policies.
To bolster NATO’s capacity to respond to emerging threats, three
centers of excellence were established in the Baltic States. Estonia hosts the
NATO Cooperative Cyber Security Center of Excellence, Lithuania launched
the NATO Energy Security Center of Excellence, and Latvia manages the
NATO Strategic Communication Center of Excellence. These structures
have become vital sources of knowledge and expertise, particularly in
the aftermath of Russia’s war against Ukraine, which included elements of
cyber, energy, information, and hybrid threats.
In response to Russia’s interference in Ukraine’s domestic aairs
and provocations of violent conict in Eastern Ukraine, NATO made
decisive decisions during the Wales and Warsaw summits. This resulted
in the formation of Enhanced Forward Presence (eFP) military forces
stationed in the Baltic States. Estonia became a host nation for France
and Iceland, with the UK as a framework Albania, Czech nation, while
Latvia’s list of contributing nations included, Iceland, Italy, Montenegro,
North Macedonia, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain, with Canada as a
framework nation. The composition of eFP is based on collaboration with
Belgium, Czech, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United
States, with Germany acting as the framework nation.
Since 2014, NATO has consistently responded to security threats on
its eastern border. The Madrid Summit approved a decision envisioning
a greater number of rapidly deployable high-readiness units. Allies
agreed to establish four additional multinational divisions in Bulgaria,
Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia, increasing the total number to eight.
This eectively doubled the Alliance’s presence from the Baltic Sea in
the north to the Black Sea in the south, fortifying NATO’s eastern border.
Decisions made during the Madrid Summit to strengthen alliance defence
capabilities were supplemented at the Vilnius Summit in 2023, announcing
the development of new regional defence plans and an agreement on
providing the necessary resources for their implementation when and if
needed.
NATO’s presence in the Baltic Sea region received a signicant boost
with the incorporation of Finland and Sweden. Both countries, as NATO
members will be a substantial contribution to both the Baltic Sea region
and transatlantic security, given their impressive military capabilities in
terms of equipment, technology, defence industry, and international
engagement.
In the twenty years since the Baltic States became NATO member
states, their defence capabilities have been consistently developed and
strengthened in close cooperation with their allies. The growth of defence
capabilities is based on an annual budget increase, allowing investments
in personnel, weaponry, and infrastructure. Allies are committed to
reaching defence expenditure targets of up to 2% of GDP. Estonia, Latvia,
and Lithuania are among the countries not only to have reached this
threshold but have even more ambitious plans in the next few years.
Overall they have become contributing nations to the defence of the
transatlantic community.
Žaneta Ozoliņa
Professor
University of Latvia
Latvia
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MIKKEL VEDBY RASMUSSEN
Hedgehogs and Foxes
The political philosopher Isiah Berlin quotes the Greek poet
Archilochus for the comment that the fox knows many things,
but the hedgehog knows one big thing. ‘There exists a great
chasm between those, on one side, who relate everything to a
single central vision,’ Berlin writes, ‘and, on the other side, those
who pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory.’ While
Berlin spend his working life in Oxford, his family came from Latvia. Perhaps
it is tting, therefore, to use Berlin’s distinction between single-minded
foxes and wide-ranging hedgehogs to describe the new conditions in
Baltic security after the accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO.
History and geography have made Sweden and Finland military
hedgehogs. Their defence policy has been focused on one big thing:
defence against Russia. Sweden and Finland have organized their armed
forces for territorial defence. While the rest of Europe transformed their
armed forces after the end of the Cold War, the armed forces of Finland
and Sweden remained based on the mobilization of conscript forces
for national defence. Finland remained truer to the concept of national
defence than Sweden which in practice abandoned conscription and
reduced the national defence budget to the point where the Swedish Chief
of Defence shocked the nation when he admitted that försvarsmakten
could not defend Swedish territory without help from NATO.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Finland and Sweden
was thus confronted with the question of whether their armed forces
would be able to withstand a Russian attack. While other European
countries discussed, and continues to discuss, whether the Ukrainian war
in fact means a direct threat to national security, Finland and Sweden had
settled that question already by not changing the purpose and nature
of their armed forces. The Russian invasion of Ukraine was a change in
the quantity of the threat – not the quality. Since Finland and Sweden
was quite aware that their defence forces did not have the quantities to
withstand a Russian attack, the increased likelihood of Russian aggression
made NATO membership the only way to regain a sense of national
security.
Collective defence is thus the one thing Sweden and Finland want
from NATO. They are hedgehogs in the same way Estonia, Latvia and
Lithuania are defence hedgehogs: their geography and history tell them
the same thing – they need allies to defend them against Russia.
The Norwegian and Danish experience is dierent. Although Norway
also shares a border with Russia, the two countries are defence foxes. They
do not have a single central vision for their defence policy, but several
dierent commitments. As founding members of the Alliance, Norway and
Denmark have experienced how NATO redened itself from a defensive
alliance focused on organising the military defence of Western Europe to
an organisation for managing the risks of the post-Cold War World. Both
countries argued for Baltic membership of the Alliance in the belief that
this would create stability in Eastern Europe and the Baltic Rim Area. This
was not done in the belief that NATO was to deter or to come in conict
with Russia. On the contrary, Norway and, especially, Denmark focused
resources on operating in NATO’s international missions as well as in the
Arctic which plays a signicant role in the defence policy of both countries.
Mikkel Vedby
Rasmussen
Professor in International Relations
University of Copenhagen
Denmark
Even as the Baltic countries remained focused on the need to defend
themselves against Russia, they joined the Alliance at a time when this
was neither a top priority nor a publicly valid argument for their joining.
On the contrary, the ‘membership action plans’ by which they joined the
Alliance stressed that they were not to constitute a security problem. In
other words, NATO did not want to import a commitment to a conict with
Russia, so the Baltic countries did their best to downplay such scenarios
and adopted policies towards their Russian minorities that gave the
minorities more rights than a state suspect of their loyalties and fearing
subversive activities would otherwise have been inclined to give.
The hedgehogs Sweden and Finland are thus joining an alliance
which has been ‘foxy’ for years, but which is now becoming more focused
on deterring Russia. In joining NATO, the two countries make the Nordic,
Baltic region a larger factor in the Alliance. The fact that some of the
existing NATO-members in that region are defence foxes with a broader
focus and that other of the existing members have also been socialised
into more fox-like behaviour even if they are fundamentally hedgehogs
focused on the threat from Russia means that the Nordic, Baltic region is
far from coherent and unlikely to talk with one voice at the ambassadors’
table in NATO HQ in Brussels. As the Baltic states, Sweden and Finland will
need to adapt their policy to an alliance where the security issues of the
Mediterranean are also relevant and where Sweden and Finland will be
expected to contribute.
Expert article • 3619
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HÅKAN A. BENGTSSON
Sweden in NATO - the end of non-
alignment
Expert article • 3620
On March 11 2024, the Swedish ag was raised outside the
Nato Headquarters in Brussels. Sweden had become the
Alliance’s 32nd member. The decision of Sweden and Finland
to apply for membership of NATO took place within the space
of a few weeks in the spring of 2022 after Russia’s full-scale
invasion of Ukraine. However while Finland’s membership was ratied as
early as April 4th 2023, it took almost a whole year more before Sweden
was welcomed into NATO. Turkey and Hungary took the opportunity to
put pressure on Sweden which delayed Sweden’s entry into the alliance.
Membership of NATO represents a paradigm shift in Sweden’s foreign
policy. The previous Swedish doctrine of “nonallied in peace aiming for
neutrality in war” is now a thing of the past. It had wide public support,
even if individual commentators and recently several political parties
argued in favour of joining NATO. This security and defence doctrine may
be said to constitute a substantial element in Sweden’s self-image. Not
least since Sweden’s two hundred year history of peace was considered a
success. It is generally considered to have “served Sweden well”
Behind this change in the doctrine of security policy lies a long-
term concern about developments in Russia and Sweden’s vulnerable
geopolitical situation. Finland declared its intention to join NATO at an
early stage. There was also political pressure in Sweden to also do so. A
report from the ”European council on Foreign relations” reveals that
Sweden is one of the countries where support for Ukraine is greatest.
This is in fact a new chapter in Swedish – and in Nordic - history. Now
all the Scandinavian countries are members of the same defence alliance,
extending from the Baltic Sea to large tracts of the Arctic region, the
strategic importance of which has increased and where Russia has been
building up its military presence. Sweden’s security has been enhanced
by its membership of NATO. Thanks to Nato Sweden and Finland are
protected by a high threshold for Russia to step over, a protection which
Ukraine did not have. All the indications are that Russia’s conict with the
west will continue for the foreseeable future which is an important reason
why Sweden has revised its doctrine on security policy.
Sweden’s non-alignment status dates back to the beginning of the
19th century when Karl Johan XIV declared that Sweden had no intention
of retaking Finland which had been integrated into the Russian Empire
in 1809. During World War I a non-socialist government declared Sweden
neutral, a decision supported by the Social Democrats. Sweden also kept
out of World War II. But its actions during the war have been the object of
constant discussion and criticism subsequently. German troops were, for
example, allowed to pass through Sweden and the export of iron ore to
Nazi Germany continued throughout the war.
After World War II Sweden was in favour of and hoped for a Nordic
defensive alliance. However Denmark and Norway which had both been
occupied by Germany decided to join NATO. Sweden was unwilling to
follow suit and Finland was not able to join NATO. The two countries have
strong historical ties. Particularly during recent years, the Swedish and
Finish defence cooperation have developed. When Finland announced its
intention to join NATO, an essential pillar in the Swedish defence strategy
disappeared.
After 1945 Finland was subjected to considerable pressure from
the Soviet Union. But Sweden’s relationship with the Soviet Union was
complicated and characterised by caution notwithstanding recurrent
conicts. For example, in 1981 a submarine armed with nuclear weapons
ran aground in Gåseärden o Karlskrona, in a restricted military area.
Sweden’s security strategy before the fall of the Berlin Wall continued
to be based on nonalignment and neutrality. Sweden had built a
formidable defence capability, with a particularly strong air defence and
a well developed naval capacity. Sweden had also developed its own
defence industry to an high technological level. After the end of the Cold
War, Sweden disarmed and abandoned conscription. This was a period of
détente and disarmament throughout Europe. In recent years Sweden has
begun to rearm and call up more citizens to military training. After the
outbreak of war in 2022, Sweden decided to increase defence spending to
2% of GNP.
After the end of the Cold War and in response to the era of globalisation,
Sweden’s relations with the wider world changed. The policy of strict non-
alliance and neutrality was step by step revised. One major change was
of course Sweden’s entry into the European Union in 1995. Moreover
Sweden participated in several international military operations, as for
example, in Afghanistan. Sweden also participated in NATO’s ”Partnership
for Peace” and has deepened its cooperation with NATO in other ways. It
has also initiated military cooperation with the other Nordic countries and
in particular with Finland.
The fact that membership of NATO may be described as one of several
steps in a series of repositioning moves does not diminish the enormous
signicance of Sweden’s membership of NATO. Sweden is no longer
nonalligned and neutral, it is – quite simply – a member in the defensive
alliance NATO.
Håkan A. Bengtsson
CEO Arenagruppen
Stockholm, Sweden
hakan.bengtsson@arenagruppen.se
Håkan A Bengtsson is a writer and author
and CEO of the progressive Arena Group. He
appeared in the anthology “Europe and the
War in Ukraine. From Russian Aggression to a
New Eastern Policy” (FEPS, 2023).
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GUNILLA HEROLF
Accession in a time of challenges
No accession to NATO has been like the Swedish, and to a
degree, the Finnish one. The two of them were unique in that
their accessions took place against the backdrop of war in
Europe. Finland was admitted to NATO in April 2023, and as
Sweden joined, one year later, the situation has again changed
dramatically.
A major concern now is that the Russian war against Ukraine may
spread to other countries, primarily Georgia and Moldova, which are
already partly controlled by Russia and the objects of Russian attempts of
inltration. Another cause for anxiety has been the statements by Donald
Trump on restricting the validity of NATO’s Article 5 to those member states
who devote a minimum of 2 percent to their defence. Such statements, by
a person who may become the next president of the United States, is seen
to damage the credibility of NATO. And if the United States would leave
NATO, something that cannot be excluded, the situation in Europe will be
extremely dangerous.
The uncertainty that Trump´s statements have created is serious
even if none of his statements will lead to a new American policy, and the
possibility that Russia becomes tempted to test whether Article 5 is valid
for all cannot be ignored.
Eects on Sweden
Unavoidably, these dramatic events, including the awareness that Sweden
might be at war within a few years, have aected the discussion in Sweden.
While the major motive for joining NATO was to be protected by the
alliance, now it is also about the Swedish contributions in crisis and war.
Several types of roles, like the participation in NATO Air Policing,
NATO’s Standing Naval Forces and NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence are
since long foreseen, planned and talked about.
Another role, has, however, become even more prominent, due to the
increasingly serious situation. This is the wartime role of Swedish territory
enabling reinforcements to reach Europe from North America as well as
serving as a staging and base area for allied ground, sea, and air combat
forces. An example of Sweden’s role is the ongoing Steadfast Defender
exercise, comprising a total of 90 000 soldiers, in which one of the Swedish
roles is to serve as a transit country for troops passing via Norway and
Sweden towards frontline countries further east under attack.
New policies in Europe
As Sweden and Finland are adjusting to the new situation of becoming
NATO members while facing a future fraught with dangers, other
European countries are changing too. Several leaders, like Olaf Scholz
and Emmanuel Macron, now express their fears that within a few years
NATO may nd itself at war with Russia. Their views on how to contribute
to Ukraine’s defence often tend to dier, but the views on Russia and the
possibilities to come to terms with this country have changed considerably
in both Germany and France.
The French policy change is more profound than that of any of the
others. President Macron’s vision of the future has for a long time been
that of a European pillar that will include a reformed Russia while keeping
the United States at some distance. In the light of a prolonged Russian
aggression those illusions are now gone. His ambitions are instead
focusing on the European Political Community, including a large number
of countries, i a Ukraine and the United Kingdom but not Russia.
Gunilla Herolf
Senior Associate Research Fellow
The Swedish Institute of International Aairs
Stockholm, Sweden
Another major change on the European scene is the return of Poland
to the western fold, symbolized by the revival of the Weimar triangle, of
France, Germany and Poland. Together with the changes described above,
this means a shift in Europe towards the views that have been held by
eastern and northern countries all along.
The impact of European rifts
These changes do not mean that unanimity in Europe is total. There are
still considerable dierences among political parties and people and a few
countries hold views that others label pro-Russian. The fact that all do not
see Russia in the same way was illustrated when some dismissed the idea
of a Baltic successor to Jens Stoltenberg on the grounds of likely being “too
anti-Russian”. This is the region which timely and correctly warned of the
Russian attack that others did not see.
It should, however, not be forgotten that Europe has other challenges,
prominent among them the war between Israel and Hamas. Again,
however, Europeans are divided in their views and both the EU and NATO
have little leverage in the area.
Two years ago, after the Russian attack on Ukraine, the western world
surprised both themselves and others by their rm support for Ukraine
and still new rounds of sanctions are decided on. But the lack of military
success for Ukraine has dampened the enthusiasm in Europe and the
stalemate in the US Congress which has stopped American support to
Ukraine has made the frailty of Western unity clear. As a Trump victory
this autumn becomes more probable, the need for cohesion in Europe is
crucial and somehow the rifts need to be healed. The stakes could not be
higher.
Expert article • 3621
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IRO SÄRKKÄ
Finland and Sweden in NATO -
Bridging the gap between hard and
soft security in the Baltic Sea region
The risk of a confrontation between the allied West and Russia
has increased in the Baltic Sea region since Russia’s illegal
annexation of Crimea in 2014 and unprovoked war in Ukraine in
2022. From the point of view of security in the Baltic Sea region,
Finland’s and Sweden’s NATO membership is a much-welcomed
beam of light both from a hard and a wider security perspective.
Starting with hard security, Finland’s and Sweden’s NATO memberships
will signicantly contribute to the defense and deterrence in the wider
Euro-Atlantic region. As part of NATO’s Concept for Deterrence and
Defence for the Euro-Atlantic Area (DDA), the entire Nordic-Baltic region
is tied to NATO’s new regional defence plans. Some even suggest, that
a deterrence by denial bubble will be created, increasing the costs of
potential attack by an adversary. More precisely, this could be achieved
by joint coordination of allied air and missile defense capabilities,
airspace and subwater dominance, shared intelligence, surveillance, and
reconnaissance (ISR) information in the region, as well as developing
readiness through operations and exercises in the region.
As NATO members, Finland and Sweden will bring a considerable
reinforcement to NATO’s conventional capability with their eets of
vessels, mine-laying, hunting, and clearing, submarine and anti-submarine
capabilities, as well as the coastal defence expertise to defend the Baltic
Sea area. However, it is not only Finnish-Swedish naval power that
strengthens the collective defence of the Baltic Sea region. Finland’s and
Sweden’s NATO memberships should be viewed from a wider, 360-degree
perspective, encompassing all dierent operational areas, including, air,
land, and cyber, in addition to the traditional maritime domain.
Consider for instance, the combined air power capabilities in the
Baltic Sea region with the Finnish and Swedish reinforcements in NATO.
The combined total number of technologically advanced ghter aircrafts
of the four Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden
will gure close to some 300 by 2030s, which is more than some of the
larger and more capable European regional powers have. Or the types of
possibilities open for the land forces, to use the land and the archipelagic
areas in the Baltic Sea region, as staging areas for troops or as exercise
domains.
NATO’s peace-time operations in the Baltic Sea region are another
indication of enhanced response in the region to Russia’s imminent threat.
Sweden has already announced its intentions to send a considerable
enforcement to the Canadian-led NATO Forward Land Forces (FLF) in
Latvia, and Finland is reportedly contemplating force contributions in
the British-led contingency in Tapa, Estonia, in addition to possible future
contributions to NATO’s air-policing missions of the Baltic. Furthermore,
both Finland and Sweden are expected to contribute to NATO’s force
posture in times of crisis.
Hard security, however, really becomes a force multiplier when it
enables and advances societal resilience in the region. Finland’s and
Sweden’s NATO membership will further improve security of supply
and national resilience in the region, as the two countries will be able
to participate fully in NATO’s civil emergency planning, benet from
NATO’s common resources, situational awareness, and capabilities, and
deepen cooperation with the key allies in region. For Finland securing sea
transport is an existential question of security of supply, as more than 90%
of the Finnish imports and exports are transported by sea. While Finland
remains vulnerable to maritime trac disturbances, NATO membership
may alleviate the concern of maintaining safer maritime transport routes
in the Baltic Sea region.
From a wider security perspective, one major security concern relates
to environmental impact of a potential military conict or hybrid operation
in the region. While NATO might not be in position to stop such a disaster
from happening, it can ensure that all key players in the region are prepared
to act in unison if it does. To better prepare for such circumstances, other
minilateral formats of security cooperation, such as the Northern Group
between Baltic and North Sea states, or the Council of the Baltic States,
should continue to work towards a common goal, developing strategies
and tools to better prepare for tackling wider security threats.
Finally, by bringing their strong societal resilience and educational
models to NATO, Finland and Sweden should demonstrate, how hard
security and soft security are in fact, interconnected and how the gap
between the two can be bridged. A beginning for such a dialogue
could be an annual tabletop exercise engaging key civilian and military
stakeholders from all allied countries in the Baltic Sea region.
Expert article • 3622
Iro Särkkä
Dr, Senior Research Fellow
Finnish Institute of International Aairs
Finland
iro.sarkka@ia.
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KRISTIAN SØBY KRISTENSEN
NATO’s northern enlargement –
consequences for Denmark
Expert article • 3623
On March 7, 2024, Sweden formally – and nally – became
NATO’s 32nd member. Together with Finnish membership,
NATO’s northern enlargement fundamentally change the
security geography of the Baltic Sea region and the Arctic
region. With new and capable Nordic members, the Baltic
Sea is by many commentators heralded as a ‘NATO lake’, and integrating
Swedish and Finnish territory in the Alliance makes the North Cape
a seamless NATO operating space. NATO’s northern enlargement
undoubtedly strengthens NATO – politically as well as from a military
planning perspective.
But what are the consequences from a Danish perspective? Across the
board, NATO’s northern enlargement is seen as a good thing by Danish
decision makers and the Danish security policy commentariat. In addition
to a shift in the regional balance of power, the enlargement opens new
possibilities for further Nordic defense cooperation – a popular political
option in Denmark. And indeed, the Nordics have been quick to initiate
even closer operational defense cooperation, including prominently in
the air domain. Still, NATO’s northern enlargement also brings with it new
choices and pose new challenges for Danish defense and security policy.
First, and by clear geographical dictate, Denmark stands out compared
to the three other European Nordics and risks some marginalization within
that group. Finland, Norway, and Sweden share either a land border or close
proximity to Russia. From an air and land perspective, close cooperation
between the three makes sense operationally, especially around the
North Cape. Denmark’s immediate utility in this military theater is low.
Indeed, military geography indicates a potentially wider division of labor
within the Baltic Sea Region with Denmark’s responsibilities centered
on maintaining allied control of the Danish Straits and functioning as a
staging area for allied troops moving into the Baltic Sea Region. This, to
a certain extent, would be tasks shared with Norway and Sweden, which
underlines that increased Danish cooperation with the other Nordics is not
an either/or-question, but about the countries exibly coming together in
dierent settings.
Another challenge follows from the political and diplomatic dynamics
and workings of NATO HQ in Brussels. What individual allies bring to
the table are key to determining their status. Military capabilities are
evidently the most important currency in this status game, but other
more intangibles ones also count. Especially Finland has arrived in NATO
with high status. On the intangible end of the scale, Finland is widely
seen as having new and valuable experience with and knowledge about
Russia. Finland being ‘in the know’ about Russia is manifest both in the
force structure of the Finnish armed forces and in the resilience of wider
Finnish society. Both are attuned to the threat from Russia. That is not the
case in Denmark where the armed forces have been fundamentally re-
structured to conduct stabilization operations in the Global South. Finnish
and Swedish membership inevitably leads to a relative Danish status loss.
In general terms, the Nordics are often seen as a group, and thus easily
compared. With all the Nordics in NATO, a certain amount of intra-Nordic
beauty contest is to be expected, with each country jockeying for status
and inuence.
The very Nordic togetherness that is generally seen as a major strength,
both inside and outside the region, may thereby also come with risks – it
may be too much of a good thing. On the one hand, solidarity is a strong
norm in NATO. Security is supposed to be a shared collective good within
the alliance, and NATO is historically allergic to regionalization. On the
other hand, there are high expectations that one of the things the Nordics
bring to NATO is the ability to work closely together. The Nordics need
to jointly handle this paradox. In the same vein, relations to neighboring
countries and regions also need to be taken into consideration. Not least
the Baltic states’ individual and collective defense and security relations
to the Nordics and the Nordic region are in ux. With increased Nordic
cooperation comes risks to other valued and long-held Danish relations.
The analyzed challenges and choices do not fundamentally alter the
bottom-line: NATO’s northern enlargement is a positive development for
Denmark. It marginalizes Russia regionally in Denmark’s “near abroad”,
and it creates a new impetus for increased Nordic defense cooperation.
In terms of both geography and like-mindedness, NATO’s center of gravity
moves closer to Denmark. Yet, even positive international developments
need to be managed if states are to realize their full potential.
Kristian Søby
Kristensen
Senior Researcher, Director
Center for Military Studies, University of
Copenhagen
Denmark
ksk@ifs.ku.dk
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TOMAS JANELIŪNAS
A steely gaze, not panic: NATO‘s
response to rising anxieties
Expert article • 3624
The echoes of Russia’s advance in the Ukrainian war rumble across
Europe, particularly in the Baltic states, where anxiety is clearly
on the rise. Minister of Foreign Aairs of Lithuania, Gabrielius
Landsbergis, addressing the UN Security Council in February
2024, summarised the dominant concern: “If we fail, the rules-
based order will crumble. Ukraine’s sovereignty, Europe’s security, as well
as the success of global eorts for human rights, accountability, food
security and nuclear safety - will all be in the hands of those who benet
from disruption and chaos ... Hedging our bets earns us nothing but more
war. Russia is being emboldened by our cautious response“.
While acknowledging these legitimate concerns, avoiding
succumbing to alarmism is imperative. Instead, we must wield a steely
gaze guided by reason and proactive deterrence. Fear and anxiety must
not paralyse our societies or decision-making. On both sides of the
Atlantic, NATO countries’ leaders must seize this moment to reassess their
defence postures. Increased investment in conventional and nuclear
deterrence and bolstered military capabilities is a proactive, not panicked,
response to change.
Amidst all challenges related to dierent modes of civil and military
planning (in Lithuania, we are already in a “pre-war” mode, but only in
rhetoric), we must not lose sight of the fundamental dierences between
the Ukraine war and a hypothetical Russia’s confrontation with NATO.
Russia, depleted in equipment and personnel, is unlikely to challenge the
alliance militarily. Kremlin’s true power lies in sowing discord, exploiting
societal vulnerabilities, and weakening resolve in democracies. We must
not fall prey to this tactic.
The upcoming NATO Summit in Washington will be watched, seeking
a sign that the resolve in the US and Europe to deter Russia is on increase,
supplemented by clear commitments to solidify military means and
political will. This is why NATO must ensure a solid outcome regarding
Ukraine at the Washington summit. The mere survival of Ukraine is not
enough. Ukraine must be equipped properly to win the war and provide
a clear path to NATO membership. Therefore, a key to the success of
deterring Russia lies in extending an invitation for Ukrainian membership
already this July, with the nal date of accession contingent upon securing
a stable security environment within the country. An invitation to join
NATO does not mean immediate membership. It could signify a long-term
commitment and serve as a powerful message of solidarity, deterring
further Russian aggression.
Luke Coey, the senior fellow at the Hudson Institute (Washington
DC), in his testimony for the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Europe
and Regional Security Cooperation of the United States Senate, in
February 2024, even provided the specic wording that could be included
in the NATO communique:
“We fully support Ukraine’s right to choose its own security arrangements.
We rearm the commitment made at the 2008 summit in Bucharest that
Ukraine will become a member of NATO. We rearm the commitment made
at the 2023 summit in Vilnius that Ukraine’s future is in NATO. Today we extend
an invitation to Ukraine to join the alliance with the nal date of membership
to be determined when Allies agree that the security environment inside the
country is satisfactory. Ukraine has become increasingly interoperable and
politically integrated with the alliance and has made substantial progress on
its reform path. We rearm the decision made at the 2023 summit in Vilnius
that Ukraine’s path to full Euro-Atlantic integration has moved beyond the
need for the Membership Action Plan. NATO’s commitment made at the 2008
summit in Bucharest, Ukraine’s reforms in the defense and security sectors
since 2014, its candidacy status for EU membership in June 2022, the ocial
commencement of accession talks for EU membership in December 2023,
noting that the EU has a mutual defense clause (Article 42.7 TEU) based on
the ideas of NATO’s Article 5, the G7’s Joint Declaration of Support for Ukraine
in July 2023, and the United Kingdom’s Agreement on Security Co-operation
with Ukraine in January 2024, all underpin our decision to extend an invitation
to Ukraine today.”
This proposition aligns with what Ukraine and the Baltic states are
waiting for – a resolved conrmation that NATO is ready to get on counter-
oence vs Russia, at least in a political way. Let us channel our anxieties
into a renewed commitment to proactive deterrence and unwavering
support for Ukraine. With unwavering resolve and strategic action, we
can eectively deter Russia, secure Ukraine’s future, and ensure Europe’s
stability.
Tomas Janeliūnas
Professor
Institute of International Relations and
Political Science, Vilnius University
Lithuania
Visiting Scholar
Hudson Institute
Washington D.C.
U.S.
tomas.janeliunas@tspmi.vu.lt
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HANNA WASS & S.M. AMADAE
Security and defense policies need
dynamic democratic support
Expert article • 3625
Finland’s security and defense policy environment has changed
signicantly over the past two years. After Russia began its large-
scale attack on Ukraine on February 24, 2022, it quickly became
clear that it was necessary to re-evaluate our security and defense
policy choices. Finns interpreted NATO membership as providing
Finland with a necessary and viable military deterrent against Russia. After
an intense chain of events and a period of waiting for ratication by Turkey
and Hungary, Finland was accepted as a member of the defense alliance
on April 4, 2023.
Whereas the 2023 Finnish parliamentary elections were strongly
focused on national economic policy, the presidential elections held at the
beginning of this year placed the role of NATO-Finland within the reach
of citizens’ democratic control. Untypically to Finnish political culture in
defense and security issues, the presidential candidates openly debated
the opportunities and obligations that Finland’s NATO membership
entail. Of the two candidates in the second round, Alexander Stubb
campaigned for a strong NATO, more NATO in Finland, and more Finland
in NATO, including participation in its nuclear deterrence. Pekka Haavisto,
in turn, represented a diplomacy-orientated standpoint by emphasizing
a multipolar defense collaboration and perceiving nuclear weapons as a
mechanism for crisis escalation rather than a peace guarantee.
In the rapidly changing geopolitical and economic environment,
new national security and defense issues have appeared. Continuation
of military and nancial support for Ukraine, deepening lines of division
between the Global South and the Global North, the strained relations
between China and the United States as well as the accelerating conict
in the Middle East require active engagement. Tensions in world politics
strengthen the paradigm of comprehensive security, incorporating a
broad conceptualization of security from military to climate, pandemic,
terrorism, resource scarcity, and migration. It also expands the spectrum
of actors involved in crisis management to include, for example, national
central banks, which played a signicant role in handling the Covid-19
pandemic.
The contemporary political context activates all sorts of security needs
among citizens. Citizens’ expectations change dynamically as a response
to security and defense policy decisions as well as to the frames through
which politics are interpreted. To strengthen legitimacy and ensure
democratic input in decision-making on security and defense issues, it is
essential to take into account the adapting character of public opinion.
In our “Dynamic Support for Security and Defense Policy (NATOpoll)”
research project, we interview the same respondents every six months.
The ndings show that Finns’ support for NATO remains high: 82 percent
were in favor of membership in our latest survey round, conducted in
November 2023 (n=2,038). In line with the newly appointed President
Stubb, citizens support a strong NATO, consider Finland’s active role in
the defense alliance important, and are willing to invest in meeting the
expectations that come with membership.
While the majority still view nuclear weapons critically as part of NATO
membership, there has been a notable shift of attitudes. In a measurement
in June, only 27 percent were willing to allow the transportation of nuclear
weapons through Finland, but this has increased to 38 percent in ve
months. A majority of the voters for the leading government party, the
National Coalition, are already in favor. Similarly, one-fth are willing to
have nuclear weapons deployed on Finnish territory, which is almost
double the proportion reported in summer 2023. This can be seen as a
clear indication of dynamically developing public opinion within the
general security environment.
Alongside NATO commitments, citizens support increasing
cooperation in EU-level defense as well as maintaining a strong national
defense. Certain themes divide citizens especially along the left-
right dimension, such as the demilitarization of Åland, anti-personnel
landmines, and nuclear weapons. However, disagreement appears to be a
question of pluralism and dispersion of views instead of sharp polarization
with clearly opposing opinions. Overall, there is a notable consensus on
Finland’s broadly construed security interests. The same applies to the
policy-makers, as all central actors formulating Finland’s security and
foreign policy currently represent the same party.
Consensus is a considerable strength for a small nation especially in a
turbulent international security environment. At the same time, it increases
the risks of certain political frameworks becoming overemphasized while
important contradictory perspectives are neglected. A largely shared
understanding of the status quo may lead to narrow scenarios and a
lack of vision. Listening to opposing voices and constantly monitoring
dynamic citizen perspectives will ensure that the security decisions made
now will remain sustainable in the future.
Hanna Wass
Adjunct Professor in Political Science,
Vice-Dean
Faculty of Social Sciences,
University of Helsinki
Finland
She is a PI of the research project “Dynamic
democratic support for Finnish defense policy
(NATOpoll)” (2023–2025), funded by the Kone
Foundation.
hanna.wass@helsinki.
S.M. Amadae
Adjunct Professor in Political Science,
Director of the “Global Politics and
Communication” MA program
Faculty of Social Sciences,
University of Helsinki
Finland
She is a co-PI of the NATOpoll
project.
sm.amadae@helsinki.
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Baltic Rim Economies4.4.2024 ISSUE # 2
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ALBERT WECKMAN
The formation of security policy
attitudes in Finland
Expert article • 3626
Finland’s choice to join NATO highlights the signicant role public
opinion can play in shaping national foreign and security policy
decisions. It’s reasonable to suggest that the swift endorsement
from the political elite for Finland’s accession to the alliance, might
not have occurred without a substantial shift in public support
in 2022. It’s even plausible to consider that, without the robust backing
reected in public opinion polls, the decision to join NATO might not have
been made at all.
Given the evident attention the political elite pays to public opinion,
understanding it becomes a priority. Despite decades of surveying the
Finnish public on foreign- and security policy issues, the underlying
mechanisms of these attitudes remain largely unknown. My research
aims to shed light on how security policy attitudes are developed and
what inuences them. It’s clear that these security attitudes are highly
responsive to signicant changes in the external security environment.
For instance, support for NATO membership in Finland has over the years
notably shifted in the wake of aggressive actions by Russia, especially in
2014 and 2022. The sensitivity of public opinion to security shocks aligns
with ndings from previous research in other parts of the world in various
global contexts.
As the security landscape deteriorates, certain security concerns
become more crucial, notably citizens’ willingness to defend their nation.
Finland, much like Ukraine, relies on a substantial military reserve as the
cornerstone of its national defense. This reliance highlights how important
it is with a robust desire among citizens to protect their country against
foreign aggression, a sentiment also clearly demonstrated in Ukraine’s
defense eorts. Despite a generally high readiness to counter foreign
aggression in Finland, clear socioeconomic dierences exist among its
citizens. Our recent research ndings reveal a signicant correlation, or
link, between individuals’ personal wealth and their determination to
resist foreign military aggression. In other words, the more personal assets
you have, the more willing you are to personally defend Finland against
any potential threats.
Beyond its national defense, Finland has now integrated into NATO’s
collective defense, often referred to as the “musketeer’s clause”. This clause
not only provides defense guarantees but also requires Finland’s support
for allies in times of need. This means that Finland needs to formulate new
policies on how to assist allies if they are attacked. Sentiments among
Finnish citizens show strong support for providing military aid in form of
weapons and equipment to defend an ally, though there is more hesitation
regarding the dispatch of military reservists. This perspective is based on
data from surveys conducted in November 2023 by the NATOpoll research
project. Delving deeper into the factors that cultivate a strong sense of
alliance solidarity, my preliminary research indicates that individuals with
a strong attachment to Europe are signicantly more supportive of Finland
aiding its NATO allies during conicts. This suggests that as long as Finns
feel a strong European attachment, they are likely to view supporting
their allies as crucial also in the future. Conversely, a weakening sense of
European attachment could negatively aect the commitment to NATO’s
collective defense strategy.
Since public opinion will continue to inuence national policy makers,
it’s important to acknowledge that a current strong public support for
a certain policy does not guarantee that its permanent. Security policy
attitudes are deeply inuenced by the context and can rapidly change in
response to shifts in the security landscape. It’s likely that the consensus
in Finland regarding security issues will uctuate over time. Public opinion
surveys oer important insights but require careful interpretation,
particularly when applied to complex matters like national security—areas
that are challenging for individuals to fully comprehend or understand.
Therefore, it’s important to bear in mind that a signicant surge in opinion
is often followed by a decline. Eventually, public attitudes tend to stabilize
and reverse. However, predicting when and to what extent this will occur
is, of course, dicult so say.
Albert Weckman
Doctoral Researcher
The Social Science Research Institute
Åbo Akademi University
Finland
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STEN RYNNING
Will Europe return to balance of
power politics?
Expert article • 3627
After 75 years of respite, Europe may be returning to balance of
power politics. The cause hereof is Russia’s war of aggression
against Ukraine but most notably the inadequacy of the
Western response to it.
NATO, turning 75 in April 2024, was never primarily
about the balance of power. NATO was designed by the United States—
which responded to the prodding of British and other leaders—to
solve Europe’s balance of power problem once and for all. The United
States entered into a peacetime military commitment to overcome, not
participate in balance of power politics.
Readers will be familiar with the Marshall aid of 1947 that oered
Europeans much needed nancial recovery aid in return for a commitment
to unite. In many ways, the Marshall aid program was the starting shot of
European integration. By thus tying Europeans to the mast of permanent
and institutionalized cooperation, the United States sought to prevent the
return of balance of power politics.
NATO has in this regard received less attention as a transformational
initiative. After all, it was a political-military alliance to balance Soviet
power. However, NATO was the security piece of the transformational
design of US policy: bringing security to Europeans was meant to enable
political transformation. Yes, NATO should keep ‘the Russians out,’ but the
Alliance’s primary purpose was to encourage condence and cooperation
in a Europe protected by an American security umbrella.
NATO’s treaty therefore speaks of no evil. It speaks instead of community
building, referring to the UN Charter and peace among its members. The
treaty envisages this peace as durable, for as long as it is protected. Thus,
Senator Vandenberg, who did so much to enable American entry into its
rst overseas peacetime alliance, and who negotiated the UN Charter’s
collective security clause, was adamant: NATO was a facet of collective
security, not a return to some European-style balance of power politics.
This history matters tremendously to the Atlantic Alliance that today
struggles to fashion an adequate response to Russia’s war on Ukraine.
As I lay out in my book, NATO: From Cold War to Ukraine, A History of the
World’s Most Powerful Alliance (Yale UP, 2024), NATO is in fact struggling
to maintain its core function as a peace community within which security
competition between its members is unthinkable.
How did it get to this point? Three factors have conspired to drive
NATO into its state of doubt. The rst is geopolitical shortsightedness.
NATO allies have never fully resolved the tension between their promise
to make Europe free for all and then their tendency to reduce conicts on
Russia’s borders and neighboring regions to post-Soviet aairs. In 2008,
NATO allies promised Ukraine and Georgia a future inside NATO but then
drew back. The result has been to whet Russia’s appetite for geopolitical
revision and enhance its ability to use the Eastern European space as a
testing bed for its revisionist policy.
The second is defense fatigue. NATO’s treaty species in its Article 3
that defense rst and foremost is a national responsibility, adding that
collective will is important too. Since the retreat from the Afghan combat
mission in 2011-2012, allies have mostly wanted to forget about this
national responsibility. In eect, they went on a defense-free vacation.
NATO allies did respond in modest ways to the Russian seizure of Crimea,
but the build-up of trip wires and ‘enhanced forward presence’ was limited.
Today we know that it failed to impress Russia, which in 2022 returned
Europe to major war.
The nal factor is respect for Russia as a major nuclear power inside
Europe. Thirty years of belief in progress tempt the idea that Europe’s
future stability must somehow include peace diplomacy with Russia—
perhaps when the war in Ukraine freezes and when East-West diplomacy
gains better scope. A Europe whole and free, is the underlying sense, must
involve Russia.
These three factors combine into a cocktail of geopolitical laxism.
Defense fatigue, political divisions, and Russia politics drive the idea that
sooner or later, NATO allies must talk to Russia and strike a continental deal.
The idea is still not dominant. But it is wedging itself into a reality where
US leadership is waning and where European allies struggle to cohere and
make an impact to the benet for Ukraine. Negotiation with Russia will be
dressed up as reasonable: a measure to deal with the cost of the war and
to get on with other business.
However, no one should be in doubt that when negotiation with
Russia takes precedence over self-suciency in terms of collective defense,
NATO will have parted company with its legacy. This NATO, adapting to the
balance of power and to Russia’s dominance of its near abroad, will no
longer suce to create peace in Europe. It is not yet NATO’s course, but it is
something everyone vested in NATO’s peace should be concerned about
and actively seek to counter.
Sten Rynning
Professor, Director
Danish Institute of Advanced Study (DIAS),
University of Southern Denmark
Denmark
sry@sam.sdu.dk
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TORMOD HEIER
Does NATO prepare for the right
war?
Expert article • 3628
From January to May 2024, NATO conducts its largest exercise
since the Cold War, Steadfast Defender 2024. Approximately
90,000 troops from 32 member-states participates in a scenario
where Russia is contained, deterred, and eventually defeated. Not
only in Central-Europe, in Hungary, Slovakia and Romania but
along a 2700-kilometer-long front. From the Kola Peninsula in the Arctic
to Kaliningrad in the Baltic Sea, Russia’s newly restored Leningrad and
Moscow Military Districts are put to the test.
The world’s most powerful alliance should have a fair chance of success.
The NATO-members account for more than 50 percent of the world’s total
expenditure on military hardware. They are thus accountable for more than
half of the world’s total Gross Domestic Production (GDP). Together, the
966 million citizens from many of the world’s most prosperous countries
can mobilize over 3,6 million troops, 20,000 aircrafts and 1200 navy vessels.
And almost as many nuclear weapons as Russia’s 5889. Russia’s 143 million
citizens, with a GDP at the size of Texas, can mobilize 1,4 million soldiers,
4000 aircrafts and just below 600 navy vessels. Russia’s ground forces are
for years to come bogged down in Europe’s second largest state, Ukraine.
As Europe enters 2025, Russia’s ground force will likely have suered over
half a million casualties; all 170 tactical battalion groups decimated.
The numbers are uncertain. But they indicate one thing: Russia is
militarily dwarfed compared to NATO. Since the 2022-invasion, the Alliance
has become more cohesive, more agile, and more credible in deterring
Russian aggression. The contrast to NATO’s indecisiveness after Russia’s
2014 annexation of Crimea is stark. Ten years ago, the Alliance spent
over six months discussing whether to deploy reinforcements into Baltic
and Polish territories. It was only in 2017 that the rst four multinational
battlegroups were deployed to Poland and the Baltics. As Russia launched
its 2022-invasion, NATO had more than 40,000 troops under its command
in May.
Is Steadfast Defender 2024 therefore the appropriate answer? Is it likely
that Russia, despite its’ political, military, and economic inferiority, will pose
a credible military threat to Northern-European NATO-members anytime
sone? A full-scale war with Russia is denitively a worst-case scenario, but
is it likely?
On the one hand, a diverse and fragmented NATO must always
improve interoperability. As “culture eats strategy for breakfast”, joint
exercises inside a multinational chain-of-command are key to overcome
incompatible and competing procedures, techniques, and tactics. On the
other hand, is it likely that Russia will wage war on Western premises, in
accordance with NATO’s conventional plans, doctrines, and procedures?
Russia is more likely to follow the perennial logic of China’s general and
philosopher Sun Tzu. Codifying common sense 2500 years ago, his Art of
War-doctrine argues that inferior forces will always avoid the opponent’s
stronger side. Focus should be on adversary vulnerabilities.
It is therefore unlikely that Russia will launch a conventional
campaign against NATO’s strength. Russia’s lines of operation unfold
below the threshold of war. Russian troops will only have a supporting
role, conned to snap exercises, aggressive signaling, and coercive
diplomacy. The supported element, Russia’s key players, are the secret
services: the FSB-disinformation agents, the GRU-assassination teams,
and the SVR-aliated Cozy Bear hacker groups. Being inferior to NATO’s
unprecedented force, Russia’s most likely course of action will unfold
within the NATO-member’ local communities and municipalities: liberal,
transparent, and vulnerable cities that – as seen from the Kremlin – are
perceived as favorable grey zones. For instance, in operations that blur
the ambiguous interface between war and peace, between state security
and public safety, or within the fragmented sector-oriented, state-driven
Western bureaucracy. This is a frontline where delegation of governmental
roles and responsibilities make NATO-member states tardy, fragmented,
and inecient. Particularly against more exible and neatly coordinated
Russian competitors.
As NATO prepare for a worst-case scenario: Could it be that the world’s
mightiest alliance prepares for the wrong war? Should Steadfast Defender
2024 instead have trained the myriad of prime ministers, presidents,
mayors, police chiefs, voluntary NGOs, and home guard commanders? For
the next decade, these civilian and semi-civilian actors will be NATO’s rst
line of defence. Maybe it is time to think more rationally about Russian
threat perceptions: neatly orchestrated operations with malign intents;
not against NATO’s strong points, but against liberal democracies’ critical
vulnerability: the social fabric that rests upon public condence, national
cohesion, and trust. Russia’s target-list is not NATO but the feeble web of
social interaction that binds citizens and their governments together as
one coherent and resilient actor.
Tormod Heier
Professor
Norwegian Defence University College
Norway
theier@mil.no
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TRINE FLOCKHART
Is NATO ready for the multi-order
world?
Expert article • 3629
NATO celebrates its 75th birthday on the 4th of April 2024. Yet,
despite advancing age, NATO is not heading for retirement but
is playing an active role in a European security environment
that is now dominated by Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.
Indeed, if Putin’s aim was to weaken NATO by invading Ukraine,
he was gravely mistaken as the war appears to have turned NATO from a
rather sluggish - by Macron’s account “brain dead” alliance, into a dynamic,
stronger, and bigger alliance that has taken decisions about its present
and future role no one would have dreamt possible before February 2022.
Yet, despite the many positive developments such as the admission
of Finland and Sweden and the important decisions at the summits
in Madrid in 2022 and Vilnius in 2023 to strengthen NATO’s capacity to
defend its member states, the birthday celebrations will take place in the
shadow of a rapidly worsening European security environment, continued
transformation of the global rules-based order, widespread contestations
against the value foundations of the liberal international order, and
growing nervousness about the status of the Alliance under a possible
Trump presidency.
This brief ar ticle argues that whilst NATO certainly should be applauded
for the swift reactions to the worsening security environment in Europe,
NATO has been less successful in addressing persistent contestations
against its value base and to plan policies in accordance to the emerging
international system that can now be characterized as multi-order rather
than multipolar.
What is a multi-order world?
Security practitioners seem convinced that the world is changing
from unipolarity to multipolarity. However, the characterization of the
global system as multipolarity is a view that is anchored in Eurocentric/
Western understandings of the international system with an exaggerated
emphasis on shifting power and without fully capturing the complexity
of the current transformation and that the structure of global relations
increasingly is fragmented into dierent clusters - or international orders.
To fully understand the challenges ahead for NATO, it is necessary to
look beyond the impact in the European security environment of Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine, and to consider the ongoing war as an integral part
of the transformation into a multi-order system, consisting of several
international orders, including the American-led liberal international
order, the Russian-led Eurasian order and the Chinese-led Belt and Road
order. More orders of either a regional or faith-based nature may well be
in the making, which inevitably will produce a highly pluralistic global
ordering architecture. Within this context, it is important to be clear about
the increasing need for NATO to not only maintain its capacity to defend
against threats to NATO members’ security, but also that NATO should
prepare policies that can sustain the liberal international order’s position
within the new multi-order world.
A multi-order global architecture constitutes a major change because
the relational dynamics will be within and between dierent international
orders, rather than between sovereign states. Such a change will require
extensive rethinking about NATO’s roles in the future as NATO will have
to manage relationships within the liberal international order and
relationships between international orders – most notably between the
liberal international order and the Russian-led and the Chinese-led orders.
It is still uncertain if the multi-order world will be cooperative, competitive
or conictual, but it sems certain that NATO as the main security
institution within the liberal international order, will have a signicant
role to play in ensuring constructive relationships between the orders of
the multi-order world. In contemplating NATO’s future, it is therefore
important to fully acknowledge NATO’s role within the multi-order world
rather than to continue being xated on past versions of polarity as the
foundation for NATO’s future.
A continued adherence to the assumption of a return to multipolarity
reects anchoring in the past that is likely to be damaging for the future.
Between the pull of adapting to the future or going back to the past
The problem is that whilst NATO has been busy getting ready militarily
for the new European security challenges, it appears to have overlooked
the need to adapt to the changing global environment. Because
NATO interprets the current order transformation as a move towards
multipolarity rather than multi-order, it has failed to distinguish between
NATO’s role within the liberal international order and NATO’s (more limited)
role in forging constructive relations between the dierent international
orders that are now part of the global rules-based order. This is a problem
because the two require quite dierent policies. Policies within the
liberal international order must be anchored in liberal values such as
democracy, the rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of
expression, freedom of the press and freedom of religion. Policies between
dierent international orders, on the other hand, will be less focused on
individual (human) rights, prioritizing instead state centric principles such
as sovereignty and the principle of egality with more space for cultural
and political diversity. In the context of assessing NATO’s role going
forward, the distinction between the two is important to incorporate
into policymaking in a way so that liberal values can be the foundation
of policy and practice within the liberal international order, whilst thinner
and more universally accepted values will be the best that can be hoped
for in policy between dierent orders.
Today, NATO needs to urgently distinguish between the two and
to take strategic decisions with the understanding that liberal policies
will have little sway in the global rules-based order but are crucial for
sustaining the liberal international order. Given the rapid and extensive
deterioration of the European security environment and the potential for
a dramatic change in the transatlantic relations underpinning NATO, it is
understandable that NATO is overtly focused on its military preparedness.
Yet, if NATO is to maintain a constructive role within the new global
ordering architecture, it is imperative to proceed in a way that clearly
distinguishes between policies within NATO and the liberal international
order and policies that are geared towards the complexity of the multi-
order world.
Trine Flockhart
Chair of Security
Florence School of Transnational
Governance,
European University Institute
Italy
trine.ockhart@eui.eu
The argument briey presented here can be found in more detail
in the article ‘NATO in the Multi-Order World’ in the Special Issue of
International Aairs for March 2024.
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LUDWIG DECAMPS
NATO’s digital transformation:
Evolution, assessment and
opportunities in the Baltic region
On the 4th of April, 75 years ago, 12 countries gathered at the
Departmental Auditorium in Washington D.C. in a historic
ceremony that would shape the future of international
relations. The North Atlantic Treaty was signed and NATO was
born.
President Truman’s address on that day emphasized the importance of
nations “so deeply conscious of their common interests” coming together
to preserve peace and to protect it in the future.
His words still resonate today. The accession of Finland in April
2023 and the recent membership of Sweden as the 32nd Ally, attests to
the enduring commitment from like-minded nations to safeguard our
collective security now, and in the future.
12 founding members then, 32 today, a stronger Alliance, and a shift in
focus. The proliferation of cyber threats and the integration of technology
in all aspects and domains of modern warfare have triggered a profound
adaptation towards digitalisation which reects on the Alliance’s
commitment to staying relevant in today’s strategic environment.
For 75 years, NATO has been the bedrock of transatlantic peace,
stability and security, whether on land, at sea, or in the air, and now in
cyber and space. Today, in a more complex and unpredictable world, the
Alliance’s continued political and military success and its ability to full
its tasks will rely on its capacity to adopt technologies to conduct multi-
domain operations in a robust, resilient, and interoperable manner.
For this, an enhanced situation awareness, data-driven decision-
making and strengthened collaboration with the private sector, civil
society and academia are essential. A secure digital enterprise will be key
enablers to maintain the technological edge of our armed forces and civil
societies.
A shift in focus
The NATO 2030 initiative sets out an ambitious agenda for the next
decade, with clear guidelines for further adaptation to address existing,
new and future threats, including in cyber space, and a focus on resilience
and innovation.
The NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCI Agency),
NATO’s technology and cyber hub, is an enabler in delivering NATO’s 2030
ambitions and driving the digital transformation.
Born from a merger of several NATO entities in 2012, our Agency has
a 68-year legacy of supporting the Alliance. From its roots in providing
technical advice and software to the operational community in the 1950s,
the Agency has evolved in line with NATO’s purpose and ambitions over
the last decades. Just like the Alliance’s values have endured, supporting
our forces remains at the heart of our mission. However, our operating
environment has drastically changed with the rise of hybrid threats and
‘grey zone’ operations that fall below the threshold of traditional armed
conict.
The pace of technological change has never been higher, unlocking
new opportunities and risks and reshaping our operational strategies.
Our mission today reinforces NATO’s ability to adapt to an increase
interconnectedness and emerging challenges by embracing and
integrating these new technologies to ensure secure, reliable, resilient and
ecient collaboration within NATO and enhancing interoperability across
the Alliance.
Maximising the value of data through exploitation and sharing within
the Alliance will allow us to achieve cognitive and decision superiority. For
this, our experts work in cooperation with industry, academia, Allies and
Partners, to keep pace of innovation and digital advances and help NATO
remain a competitive and leading force in the current uncertain security
environment.
The Baltics: NATO digital frontrunners
This renewed sense of threat is perhaps most acute among the three Baltic
members, which have long been vulnerable to Russian aggression.
Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia have made use of digitalisation as a
powerful tool to rebuild their societies and bolster their resilience since
they regained their independence in 1991. Their digitalisation eorts in
the adoption of emerging technologies, their enhanced focus on cyber
resilience and a ourishing innovation-driven private sector attest their
digital maturity.
Estonia’s experience in handling the cyber-attacks of 2007 has placed
the country as a recognised leader in cybersecurity. Annual exercises
such as Cyber Coalition or Locked Shields serve as vital platforms to test
resilience to cyber threats and conducting operations. Both of them are
organised by the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence,
founded in Tallinn the year of the attacks. The Agency supports the
planning and execution of the exercises year in, year out. This year our
experts will team up with Latvia to participate in Locked Shields and train
together to enhance their skills.
In Latvia, the Agency is also immersed in a 5G project, harnessing
the use of this technology to facilitate interoperability in multinational
scenarios. Finally, late last year, the Agency extended connectivity for
NATO digital networks to support the temporary deployment of NATO
AWACS jets to Lithuania, extending the surveillance coverage to monitor
Russian military activity near the Alliance’s borders in the Baltic region.
The changing nature of conict and hybridisation of warfare demands
the adoption of new technologies like 5G, Articial Intelligence or cloud.
Cognizant of that, Allies have committed an unprecedented increase in
defence investment. In 2024, Allies in Europe will invest a combined total
of 380 billion US dollars in defence, with 20% earmarked for higher-end
and new equipment, as well as for new technologies.
Expert article • 3630
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The Baltic countries possess a strong, innovative, research-oriented
and globally competitive industry, and a digital-ready workforce,
covering many of the areas where the Agency is focusing its eorts.
This brings collaboration opportunities for Baltic nationals and private
sector to contribute to the Agency’s mission and enhance NATO’s digital
transformation.
Industry is essential in shaping digital interoperability across the
Alliance. Conscious of this strategic imperative, the Agency has launched
a new outsourcing strategy to support NATO’s ambitions and deliver the
most eective and ecient solutions against the NATO 2030 priorities.
From the development of cyber security solutions, to the supply of
advanced communications and information equipment, or the research
and development of emerging technologies, the new strategy underscores
a growing demand signal. Driven by the NATO 2030 commitments, NATO-
wide collective budgets will increase by some 200% over the next six
years, bringing new business opportunities for industry to tap in.
Eight months ago, on the shores of the Baltic Sea, we engaged with
industry to explore NATO’s vision for its future defence capabilities at the
NATO Industry Forum. This 2024, as we mark NATO’s 75th anniversary,
the Agency crosses the Atlantic to launch the second edition of our
agship event. NATO Edge 2024 will take place in Tampa, Florida from
3-5 December, strengthening the transatlantic bond between decision-
makers, industry and academia to discuss the technology, collaboration
and partnerships required to future-proof the Alliance.
Industry makes NATO stronger. Only by leveraging our partnerships
with industry, we will ensure the success of the most enduring alliance in
history, and safeguard peace and stability for our future generations.
Expert article • 3630
Ludwig Decamps
General Manager
NATO Communications and Information
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NEVILLE BOLT
The dilemma of strategic
communications
Expert article • 3631
War is an act of communication––an intention to inuence
through force when all persuasion is abandoned. In the
global turbulence of the early 21st century, geopolitics
dees easy understanding, shunning the shorthand
metaphors of the Cold War. As three major conicts
become increasingly triangulated––the Russia-Ukraine war, the Israel-
Gaza tragedy, and China’s irredentist claims to Taiwan––making sense of
developments eludes the sharpest minds.
NATO’s 2030 Reection Group recently identied a perplexing array
of threats in today’s world: Russia, China, disruptive technologies, and
terrorism, to climate change, pandemics, and hybrid and cyber threats.
How should the world’s largest security alliance communicate across these
primary but predominantly secondary and tertiary elds of eects? What
could be the Leitmotif ? As NATO reaches its 75th anniversary, confronting
an existential moment in the history of democracy, it seems appropriate to
weigh a key tension inside Western geopolitical communications.
Strategic communications is the new buzzword in the corridors of
power, an instant panacea to the world’s woes. Its claim to ‘see over the
horizon’ captures ‘a holistic approach to communication based on values
and interests that encompasses everything an actor does to achieve
objectives in a contested environment’. So concluded NATO StratCom’s
Terminology Working Group. But this concept has struggled in its brief
lifetime in geopolitics. Since the late 1990s when a new Secretary General,
Ko Annan, sought to restore condence in a failing United Nations,
making it less preachy and more sensitive to communities’ needs around
the world, strategic communications has struggled to nd its soul.
NATO members have since played host to debates around two
competing strands of thought. The empirical and would-be scientic¬¬–
–‘messaging’ campaigns to change how people think, tactically targeted,
adjusted and measured for eect. And by contrast, the long-term, less
tangible vision to shape enduring discourses in societies. The rst pursued
through government spending with short attention spans and short-
term changes of direction; the second, a leap of faith, demanding long-
term commitment to communities culturally and geographically distant.
Instrumentalist tactics versus normative belief. The problem rests on the
need for political communicators to deliver tangible outcomes so that
political masters can account to taxpayers and voters, while open-ended
commitments to change may be condemned as a bottomless spending
pit.
Time is the enemy of democratic governance. Four-year cycles for
electing politicians militate against long-term planning and meaningful
change. Autocracies enjoy the luxury of surviving decades in oce,
employing guile and force.
This dilemma resonates at a time when Russia’s invasion is intent on
destroying the state and people of Ukraine. Or, as an icy wind blows from
further east where China’s President Xi has declared democracy unt to
administer complex societies and their economies. If today’s menace from
Moscow recalls the dark days of the Berlin airlift and Marshall Plan, it is no
surprise that NATO’s strategic communicators are reasserting the Alliance’s
founding values. In the 1940s, these were to be consistent with the United
Nations Charter, safeguarding the security and freedoms of Europe’s
citizens. Franklin Roosevelt had famously declared the four freedoms in
1941. And NATO’s Washington Treaty in 1949 had captured the same spirit,
bookending a decade of world war. Today the same freedoms are under
threat. And citizens stand in the line of re.
In 2022, Western governments sought to win support for their
democracy-versus-autocracy framing of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The
existential claim fell largely on deaf ears across the African continent,
reected in how its leaders subsequently voted at the United Nations.
Neither was it their war, nor was democracy their concern. Russia’s
systematic disinformation and hybrid campaigns continue on an
industrial scale, aimed at repositioning the perception of this aggression
while fuelling fragmentation and uncertainty in Western societies. All in
an unprecedented election year in democracies and electoral autocracies
when half the world’s population is going to the polls. Exploring
democracy’s inevitable dierences and diversity is democracy’s glass half-
full; exploiting its cracks and divisions also reveals a glass half-empty.
Ask communications practitioners in the private sector whether
freedoms drive their motivation. Their answer rarely exceeds the ambition
to deliver ecacy to client governments and value for money. Which
begs another question––whether at certain times in history all are forced
to choose. Particularly given geopolitics’ rush towards transactional
dealmaking, which may be further accelerated by this year’s newly elected
leaders. But at a time of existential survival for many, should strategic
communicators not aspire to a higher vision consistent with liberal values
that respect individual freedoms and preserve a law-based global order?
The opinions expressed are entirely the author’s.
Neville Bolt
Dr., Founder & Director
Sympodium Institute for Strategic
Communications
UK
Editor-in-Chief
NATO Defence Strategic Communications
Journal
Visiting Scholar
St Edmund’s College
University of Cambridge
UK
Visiting Professor
Tokyo College
University of Tokyo
Japan
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BEN O’LOUGHLIN
The role of communication in NATO’s
inuence
Expert article • 3632
Let’s be clear: In a world politics of multipolarity and the sheer
diversity of perspectives humans create, there is no “the” narrative.
However, the perception of “a” narrative being convincing to
some can shape the policy agendas and spending decisions of
states and multilateral organisations. This is why the perception
of a narrative performing well relates to inuence. That perception aects
processes and concrete outcomes. As I write in February 2024, there is
evidently no shared narrative at the Munich Security Conference, let alone
the UN Security Council. It is not just Nato that cannot set “the” narrative.
But it can produce a narrative that a majority of its members can promote
as a consensus.
There are many reasons Nato nds inuence hard to achieve through
communication. The result is that Nato’s task is to manage messiness,
manage discord, manage opposition. Total autonomy and total clarity are
impossible. I will set out four dimensions of this dilemma. They help us
plot a pragmatic course for Nato and its communication.
First, this is not a new situation. At an event I attended at Nato Brussels
in 2015 even Nato ocials identied uncertainty about whether Nato’s
narrative on Afghanistan was to defeat the Taliban or contain them, or
whether this tted a wider narrative of global security or security for Nato
members. Each Nato member had a caveat about what Nato’s narrative
should be. Some national leaders set their policy through reex and
immediate moral indignation, not long-term strategy coordinated with
other Nato members. Nato had to coordinate its own communication
with other international organisations. Nato focused their communication
around on-the-ground operations, but the UN and EU did not. The result
was uncertainty within Nato and about Nato.
Second, diversity of interests continue in Nato. Whether the US or
European countries buy oil from Russia or Gulf states, or aspire to energy
independence, has been a dilemma even since before the 1973 oil crisis.
Colliding interests about Iran compound this. By the late 2010s some
European countries still wanted the 2015 Iran nuclear deal restored and
viewed Iran at least slightly favourably, while others and US allies were
more concerned about a developing Iran-China-Russia relationship.
The Russia-Ukraine war has exposed the intensity of these pressures.
Germany nally decided to lower its Russian energy imports. However,
Russia is still a huge exporter. Not only does that challenge any notion
of a global opposition to Russia. It indicates the US does not control the
market, pointing to limits of US power. Market activity disrupts Nato’s
security narrative.
Third, Nato must navigate how it is narrated by others, not just how it
views itself. Nato ts within plots held by states and societies around the
world. It is characterised and contextualised based on understandings of
its member states, not just its own history. Nato’s narrative on Ukraine will
not be accepted by many in the global south. I analysed mainstream news
from many countries about the Russian invasion through 2022-23, and
found very divergent perspectives. This has implications for considering
who might oer even tacit support to Nato.
In Malaysia, news reported that Nato wants a second Cold War
to justify its own existence. Russia nds Nato eastward expansion ‘an
existential threat’, reported one as an empirical fact in the record of history.
Nato members want a long war, not Russia or Ukraine. War makes Nato
members’ politicians and arms company shareholders richer. Seven of the
largest ten arms companies in the world are Western -- six US, one UK.
The only bright spot for Nato was Malaysian journalists’ sense that China is
doing nothing to make peace in Ukraine more likely.
South African reporting was more ambiguous. ‘Despite the double
standards, lies and hypocrisy of the US, EU, UK, United Nations Security
Council and Nato axis,’ one wrote, ‘Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine must
be denounced and condemned’. Journalists reported Africa as a continent
divided on the war. Some countries voted for the UN resolutions, some
against. This indicated some supported international law, some did not
– ‘tantamount to endorsing global anarchy’, one wrote. The concern was
that such anarchy will aect all humankind. That is South Africa’s security
priority.
In Indian news, I found Nato rarely mentioned. For Indian journalists,
world politics involves great powers but not institutional alliances. Should
that itself be a concern to Nato?
Fourth, Nato must accept that members -- or potential members -- will
try to use Nato for particular ends. This must be acceptable to all members.
By defying Russian threats by holding to a willingness to join Nato one
day, Ukraine took a calculated gamble: if Russia responded militarily, Nato
would respond. And it has. Ukraine’s government assessed the insecurity
any Russian advance would pose in Central and Eastern Europe. Eventual
military victory would depend on using communication to persuade allies
to commit resources and will – because of a shared goal.
Recall the concept “ontological security”, the proposition that all
actors want a secure identity grounded in a stable environment. Zelensky
could exploit vulnerabilities in the West’s ontological security. Post-Cold
War, a rules-based international order seemed likely to expand inexorably.
By 2022 a multipolar order in which Russia can break some rules, and so
too some Nato members, exposed a challenge to a sense of self in the
West and across Nato. Yet Nato cannot do nothing. It cannot shrink back.
It must act. Ukraine would have support. Nato has managed this relatively
well, but internal dissent is not unnoticed. There remains the issue too, as
described above, of how the rest of the world perceives Nato’s actions.
Ben O’Loughlin
Professor of International Relations
Royal Holloway, University of London
United Kingdom
Ben.OLoughlin@rhul.ac.uk
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CLAIRE WARDLE
Mitigating misinformation - Baltic
Rim
Expert article • 3633
As this is a column about misinformation, most people probably
expect a deep dive into the perils of Generative AI or the chaos
that might happen in one of the many elections scheduled to
take place this year because of disinformation.
But as I sit at my laptop preparing to write this
column my eyes are drawn to X, and an example of disinformation that
has just appeared on my feed. It is a video, which opens with an image
of President Zelensky in army fatigues. The image looks identical to a
BBC News report with the same font, graphics and ocial BBC logo. The
video claims that Zelensky received a severance package of $53million to
become UK ambassador. It’s not a deepfake. It’s a cheap fake that uses the
tried and tested method we call ‘imposter content’, the use of a known
logo or name, to by-pass someone’s training to ‘investigate the source’.
It’s an important reminder that for all the discussion of generative
AI and election-related disinformation, every day there is a continuous
stream of falsehoods, much of it not very sophisticated. It is cheaply made
and disseminated and all of it polluting our information ecosystem. While
it’s tempting to focus on what’s new and shiny, we cannot forget the harm
caused by the most simple techniques that still have the potential to
impact the way people think about almost any issue a society is concerned
about.
I use this Zelensky example to underscore that while AI technology is
evolving at a worrying speed - the new OpenAI tool Sora that launched
last month showcasing how easy it is to create very realistic 60 seconds
video from a one sentence prompt - the biggest challenge remains our
psychological biases. For those pro-Kremlin supporters who desperately
want to believe Zelensky might be soon out of the picture, this rumor does
what it needs to do. Almost a decade after the issue of misinformation
became a global talking point, it is still causing harm, because we haven’t
suciently invested in cradle-to-grave education programs to help people
understand how their brains are being targeted and how vulnerable we all
are.
So while we absolutely need to be prepared for the impact of
generative AI tools, we need to remember how easy it is to cause harm
with little if no technology. Back in 2019 a political operative created a
24-hour news cycle after he took a video of the then US House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi, slowed down the video slightly to make it appear that she
was drunk and slurring her words. In 2018, an impersonator that sounded
identical to the then Brazilian Presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro,
recorded what sounded like a voice note from his hospital bed (he’d just
been stabbed on the campaign trail) and it took three days for audio
forensics specialists to gure out it wasn’t him. This past week an image of
Donald Trump surrounded by a small group of Black supporters was being
shared. It turned out it had been created by Generative AI but the same
result could have been achieved using photoshop.
So when it comes to mitigating misinformation, the aim shouldn’t
be waiting for fancy new tools to detect AI, or new election related
misinformation initiatives. We have to continue pumping resources into
educational initiatives, on a continuous basis, not just when there’s an
upcoming election. The only way we build resilience in communities is by
teaching people not only the tactics and techniques that might get used
against them, but teaching them how our brains are too often working
against us. We need people to be much more aware of their own biases,
and the power of existing world views to shape the way they see any new
information. We need to teach people that disinformation is rarely about
persuading people to change their mind, it’s about strengthening their
pre-existing beliefs with the hope of widening existing divisions within
society. Chaos, confusion and division is always the goal.
As many countries see increased levels of polarization, it’s easier for
disinformation actors to cause harm. When the goal is to widen existing
divisions, growing distrust and even hatred for the ‘other side’ provides ripe
conditions for disinformation campaigns to be eective. Instead we need
to educate people that all of us are vulnerable to believing information
that reinforces our world view. Educational initiatives, aimed at under 10s
and over 70s should focus on how our brains are being hi-jacked, not how
to better google a headline or whether or not to trust wikipedia.
The technologies will continue to get smarter but we all need to
understand our brains won’t. We’ll always be hardwired to connect with
others in our ‘in-group’ over those in the ‘out-group’. Understanding that
is the only way we build resilience against whatever the latest tool makes
possible.
Claire Wardle
Ph.D., Professor
Brown University
US
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FLEMMING SPLIDSBOEL HANSEN
The ever-increasing threat from
disinformation
Expert article • 3634
The 2024 Global Risks Report by the World Economic Forum points
to misinformation and disinformation as the most severe threat
facing the world in a short term perspective.1 Behind this lies a
recognition of the destabilizing potential of disinformation as
malicious actors continue to rene their skills, and technological
developments continue to oer still more opportunities for still more
advanced and penetrating operations.2
It is by now “the new normal”. All liberal democratic states have long
understood that a digitalized media ecosystem, with its overwhelming
number of platforms and highly anarchic structure, poses a particular
challenge. This challenge has to be mitigated through a variety of
approaches, some of which focus on the malicious actors, some on the
technology and the platforms, and still others on the intrinsic cognitive
resilience of the target populations. There is no silver bullet to end it all,
and we should of course all proceed from the shared understanding that
this challenge will never go away. In fact, everything suggests that the
threat from disinformation is ever-increasing, and we need to remain alert
to changes to any of the elements mentioned.
Most readers of these lines were probably equally shocked and
fascinated by OpenAIs’ ChatGPT as it gained widespread circulation in
2023. One commentator introduced it with the words, “Picture an AI
[Articial Intelligence] that truly speaks your language — and not just your
words and syntax. Imagine an AI that understands context, nuance, and
even humor”.3 This was followed, in early 2024, by the OpenAI Sora, an AI-
video generator, the mind-blowing features of which led one technology
expert to proclaim that “generative video has gone from zero to Sora in
just 18 months”.4
While these are early stage breakthroughs, and users have been quick
to point to inaccuracies and glitches, from a disinformation perspective
it is easy to see just how powerful and disturbing this is and will be. Even
now, these tools may be used to create texts and video of a high quality
and complexity and all at the push of a button on a keyboard. Future
models will undoubtedly be vastly superior to what is available now. With
this in hand, malicious actors may create targeted and more convincing
texts devoid of some of the errors in syntax and grammar often seen (for
instance inaccuracies stemming from the lack of the denite article “the”
in the Russian language) as well as targeted and hyper realistic videos,
which will essentially, at least to ordinary viewers, be indistinguishable
1 World Economic Forum, The Global Risks Report 2024 (2024);
available at https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_The_Global_
Risks_Report_2024.pdf.
2 I dene disinformation as information known to be untrue or even
deliberately fabricated to achieve certain eects. It is intentionally
false. If this information is subsequently spread by someone who is
unaware of its false nature, it is reduced to misinformation.
3 Barnard Marr, “A Short History of ChatGPT: How We Got To Where
We Are Today”, Forbes (19 May 2023).
4 In Will Douglas Heaven, “OpenAI teases an amazing new generative
video model called Sora”, MIT Technology Review (15 February
2024).
from authentic footage. Malicious actors may for instance create countless
versions of the same video, changing it to appease or antagonize dierent
demographics (for instance ethnicity, gender, political preferences etc.). It
may all be done at innitesimal costs.
Relevant technologies will obviously continue to develop, and
malicious actors will be quick to make use of them and to bring them
onto all the platforms available. It will be very hard, if not impossible,
to restrict the access of malicious actors to these technologies. This is
particularly so if the malicious actor is a state. Technologies used for the
creation of disinformation may often be employed reversely, that is, to
detect disinformation, which may then be agged alongside the accounts
and platforms on which it appears. However, even if fully automated,
there is delay in the monitoring and verication processes, causing
disinformation to slip through. It is an illusion to think that we may be able
to detect everything, to warn about it or to have it removed and to protect
consumers from it. Members of the target population will be exposed to
still more sophisticated pieces of disinformation designed to shape their
political preferences, undermine their trust in public institutions, radicalize
them to go against other groups within society etc.
Cognitive resilience therefore remains of the essence. It includes a
rmly held belief in core political norms found within liberal democratic
states – these norms should not be easily questioned – and an ability to
critically reect upon the overwhelming ows of information. Luckily,
NATO member states are generally well-prepared for the expected wave
of still more sophisticated disinformation. However, there is no room for
complacency. it is important to continue to share best practices, to learn
both individually and collectively and to face this threat together.
Flemming Splidsboel
Hansen
PhD, Senior Researcher
Danish Institute for International Studies
Denmark
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KATE HANSEN BUNDT
Russian imperialism and NATO
enlargement
Expert article • 3635
April 4th NATO will commemorate its 75th anniversary. Russia’s
brutal war on Ukraine proves the continued necessity and
relevance of what has been called “the most successful military
Alliance in history”. However, President Vladimir Putin, blames
the West and NATO for the current war in Ukraine. It might be
useful to recall some historical facts.
December 17th, 2021, two months before Russia launched its full-scale
war on Ukraine, Kremlin sent an ultimatum to NATO and Washington with
demands, that if accepted, would have altered the security architecture
of Europe signicantly. Firstly, NATO had to guarantee that Ukraine or
any other state never would become NATO Members; that means ending
NATO’s “open door” policy anchored in the 1949 Washington Treaty.
Secondly, they demanded that NATO withdraw military infrastructure
placed in Eastern Europe after 1997; that is before the rst eastern
enlargement. And thirdly, it proposed that the US should end all its
nuclear deployments in Europe. That would leave Russia with a monopoly
of nuclear weapons on European soil.
These proposals would have given Russia a veto over NATO policy
and was not acceptable to the Alliance. Although, some allies bought the
Russian narrative of a NATO threatening Russian security. This was the old
tune from Moscow on how Russia was excluded from cooperative security
structures after the Cold War and that NATO enlargement had turned
NATO into an oensive military alliance creeping up to Russia’s borders
and posing a grave threat to Russian security.
Russia was never excluded from the new post-cold-war European
security order. Already during the German reunication process in 1990
NATO declared that “our previous adversaries are our new partners”. Later
that year the Conference for Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE),
invited all members to celebrate the end of the East-West divide and called
for a Europe “whole and free”, as it was coined in the Charter of Paris. When
the Soviet Union was dissolved, Russia was accepted as the succession
veto power in the UN Security Council. Independent Ukraine on its side
was in 1994 guaranteed its territorial integrity and national sovereignty
through the Budapest memorandum signed by Russian President Boris
Yeltsin, in exchange for its nuclear war heads.
The rst NATO-enlargement came as late as 10 years after the fall of
the Berlin Wall, when sovereign Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic
became members. The main argument for eastern enlargement was
not military, but due to political and stability concerns. The common
understanding in NATO was that the new post-cold-war security order had
to overcome the old distrust and animosity in Europe by oering dialogue
and cooperation in place of confrontation, also with Russia. In 1997 NATO
and Russia signed the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and
Security, creating “The NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council”. In 2002 this
was upgraded, and the NATO-Russia Council was established and signed
by President Vladimir Putin who welcomed the new era of cooperation
between Russia and NATO.
Three years later Putin held a speech claiming that the dissolution of the
Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th Century.
In 2007 he held his thunderous speech at the Munich Security Conference
where he called out the US as Russia’s main enemy and accused the US
and NATO of breaking their promise on no future NATO enlargement. The
alleged guarantee against NATO enlargement is said to have been given
by US Secretary of State James Baker during the discussions on German
reunication. No documents have been found where a NATO expansion
is ruled out. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbatsjov himself repeatedly refuted
such a deal. In fact, the idea of NATO expansion beyond Eastern Germany
could not have been on the agenda in 1990, particularly as the Warsaw
Pact still existed. To argue that NATOs enlargements is responsible for
Russia’s two invasions of Ukraine does simply not hold true. NATO is a
defensive Alliance with no intention of conquering Russian territory.
Before Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, there were no
Allied troops in the eastern part of the Alliance. During the 1990’s US
forces left Europe in large numbers and European allies reduced their
defence budgets to a minimum based on the idea of the so-called “peace
dividend”. The main understanding in most allied countries, was that a
major war in Europe was unthinkable in the 21st century.
In NATOs strategic concept from 2010 Russia was named a “strategic
partner”. That was changed in 2022, when NATO calls Russia “…the
most signicant and direct threat to Allies’ security and to peace and
stability in the Euro-Atlantic area.” Vladimir Putin’s nuclear sable rattling
and latest state of the Union speech leaves few hopes for change. As
the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny wrote in Washington
Post September 2022, the only way to stop Russia’s “…endless cycle of
imperial authoritarianism” is to “… ensure that Russia and its government
naturally, without, coercion, do not want to start wars and do not nd
them attractive”. Russia must become a true parliamentary republic, with a
radical reduction of power in the hands of one person. This is not a job for
the West, but for the citizens of Russia. It will not happen tomorrow, next
year or even in a decade. And it will, as Navalny knew, require courage and
huge sacrices.
That’s why, NATO 75 years ago “… founded on the principles of
democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law”, is as relevant and
needed as ever!
Kate Hansen Bundt
Secretary General
The Norwegian Atlantic Committee
Norway
bundt@dnak.org
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MARIA STENROOS
If Putin called you… Finland’s new
rhetoric a search for identity
Expert article • 3636
If Putin called you to congratulate you on winning the presidential
elections, would you answer the call?
This is a question sent from the audience to the two main candidates in
February’s presidential elections in tv-broadcaster YLE’s nal tv debate.
The winning candidate Alexander Stubb answered: “No, I wouldn’t
answer.”
Over the last two years, Finland has made a huge turn in its foreign
and security policy.
In one night, when Russia attacked Ukraine, the cornerstones of the
Finnish foreign and security policy collapsed and had to be built again.
Finland turned from a neutral, militarily non-allied country into a Nato
member and a close partner of the United States.
The question and the answer to an imaginary call from the president
of Russia is extremely interesting as it reects the extent of how totally
Finland’s rhetoric and attitude towards Russia have changed.
Before, Finland identied itself as part of the Western bloc but was
careful not to irritate Russia. This came to an end when Finland asked for
Nato membership in 2022 and joined the military alliance in 2023.
During the 2024 presidential election debates, there seemed to be
a race between certain candidates, how hawkish their rhetoric on Russia
could be and how militarist attitude Finland should take. There was
demand for this from the voters.
It is not only the way of talking. The new era demands a lot: both
practical military decisions and a massive political line drawing in security
and defense.
One example of the new political debate and decision making is the
nuclear policy: if Finland should change the legislation on nuclear energy
to accept transiting nuclear weapons in the area.
The question of nuclear weapons is at the same time theoretical and
very symbolic to the new thinking: if we have the nuclear deterrence of
Nato, shouldn’t we be ready to host the weapons here on our territory
temporarily?
Before, Finland had a common line with other Nordic countries of a
non nuclear area.
Finland joined Nato because of the fear of aggression from
Russia. The pace of joining was record-breaking. But once let in in the
military alliance, what next? It was not discussed until recently, what the
new status means in practice.
During the rst months of Nato membership it was hard to dene
what the political will of Finland’s role in Nato was. In the Vilnius summit in
July 2023, there was only the message of the need to get Sweden to Nato
and keep the alliance united. There was no articulation of what Finland
wanted from the alliance. That was only starting to be prepared behind
the scenes.
Nato membership almost disappeared from the news the months
after Vilnius. The topic was swiftly replaced by the new bilateral defense
cooperation agreement (DCA) made with the United States, praised by the
politicians. In the public debate, DCA even seemed to be more concrete
and important than Nato, although the agreement in reality is a technical
consequence of the alliance.
Now, a year after the association, the rst bigger line drawings are
nally visible. Finland will participate in the peacetime posture of Nato air
policing and maritime operations, in a moderate scale. In the command
structure, Finland wants to be under Norfolk command together with
the other Nordic countries. Finland is willing to host the nordic landforce
command, to secure the Eastern border.
In Finland there still exists the myth of the Winter War, where
Finland survived “alone”. In reality, during crises, Finland has always
received help from other countries. Now, Finland studies how to make the
defense plans together with other allies and how to have the identity of an
allied state, which is not alone.
The public debate and political rhetoric on how we speak about
Russia seems to have changed permanently. In the media and in politics,
the discourse is straightforward.
Russia is named a totalitarian state with an evil leader, ready for cruel
warfare.
During the rst months of Russian aggression the Finns loved reading
news on how bad tactics, morality, logistics and weapons the Russians
had. The Ukrainians were heroic.
But the war continued and the dynamics on the frontline changed.
Russia seemed to learn ghting and succeeded better. It was not scared
of losses of lives of its own soldiers or civil victims. The tone in the public
debate became more pessimistic: Ukraine could lose the war.
When the war in Ukraine one day is over, Russia will again shape up,
rebuild its army and possibly still have an aggressive stance. The scenarios
of Russia attacking Nato countries in some time frame are discussed. In
Finland there is very little political questioning on the growing defense
budget or new armament.
Though there are the new tough words in political and public rhetoric
and though Finns now have both Nato and the DCA, the fear of Russia is
still there.
Maria Stenroos
Nato Correspondent
Yle, Finnish Broadcasting Company
Finland
Maria.Stenroos@yle.
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SARAH WIEDEMAR
NATO Article 5 - Collective defense in
cyberspace
Expert article • 3637
On February 25, only one day after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg underscored
NATO’s commitment to collective defense in cyberspace. A
cyberattack against one or more member states can lead
to the invocation of Article 5, the cornerstone of the North
Atlantic Treaty. Yet, he claried that NATO would not weaken its position
by giving a potential adversary the privilege of dening its red lines and
response measures in cyberspace. Instead, the invocation of the right to
individual or collective self-defense enshrined in Article 51 of the United
Nations Charter would depend on a case-by-case assessment whether the
cyberattack in question crosses the threshold of an “armed attack”.
Cyber defense has been on NATO’s political agenda since 2002,
but it was not until the unprecedented Distributed Denial of Service
campaign against its member state Estonia in 2007 that the Alliance
was confronted with the potential impact of cyberattacks on national
security. For 22 days, Russian hacktivists targeted Estonia’s public and
private networks, including its e-government system, banks, and media
outlets. This politically motivated cyber campaign was sparked by
the Estonian government’s decision to relocate the “Bronze Soldier of
Tallinn,” a World War II statue, from the city center. The Estonian request
for assistance in the wake of the cyberattacks was a wake-up call for the
Alliance. For the rst time, discussions were held regarding the extension
of Article 5 to cyberspace. This deliberation turned into action at the NATO
Summit in Wales in 2014, when member states declared cyber defense
to be part of NATO’s core task of collective defense. The Allies recognize
that cyberattacks can reach a threshold that threatens the prosperity,
security, and stability of the Euro-Atlantic region. Two years later, at the
NATO Warsaw Summit, the Alliance strengthened this commitment by
designating cyberspace as a new operational combat area alongside air,
land, and naval warfare. In 2021, NATO went a step further. The Brussels
Summit Communiqué 2021 acknowledged that the impact of cumulative
cyber activities might, under certain circumstances, amount to an armed
attack. This shift came after a series of ransomware activities that aected
nearly all critical infrastructure sectors in the United States and other NATO
member states and indicates the growing awareness of how damaging
cumulative cyber activities can be.
In the past, malicious cyber campaigns targeting or aecting NATO
members have not triggered major public discussions on Article 5, with
one exception. In July and September 2022, NATO member Albania was
the target of an unprecedented malicious cyber campaign on its state
and private networks. Investigators traced the destructive activities
to four dierent advanced persistent threat (APT) actors linked to the
Iranian government. The APTs aimed at the exltration, encryption, and
destruction of data to maximize the disruptive eect. In parallel, the
attackers carried out an information campaign that aimed at discrediting
the Albanian government and the Iranian opposition group based in
Albania. The oensive cyber operation took Albania by surprise and
impacted daily life as it rendered government websites and public services
unavailable. Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama compared the assaults
with the bombing of a country. In the wake of the attacks, the Albanian
government considered invoking Article 5. While the Albania’s Prime
Minister refrained from doing so, the incident spurred the discussion on
Article 5 in cyberspace amid rising geopolitical tensions. Will a cyberattack
ever be signicant enough to trigger a full-scale NATO collective defense
response? And if so, what measures would NATO take in response?
In practice, cyberspace involves an additional layer of complexity
that exacerbates NATO’s strategic ambiguity with respect to Article 5.
Determining the threshold for an armed attack in cyberspace and a
proportionate response measure is less straightforward compared to a
kinetic attack, especially since cumulative malicious cyber activities are
included in the Alliance’s assessment. Further, the ambiguity remains
whether the attribution of cyberattacks to a state would reach the level
of certainty to justify a political or even military response. Above all, the
Alliance must nd the necessary consensus within the North Atlantic
Council to invoke Article 5.
Cyberspace continues to be a realm in which the threshold of Article
5 can be exploited, as attacks in cyberspace oer the possibility of
deniability and often remain below the threshold of an armed attack. With
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, NATO members are more
exposed than ever to cyber threats. Therefore, it remains an open question
whether, and under what circumstances, NATO would be willing to set a
precedent and trigger Article 5 in response to malicious cyber operations.
Sarah Wiedemar
Cyber Defense Researcher
Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH
Zurich, Switzerland
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STEFAN FORSS
US and NATO nuclear policy -
a Finnish perspective
Expert article • 3638
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022,
changed Finland’s security environment dramatically. As Russia’s
“mask came o”, wording used by President Sauli Niinistö,
Finland changed course and aimed instantly for the enhanced
security provided by NATO. The application for membership in
the Atlantic Alliance was swiftly drafted together with Sweden, which
initially was more doubtful about abandoning two centuries of neutrality
and non-alignment. Both countries got invitations to join NATO. Finland
joined on April 4, 2023, and Sweden after prolonged obstruction by Türkie
and Hungary, on March 7, 2024.
Maximum security sought by a clear majority of the Finnish people
obviously includes NATO’s nuclear “umbrella”, i.e. protection against
nuclear threats and extorsion, and is provided primarily by the United
States. Nuclear weapons are a core component of NATO’s overall
capabilities for deterrence and defence, alongside conventional and
missile defence forces. That said, NATO is committed to arms control,
disarmament and non-proliferation, but as long as nuclear weapons exist,
it will remain a nuclear alliance.
Today there are about 100 U.S. tactical nuclear bombs at six bases
in ve NATO member countries, as part of “nuclear sharing” agreements
between the U.S. and these NATO member states (Belgium, Germany, Italy,
the Netherlands and Türkie). The UK and France have their own nuclear
forces. Nuclear weapons storage refurbishment is under way at RAF
Lakenheath Air Force Base in Britain which is operated by US Air Force and
makes reintroduction of U.S. nuclear weapons possible in UK too, more
precisely B61-12 nuclear bombs to be carried by US Air Force dual-capable
F-35 A Lightning II stealth ghters. The aircraft was recently certied for
operational nuclear role.
When discussing NATO and US nuclear policy it is prudent to keep
in mind – as stated in NATO’s Strategic Concept 2022 – that the strategic
nuclear forces of the Alliance, particularly those of the United States, are
the supreme guarantee of the security of the Alliance.
This reects the US attitude towards nuclear weapons in general as
describing them as strategic or non-strategic has become increasingly
irrelevant.
The U.S. – Soviet/Russian Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty
(INF Treaty) ceased to exist in August 2019. The last remaining bilateral
nuclear arms control treaty in force between the USA and Russia is the
New START Treaty, which covers long-range strategic forces. It expires on
February 5, 2026, and as the treaty is unlikely to be extended, denitions
of nuclear weapons by range seem to become irrelevant.
“I really don’t like it when people call them battleeld weapons or
tactical weapons. They’re not. They are strategic weapons (italics added),
and the United States will always look at the employment of a nuclear
weapon as a strategic attack” (italics added), Vice Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Sta General John E. Hyten said in February 2020 (https://edition.
cnn.com/2020/02/25/politics/us-new-nuclear-weapons/index.html).
For NATO, the independent strategic nuclear forces of the United
Kingdom and France have a deterrent role of their own and contribute
signicantly to the overall security of the Alliance. France, however, doesn’t
participate in NATO’s nuclear planning and hence a possible decision to
provide NATO allied countries with French nuclear support is taken by
France alone.
NATO’s nuclear deterrence posture also relies on the United States’
nuclear weapons forward deployed in Europe and the contributions of
Allies concerned. National contributions of dual-capable aircraft to NATO’s
nuclear deterrence mission remain central to this eort.
To sum up, while the U.S. strategic nuclear forces remain solely under
U.S. command, they play a far more important role for the deterrence
of the Alliance than the rather small amount of free-falling U.S. nuclear
gravity bombs deployed in Europe.
When the new U.S. strategic dual-capable stealth bomber B-21
Raider enters service in the late 2020s, it will boost conventional and
nuclear deterrence signicantly. B-21 can carry long range nuclear and
conventional cruise missiles as well as bombs, which upsets the adversaries’
defenses as they can’t know from what direction to expect an attack. In
addition, “low-yield” submarine-launched Trident D5 missiles contribute
to the Allied deterrence eort and these strategic weapons oset the
almost tenfold Russian numerical superiority in non-strategic nuclear
weapons. There is also a possibility that U.S. nuclear attack submarines
may get new nuclear-tipped long range cruise missiles. The U.S. Congress
supports it, while the Biden administration does not.
It is, however, also important to understand that the USA has no
plans to reintroduce ground-based nuclear weapons. During the end of
President Gorbachev’s era and the beginning of President Yeltsin’s era
President George H.W. Bush’s administration undertook massive mutual
nuclear weapons reductions, including unilateral non-strategic weapons
reductions on a legally non-binding basis.
Expectations were high and the assumption was that USA and Russia
would proceed in parallel. In the end, non-strategic nuclear weapons were
eliminated altogether from all US services, except for the US Air Force. It
is important to understand that US Army has been non-nuclear for more
than a generation and that there are no plans to change that status.
Unfortunately, this promising development ended abruptly as
Vladimir Putin came to power in Russia at the turn of the century. Russia
embarked aggressively on a path to take back what was lost in the nuclear
eld, strengthening all services as nuclear-capable and nullifying the INF
Treaty. Russia shaped its nuclear forces into a powerful political tool to
advance its political agenda of restoration of the lost Russian empire.
Nuclear weapons scholars soon discovered what was going on in
Russia, but western leaders, still intoxicated by the peace dividend after
the end of the Cold War, didn’t listen. The US continued to de-emphasize
the reliance on nuclear weapons with implications for its own security and
that of its allies.
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Expert article • 3638
Russian military thought and doctrine related to Russia’s non-
strategic nuclear weapons is very professionally described in IISS
nuclear expert William Alberque’s recent report (https://www.iiss.
org/research-paper/2024/01/russian-military-thought-and-doctrine-
related-to-nonstrategic-nuclear-weapons/). It is highly recommended.
Likewise, Dr. Ian Anthony at the Swedish Defence Research Agency FOI
recently published an important paper about the nuclear dimension of
strengthening deterrence (https://www.foi.se/rest-api/report/FOI Memo
8432). Its focus is on the United States.
After Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, NATO
now struggles to get its act together. Former Swedish Prime Minister
and Foreign Minister Carl Bildt’s gave a blunt assessment of the state of
the Alliance at the Lennart Meri Conference in Tallinn in August 2021
(https://lmc.icds.ee/lennart-meri-lecture/). “NATO will hopefully survive
Afghanistan – out of area has suddenly got out of business” [italics added],
Mr. Bildt said with a reference to NATO’s sudden, chaotic retreat from
Afghanistan. It was also a reminder of NATO’s choice after the Cold War
to focus on crisis management or to become irrelevant. Given former US
President Donald Trump’s negative attitude towards NATO, the future of
the Alliance is uncertain at least for now.
NATO will have to deal with multiple very hard challenges in the
coming years, including in the nuclear domain. Concerns about the
credibility of the ultimate U.S. protection of its allies has triggered a debate
about the possible need for a more robust European nuclear capability
to deal with Russia’s nuclear threat. The scene has changed abruptly, as a
former NATO Supreme Commander said not many years ago that the best
way of ending a meeting in Brussels was to bring up the subject of nuclear
weapons.
As new members in the very secretive NATO Nuclear Planning Group
(NPG) Finland and Sweden could play the role of new members with a
legitimate right to know. NATO needs a serious discussion and the rst
basic question to ask could be the following: “Could you tell us under what
conditions NATO would use nuclear weapons?”
Finland and Sweden joined NATO, including its nuclear dimension,
without preconditions. Both countries are expected to participate actively
in NATO nuclear planning and exercises in a supportive non-nuclear role.
The question of placing nuclear weapons on Finnish soil as well as their
transit through Finland has, however, been debated in Finland. The current
Finnish law on nuclear energy from 1987 simply prohibits that and the
law which will be updated may have to be revised with regard to nuclear
weapons. The current law diers on this account from that of other Nordic
countries.
What has been lost in the internal Finnish debate is the motive for
the wording in the 1987 law. It was to establish a legal barrier against
introduction of Soviet nuclear weapons on Finnish soil. Not surprisingly,
Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova, expressed a
direct warning and threat to Finland, should this legislation now be
revised (https://x.com/NatalkaKyiv/status/1765487992582312371).
Sweden (FOI) never abandoned serious nuclear weapons related
research. It is a very useful asset for NATO as well as for Finland, which will
have to resuscitate research in this eld to be able to make a dierence.
Stefan Forss
Professor, Physicist and Docent
Finnish National Defence University
Finland
He is a former Chief Scientist at the Technical
Research Centre of Finland and Senior
Scientist at the Ministry of Foreign Aairs. His
expertise covers nuclear weapons issues, arms
control and security and defence policy.
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CAROLINE KENNEDY-PIPE
The impact of IEDs on warfare
It seems a long time ago now: so much has happened in global politics,
but in the late 1990s, politicians and scholars were optimistic that war
had changed its shape. The RMA and the resounding technical victory
over Kosovo demonstrated that it was possible to achieve military and
political objectives without placing a considerable number of boots on
the ground. Of note was the fact that NATO suered not a single combat
fatality in that campaign. Serbian forces were pummeled into submission
from the skies above. The illusion (or delusion) of so-called Cost-Free War,
Virtual War or War at a distance (there was an abundance of such labels)
did not endure. The US invasion of Iraq and the long war in Afghanistan
ended in abject failure: technological superiority proved no guarantee
of victory. Amongst the dissection of those wars, the sobering stories of
political hubris, military incompetence, and indefatigable enemies, one
constant thread was the fact that IEDs had dented Western morale and
resolve. IEDs were, in Afghanistan, Iraq and in the follow-on war in Syria
the weapon of choice for the groups opposing Western intervention. We
in the UK had become all too familiar with these devices during the Irish
‘Troubles’ as terrorists wrecked mayhem on soldiers and civilians alike,
but the IEDs of the Middle East were a novel and insidious threat to those
tasked with countering insurgents as well as reshaping state and society.
IEDs are explosive devices fashioned (that is improvised) out of a
variety of materials to disrupt, main and kill. In 2003 in Iraq, IEDs were
initially unsophisticated, made from old ordnance such as artillery shells,
mines, and metal parts. These were detonated by short range electronic
devices, by cordless phones, by wireless doorbells, and a raft of ingenious
mechanisms. These were fashioned as roadside bombs, animal borne
IEDs, vehicle borne IEDs and in an even more sinister development human
IEDs, with devices strapped on to suicide bombers. The detonation of
the human borne IED at check points or in crowded places raised a
raft of questions about the motivations, the ideology, the training of
those utilizing IEDs as well as how to defend against these rudimentary
weapons. Jason Shell, one of the most experienced commentators on IEDs
concluded that sixty% of all American fatalities in Iraq and half of deaths
in Afghanistan (over 3.500) were the result of such devices: 30,000 US
personnel had been wounded, suering single or multiple amputations.
While improvements in medicine, battleeld care and evacuation to
highly equipped medical facilities did improve, IEDs had profound and
understandable eects on morale. The US sought solutions. In 2006, the
DOD established JIEDDO (Joint IED Defeat Organization) The mission
was to defeat the IED. In addition to technical countermeasures such as
enhanced protection and electronic counter measures (ECM) considerable
time was spent comprehending the society in which bombs were
invented, manufactured, distributed, and then used: in a pithy phrase to
‘understand the bombmaker and not the bomb.’
But as Western appetite faded for both wars, the knowledge and
training to counter IEDs while not disappearing weakened. The Ukraine
conict has though refocused attention on the IED. We see in Ukraine
the adaption of tactics associated with insurgents: ambushes, deception,
small unit tactics and IEDs. Since the stalling of the counter-oensive
against Russia, IEDs litter the landscape. What started with manoeuvre
warfare but has become a competition of military slog with the human
costs which inevitably accompany attrition, siege, and the creation of vast
swathes of mineelds. Thirty percent of Ukrainian territory is littered with
Caroline Kennedy-
Pipe
Professor of War Studies
Loughborough University
UK
c.m.kennedy-pipe@lboro.ac.uk
landmines. Even if, when, the war ends, mines will remain in their deadly
form. There is no cartography of the IEDs, buried as they are alongside
roads, tracks, in forests, elds, and in buildings. The dangers lie hidden. This
has not happened by accident. The Russians have deployed classic IED
tactics such as packing old tanks with explosives and then setting them
o to detonate, but proxy IEDs such as this are not new: they have formed
part of every conict.
Yet now the IED is not just ‘ad hoc’ or improvised, these weapons are
part of a combined arms strategy. (Technology has played a huge part in
transforming the utility of the IED through for example 3D printing). While
it is correct that there are still the amateurs who improvise weapons such
as anti-personnel bombs, or the proliferation of hobbyist drones loaded
with ammunition, the IED is a vital part of the state arsenal both on land
and at sea.
Expert article • 3639
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ZBIGNIEW KORZEB & PAWEŁ NIEDZIÓŁKA
The importance of natural gas
supply security for NATO countries
Expert article • 3640
Although the importance of gas is expected to decline
(REPowerEU programme), it still represents approx. 22% of
EU’s primary energy consumption. In the wake of Russia’s
aggression in Ukraine, Western European and CEE countries
have been faced with the challenges of replacing gas supplies
from Russia with deliveries from other directions and protecting the
technical and IT gas infrastructure. These problems particularly concern
the European NATO countries, as they support Ukraine militarily,
economically and politically, and in recent months the increasingly real
possibility of an escalation of the conict between Russia and NATO has
been indicated both in Germany and Sweden.
An alternative to Russian gas is LNG. First The LNG terminal in Poland
(Świnoujście) commenced operation in 2015. It is currently in the process
of being expanded. In addition, infrastructure for 2 FSRUs is under
construction in Gdansk. In Germany, the creation of infrastructure for LNG
required the adoption of a special law (May 2022). The rst terminal was
built in Wilhelmshaven, followed by Brunsbuettel and Lubmin. Terminals
in Wilhelmshaven (II), Stade and Rügen are under construction. These
projects will cover approx. 40% of Germany’s gas consumption. Due
to climate policy, the law set a deadline for the end of LNG imports and
from 2044 only carbon-neutral energy carriers are to be brought to the
gas terminals. Finland has LNG terminals at Pori, Tornio, Hamina (2022)
and Inkoo (2023). Only the latter two have the potential to inject gas into
the transmission system. In 2023 Finland imported gas from the USA and
Norway (76% in total). Supplies from Russia amounted to about 10%. The
Finnish government plans to stop such supplies from 2025. In the Baltic
States, there is only one LNG terminal (FSRU) in Klaipeda (Lithuania)
which came into operation in 2014. At the end of December 2023 an
Open Season procedure was announced to test interest in additional
terminal capacity. The failure of the Balticconnector pipeline in October
2023 connecting Finland and Estonia meant that the Baltic States (mainly
Estonia) had to increase import through the Lithuanian terminal, whose
capacity had not previously been fully utilised. The construction of LNG
terminals is also planned in other NATO countries (Italy, France, Greece,
Netherlands and Croatia). The expansion of infrastructure is accompanied
by new gas supply contracts. However, the 2023 contracts signed by Qatar
with Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and France for the period up to 2050
raise objections from environmental activists.
An important initiative for independence from Russian gas supplies is
the construction of international gas pipeline connections. An example is
the Gas Interconnection Poland-Lithuania launched in 2022 connecting
the Baltic States and indirectly Finland to the Central Europe. Also in 2022
the gas systems of Poland and Slovakia were interconnected thus reducing
Slovakia’s dependence on Russia. A similar objective was pursued by
Bulgaria, which connected its natural gas network to Greece. Bulgaria
also signed a long-term gas supply contract with Turkey. The Baltic Pipe
pipeline between Norway and Poland opened in October 2022. Given the
above, its own gas production, and the capacity of LNG terminals, Poland
is already independent of Russian gas, but the country is set to become a
gas hub for CEE, hence the plans for infrastructure development.
At the same time, European NATO countries (Croatia, France, Greece,
Italy, Portugal, Romania and Poland, among others) have announced plans
to expand their natural gas storage facilities. The level of their utilisation
grew signicantly (to around 90%) following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
While similar attacks on gas infrastructure as the Nord Stream 1 and
2 pipelines in September 2022 or attempts to disrupt supply using LNG
carriers cannot be ruled out in the future, it seems that cyber attacks will
become increasingly important. They did not start with Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine. For example in December 2015, an attack was carried out which
resulted in approximately 700,000 households in the Ivano-Frankivsk
region experiencing a blackout. A year later (also in December), around
20 per cent of the population of Kiev was left without access to electricity.
Cyber attacks on critical infrastructure were found also in several NATO
member states (US, UK, Poland and Türkiye).
It is therefore essential to monitor any disruption of the entire
energy system, and any incidents (e.g. installation of physical equipment
(hardware) within critical infrastructure (5G/Huawei) or the massive GPS
disruption in the Baltic region in December 2023), should be identied
early, carefully explained, and the infrastructure should be given special
protection. Indeed, gas supply disruptions or gas price increases have
important implications not only for the economy, but also for the political
situation and the production capacity of the defence industry in NATO
countries. Indeed, a growth of gas prices, which is also due to a reduction
in its availability, contributes to a weakening of economic growth,
which is a favourable environment for the rise of populist parties and a
surge in the operating costs of the defence industry. In conclusion, the
recommendation for NATO countries boils down to a focus on reducing
the energy intensity of the economy, building infrastructure for gas import,
transmission and storage, taking steps towards joint gas purchases and
intensifying physical infrastructure protection and cybersecurity.
Zbigniew Korzeb
Professor
Department of Management, Economy, and
Finance, Bialystok University of Technology
Bialystok, Poland
z.korzeb@pb.edu.pl
Paweł Niedziółka
Professor
Banking Institute, Warsaw School of
Economics
Warsaw, Poland
pniedz@sgh.waw.pl
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KADRI LIIK
Russia and NATO enlargement
In the late 1990s, when I was working as a journalist in Moscow, and
NATO enlargement was top of the agenda, I was often asked when
Estonia actually decided it needed to join NATO. Had Russia been a
friendlier neighbour, the reasoning went, maybe Estonia would have
been happy to stay outside?
I always replied that the decision was essentially made in 1939. The
experience of being squeezed between two totalitarian states, losing
statehood and freedom for decades, pushed the Estonian elite from then
on to embed itself as strongly as possible with democracies, especially on
matters of security. All the rest – and that includes the creation of NATO in
1949 – was in a way a technicality. And there was surely absolutely nothing
that the independent Russia of the 1990s, even if democratic and friendly,
could have done to change Estonia’s mind.
Russia decided early on that it did not like NATO enlargement. The
analysis written in 1993 by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service,
headed at the time by Yevgeny Primakov – the strategic mind behind
many of Russia’s foreign policy decisions – outlined the concerns quite
clearly. The expansion of a military organisation was bound to have
implications for Russia’s force posture, and that in turn would divert much-
needed resources from the social sphere. Also, with all focus on NATO
expansion, the creation of a pan-European security system that involves
all was bound to become a secondary issue.
That said, among the Russian elite of the 1990s there was some
grudging acceptance of the moral case for NATO enlargement. One could
catch that sentiment in the Moscow meeting rooms and reception halls of
the time. Russian politicians did not like NATO expansion, but deep down,
many of them understood why the east Europeans wanted to join; and
they realised that it was not quite tting of Russia to try to resist it.
I think I benetted from that mood back then. In 1997, when the
rst round of NATO enlargement and the NATO-Russia act were being
negotiated, I often attended the post-meeting press conferences of
Primakov and visiting dignitaries: Madeleine Albright, Stroble Talbott,
Javier Solana, Klaus Kinkel… By press-conference standards, these were
huge events, managed by the Russian foreign ministry’s press oce, with
the bulk of the major world news organisations present. I was a young
journalist from a small Baltic news organisation with highly inconvenient
questions – yet I was always given a chance to ask them, often at the
expense of more prominent colleagues. I do not exactly know why,
but I assume that on some level the Russian diplomats in charge of the
proceedings accepted that for the Baltic states the matter of NATO was
existential, and they had the right to be present and ask questions.
In the years that followed I have often asked myself if things could
have turned out dierently. Could this reluctant acceptance of smaller
neighbours’ right to make their own choices have grown and become a
proper part of Russia’s political psyche? Could NATO membership have
become a non-issue, something that was not viewed as existential?
Much of it boils down to Russia’s path of political development. Had
Russia become a full-edged democracy, a lot would have been possible.
The post-Cold War OSCE-based European order had a highly normative
nature: it was built on the assumption that the countries on the continent
shared the same norms and values. It privileged democracies – which
meant that the shorter Russia fell of democratic standards, the stronger
its feeling became of being a second-order country in the international
system that was designed to promote democracy.
Kadri Liik
Senior Policy Fellow,
European Council on Foreign Relations
This may also have spelled the end of OSCE as a truly ecient pan-
European security organisation. Russia’s domestic democratic deciencies
prompted Moscow to shun OSCE as an election watchdog and human
rights organisation, and this built-in conict meant that OSCE never
became truly ecient as a hard security tool.
Also, a democratic Russia would likely have been more attractive to
its neighbours, including in the former Soviet Union. In the 1990s, their
centrifugal drive to move away from Russia was probably inevitable. But
later on, Russia could have relied on its genuine attractiveness and soft
power in building relations with neighbours, without needing to “force
them to friendship” – which of course could only have the opposite eect.
However, one can assign some blame also to the Western side. This is
inconvenient to discuss these days, because nothing that the West may
have done or not done explains, even less justies, Russia’s war against
Ukraine. But it remains a fact that the wars in Kosovo and Iraq – dierent
in nature as they were – helped to cement the image of NATO as an
adversary among the Russian public as well as politicians. Also, after the
rst successful rounds of enlargement, the West may have started taking
Russia’s acquiescence for granted. I often remember what one smart
Russian expert told me: the rst rounds of enlargements were discussed
with Russia. Russia may not have liked it, but it had accepted a deal, and it
knew it had accepted it. In 2008, by contrast, on the eve of the (generally
ill-prepared) Bucharest summit, Russia was not approached.
In retrospect, these negotiation rounds that I followed as a journalist
in 1997, were not for nothing. The idea that enlargement is a question
between NATO and a prospective member state was formally true, but
in practice, Russia retained a lot of disruptive power in countries like
Georgia and Ukraine. It is questionable if one could have bought Russia’s
acquiescence once again in 2008, but to fail to understand the sensitivity
and seriousness of the question – and to devise any policy to address it –
remains a Western failure.
Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia aimed to stop NATO enlargement
– and as such, it succeeded. But Russia’s other regional war – the war in
Ukraine – was not motivated by NATO. NATO enlargement to include
Ukraine was not on the agenda in 2022; and that was clear to everyone
concerned. The invasion of Ukraine – likely motivated by the Russian
president’s irrational history-related passions (though we’ll only know
for sure once the archives open) – brought about another round of NATO
enlargement.
Finland and Sweden joined the alliance 19 and 20 years after Estonia.
While Russia may not have been able to do anything to change Estonia’s
mind about NATO membership, it is quite clear how Russia could have
aected the calculations of Finland and Sweden: by not issuing ultimatums
and by not invading Ukraine.
Expert article • 3641
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KARI LIUHTO
NATO accession harmful for national
military spending-GDP ratio before
war in Ukraine
The ratio of military spending to gross domestic product (GDP) is
perhaps the best internationally-comparable and time-resistant
measure that indicates the investment of an individual country
in its national defence. According to the Stockholm International
Peace Research Institute SIPRI, a country’s accession to NATO did
not lead to an increase in the military spending share in the country’s GDP
prior to the war in Ukraine – on the contrary.
When comparing the year before each NATO country joined the
alliance and the year before the war began in Ukraine (2013), only in
Estonia has the share of the military budget in the GDP increased. For
all others, the share has decreased. One reason for the decline is that 16
countries joined NATO before the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the
investment in the military budget was signicantly higher than after its
collapse. The disintegration of the Soviet Union can be seen in the GDP
share decrease of the NATO countries’ military budget. Only the Baltic
States that broke away from the Soviet Union increased the share of
military spending in their GDP after the collapse of the Soviet empire.
The share of the military budget in NATO countries’ GDP did not
increase between the year 2009 and the year 2013, except in Estonia.
In Poland and Romania, the defence budget share no longer dropped
after Russia’s war in Georgia, but in all other NATO countries the decline
continued. In other words, Russia’s blitzkrieg in Georgia in August 2008 did
not alarm the military-political leadership of the NATO countries. However,
the Ukrainian war that began in February 2014 started to open eyes.
When comparing the years 2014 and 2023, it can be seen that the
military budget share in GDP increased in all NATO member states,
excluding Croatia, Türkiye, the UK and the USA. In the case of the UK
and the USA, however, it is worth noting that the 2023 military spending
to GDP ratio in these two countries was 2.1 per cent and 3.5 per cent,
respectively.
In 2023, the following 20 NATO members did not meet the two per
cent threshold: Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czechia,
Denmark, (Iceland), France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Montenegro,
Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and
Türkiye. In other words, only 11 NATO members met the two per cent
threshold in 2023. In Sweden, which joined the NATO in March 2024, the
military expenditure GDP ratio will exceed the two per cent threshold in
2024. The NATO estimates that in 2024 the NATO Europe as a whole will
use two per cent of its GDP to its military. A year earlier the share was 1.85
per cent.
Despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a defence expenditure-GDP
ratio decline has taken place in several NATO countries. In Croatia, France
(a symbolic decline of 0.01 percentage point), Greece, Italy, Norway,
Portugal, Türkiye and the UK the ratio declined between 2021 and 2023. In
several countries the decline was due to the fact that the GDP grew faster
than the defence budget. However, in three NATO countries, namely in
Greece, Italy, and the UK, did the defence budget decrease when looking
at the 2021 and 2023 military budgets in US dollars. Here, we should not
forget that out of these three aforementioned countries, only Italy spent
less than two per cent of its GDP to its defence in 2023.
To conclude, I have followed Russia’s development for more than three
decades at a Finnish university, and I have come to the conclusion that
Russia is trying to use political measures to keep its neighbourhood weak
militarily and dependent on Russia economically. Second, it has become
apparent that under President Vladimir Putin, Russia has ruthlessly used
military force to prevent countries in its earlier sphere of inuence from
joining Western security structures. Moreover, the war in Ukraine has
also revealed the weakness of the Russian army and the indierence of
the country’s leadership to the magnitude of human casualties. Stalin’s
indierence to the value of human life has not disappeared.
The rst US President George Washington stated in his rst annual
address to Congress on January 8th, 1790 as follows: “To be prepared for
war is one of the most eective means of preserving peace”. Washington’s idea
should be understood by every Western decision-maker today, because if
the West is not militarily strong and united enough, the likelihood of war
with Russia increases.
I wish that the NATO will maintain its position as a transatlantic
defence alliance during the future presidents of the United States as well.
Even though Donald Trump’s statement may have contained rhetoric, I
think Europe should also be prepared for the fact that the future is not
an automatic continuation of the past. The European Union must prepare
to be ready to defend itself alone, if needed. For this task, the EU needs a
strong defence industry. If we do not soon wake up to this need, we are
playing Russian roulette with the future of our children and grandchildren.
The time for conclusions was already in 2008 after the Russo-Georgian War.
Now our decision-makers have the last moment to make the necessary
decisions or else they must be ready to be condemned by future historians.
The Centrum Balticum Foundation organises the 16th annual Baltic Sea
Forum of Finland on May 20th. This year, the forum deals with Arctic security,
a future of transatlantic relations and a role of media in contributing to
security. Welcome.
Expert article • 3642
Kari Liuhto
Professor, Director
Pan-European Institute
Turku School of Economics
University of Turku
Finland
The Centrum Balticum Foundation is not responsible for the opinions expressed in the expert articles.