Sorry Russia, the Baltic Sea is now NATO’s sea – POLITICO Europe

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VILNIUS – A resurgent NATO will increase its grip on the Baltic Sea, complicating a key transit route for Vladimir Putin’s navy in Russia’s backyard.

This week’s Alliance summit in Vilnius was Finland’s first as a NATO member. On the eve of the summit, Turkey agreed to back Sweden’s bid for membership – paving the way for strategic change in a region once dominated by Moscow.

“[Sweden and Finland] Make NATO much more geographically coherent. “The Baltic Sea is becoming a NATO lake, which is useful in general, also because of the increased importance of the Arctic,” said Ulrike Franke, Senior Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

NATO has steadily increased its control of the Baltic Sea – a key sea gateway for the Russian fleet, which has bases near St Petersburg and in the heavily militarized Kaliningrad exclave. During the Cold War, only Denmark and Germany, on the extreme western edge of the Baltic Sea, were part of the alliance. With the accession of Poland to NATO in 1999 and the three Baltic republics in 2004, most of the southern coast of the sea came under Alliance control.

Finland and Sweden in NATO will close naval protection from the north, giving Russia limited access. Both countries abandoned their long-standing neutrality — centuries in Sweden’s case — and applied to join the alliance last May following Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine.

That means significantly expanding NATO’s border with Russia, strengthening defenses in northern Europe, and making the alliance’s deterrent more credible.

“The Baltic states were afraid of being a little isolated,” said Camille Grand, a former NATO deputy secretary general. “One would imagine that Sweden and Finland would not have let them down, but access to ports and airports was not guaranteed 100 percent.”

The accession of Sweden and Finland also means expanding the Alliance’s presence in the Arctic, a region of increasing importance to both Russia and China.

Moscow is not pleased.

“Under the current conditions, it is extremely important to recognize that Russia’s military infrastructure has never shifted towards Western Europe, but always in the opposite direction,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. “It is definitely unfortunate that Europeans do not recognize this error.”

Sweden joining the alliance would be “definitely negative,” he added.

Strong power

On Tuesday, NATO allies agreed to implement renewed regional defense plans. The presence of Sweden and Finland as members will be fully reflected in the alliance’s plans, exercises and goals, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said at a press conference.

According to Kristine Berzina, executive director of the German Marshall Fund’s Geostrategy North, the two Nordic countries will help make Article 5’s “magic promise” more effective. According to Article 5 – the cornerstone of NATO – an armed attack against one or more members is considered an attack on all.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the start of a meeting with NATO’s Indo-Pacific partners during the NATO summit in Vilnius on July 12 | Pool photo by Jacques Witt via Getty Images

With the addition of well-equipped Swedish and Finnish forces, Russia will find it significantly more difficult to launch attacks in the region.

“You have to have enough supplies to actually be able to defend the territory in case of a Crimea or Ukraine scenario,” Berzina said. “With Finland and Sweden in, and [the Swedish Baltic island of] Gotland is so close to Kaliningrad that in the event of a highly unlikely but possible aggression from Russia, Russia would not be able to use the sea to its strategic advantage in the way it currently could.”

On the ground, this means more information sharing, more joint exercises and planning, and more military integration.

For example, a Finnish fighter jet flying near the Russian border can collect data and communicate with the Norwegians, who can then request more information or ask the plane to fly somewhere else, said Charly Salonius-Pasternak, a lead researcher at the Finnish Institute of International affairs.

Before NATO membership, “technically you could do it, but politically you couldn’t plan it,” he said.

Soldiers, Submarines, 5G

While Stockholm and Helsinki benefit from NATO protection, they also bring strengths in terms of air defence, land forces and naval capabilities.

“The two countries are already interoperable with NATO, have NATO-standard weapon systems and have participated in NATO training missions, which is one of the reasons they were able to jump in so quickly,” Grand said, adding that Helsinki and Stockholm would have won Don’t be “free riders” in the Alliance.

Unlike most European countries, Finland didn’t stop spending money on the military after the end of the Cold War.

According to Finnish media, Helsinki has one of the largest artillery arsenals and land forces in Europe – ahead of heavyweights like France, Germany and the UK. Finland recently renewed its air fleet and is expected to have 64 US-made F-35 fighter jets by 2026.

Sweden reintroduced conscription in 2017, which applies to both men and women.

While Stockholm cut defense spending in the 1990s and 2000s, it has increased again in recent years. However, the NATO target of 2 percent of GDP is not expected to be reached before 2026.

Stockholm’s strength lies in its navy, which is well matched to the Baltic Sea. The Swedish Air Force is armed with locally developed Saab JAS 39 Gripen fighters, designed in response to a Russian attack and seen as a possible weapon that could be donated to Ukraine.

The Swedish Air Force JAS 39 Gripen fighter jet is pictured during live air operations exercise Arctic Challenge Exercise 23 at Pirkkala near Tampere, Finland, May 31, 2023 | Kalle Parkinen/AFP via Getty Images

Beyond the weapons, Sweden and Finland can also help NATO with 5G, the fifth-generation telecommunications infrastructure, Grand said.

The two Nordic countries “bring expertise in an important technology and are trusted partners in deploying 5G for military purposes,” he explained. Finland’s Nokia, Sweden’s Ericsson and China’s Huawei dominate the civilian 5G market.

The two nations’ advanced military and technological capabilities are due to their non-NATO membership, Berzina said.

“They’re good at everything,” she said, “because they were alone.”

Lili Bayer and Stuart Lau contributed reporting.