FOI-R--3990--SE_reducerad

FOI-R--3990--SE
1 Introduction
Dr Mike Winnerstig, FOI
Since the end of the Cold War, the Baltic Sea area has been considered a fairly
peaceful place. Although there have been certain residual fears, especially in
Eastern Europe and the Baltic states, concerning the risk of future Russian
revanchism, these were for many years dismissed by observers in Western
Europe as exaggerated or generated by an unfortunate past.
The Russian aggression against Ukraine and the illegal annexation of Crimea in
2014 have, to a substantial degree, changed all this. Even if the direct military
threat against the Baltic states has not increased, the obvious willingness of the
Russian leadership to alter borders by force has been considered a game-changer
in other parts of the world. Many observers have pointed out that the new and
“creative” forms of warfare used in the Crimean operation, such as the
infiltration of “little green men” – Russian soldiers without nationality markings
on their uniforms – could be repeated elsewhere. At the time of writing, eastern
Ukraine seems to be witnessing a substantial destabilization operation by “local
self-defence forces” apparently heavily supported by Russian military elements. 1
These developments have caused substantial concern not only in the Baltic states
– the smallest and geographically closest neighbours of Russia – but also in
Scandinavia and other parts of Europe. The major issue of debate is whether
Russia would dare to act in a similar manner against countries that have been
organizationally, politically and economically deeply rooted in the West for over
20 years. Conventional wisdom states that it would not. The Baltic states are
NATO members and thus an attack on them would be considered by US decision
makers an attack against the United States too. The deterrence value of this is
probably very high.
There are, however, other forms of warfare, or at least highly antagonistic
behaviour well short of a traditional military attack, that could be used against
the Baltic states. Wielding influence against smaller neighbours is, after all,
historically very common when it comes to great power behaviour. In the autumn
of 2014, Russia acted against all three Baltic states within less than a month in a
way that is well short of a military attack but still reeks of provocation: (a) an
Estonian security police officer was abducted by Russian agents on the border
between Russia and Estonia; (b) a high-ranking official from Moscow made a
speech in Riga attacking the Baltic states for promoting fascism and human
rights violations against their Russian-speaking minorities; (c) the Russian
1 For a recent analysis of the Ukrainian crisis see Granholm, N., Malminen, J. and Persson, G.
(2014), A Rude Awakening: Ramifications of Russian Aggression Toward Ukraine (Stockholm:
FOI), FOI-R--3892--SE.
14