Journal on Baltic Security

While concepts like risk and crisis management have grown ubiquitous at all levels of government, they have also cemented their place in academia as interdisciplinary fields of study in higher education. In the Baltic Sea Region (BSR), these types of educational programmes are typically labelled under the umbrella term ‘societal security’ in English. This article provides a succinct depiction of the state of the art of societal security in higher education in this region. After a brief introduction of the concept, the article comprehensively analyses second level degree programmes (master’s equivalent) in this field. Particularly, four conceptual and thematic areas appear to constitute the core of societal security degree programmes, though in different combinations and under a variety of labels, those being risk, crisis management, safety management, and resilience. We note, however, that these concepts and their respective research objectives exhibit extensive overlaps. This paradigm reflects how the field of societal security has emerged and evolved through a combination of different disciplinary and interdisciplinary traditions that closely follow changing policy needs. It is concluded, conceptual difficulties notwithstanding, that a common, or at least a more shared, understanding of what constitutes societal security in the BSR has emerged and continues to develop, particularly in its so-called functional understanding. This situation allows for truly transnational learning, and in so doing, also enhances cross-border cooperation in educating and training the next generation of risk and crisis managers in the BSR and beyond.

The use of various practical pedagogical tools is an important part of officer training. This is also an area where there is a long tradition in the training of officer cadets and officers in staff colleges as well as in the Armed Forces more generally. This article focuses on staff rides aimed at teaching tactics and operational arts based on historical examples. This type of staff-rides aims to learn from history with a bearing on the present and the future.

For several years, the Supreme Commander of the Swedish Armed Forces (SAF), M. Bydén, has acknowledged the significance of digital security threats (Bydén, 2017). Even now, he continues to stress the importance of taking such threats seriously; ‘Sweden is attacked everyday by means that harm our society today and in the more long-term. We are not in a military conflict on and about Swedish territory, but we are in a conflict about the values we want to uphold and interests we want to be handled in a democratic way’ (Dagens Nyheter, 2022).

Since the 1990s, the Belarusian identity has undergone several notable transformations. One of the most recent transformative periods took place from 2014 to 2020, when Belarus’ state authorities revisited official discourse on national identity elements, particularly the Belarusian language following the rise of new hybrid challenges. By changing their discursive practices, state officials, civil society, and private business simultaneously undertook a series of practical processes targeting Belarusian language and statehood narratives. The mass protests of 2020, followed by unprecedented repression, not only altered the preceding processes, but also signalled the start of a new stage in Belarusian identity development, with the shifting tempo and transformation of identity narratives and practices. From the perspective of ontological security, this article has identified and assessed the contemporary identity-building processes in the domains of language and history, arguing that past and current identity-building practices allowed by the authorities have been primarily driven by ontological anxiety.

In preparation for gray zone or conventional warfare conducted by Russian or Chinese adversaries and their proxies, threatened nations can apply a Total Defense approach to safeguard their territorial integrity and political sovereignty. Two key components for any effective Total Defense concept are national special operations forces (SOF) and volunteer, citizen-soldier territorial defense forces (TDF). This article examines the role of special operations forces as significant multi-dimensional, entrepreneurial integrators in Total Defense. In particular, it demonstrates the symbiotic relationship between special operations and territorial defense forces in the complex mission of national resistance during crisis and occupation.

Due to Russia’s continuous malicious actions against the Baltic and Scandinavian countries, as well as its ongoing war against Ukraine, most European countries have recently been forced to take a critical look at their national defense strategies and military capabilities. These reviews unearthed serious capability gaps, resulting in the emergence of so-called total defense strategies based on peacetime social resilience and war time resistance. This article focuses on resistance, arguing that the current manifestations of such a strategy do not ensure maximum results for the countries because their fundamental characteristics and principles were derived from cases that are limited in spatial and temporal scope. The article suggests that lessons must be also learned from recent experiences such as the Chechen resistance against Russia, Hezbollah’s fight against Israel, the Iraqi and Taliban insurgencies, the Syrian insurgency, and other similar cases. This article offers a starting point for identifying such critical lessons by analyzing the First Russo-Chechen War through a research model built on the common principles of Mao Zedong, Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, and General Vo Nguyen Giap.

This paper will discuss the Resistance Operating Concept and how nations should prepare to resist a potential enemy before an invasion takes place. Oriented towards the self-defense of small countries by a resistance or partisan force, it describes past examples of resistance groups in Europe. Specifically, by discussing the long-term survival of resilient organizations, its focus will be on the basic factors crucial for an underground resistance, including security, organization, and training. It also considers the need for a practitioner-oriented manual that can be disseminated at the widest levels to guide and enable future resistance operations.

Dr. Asta Maskaliūnaitė identified five concerns related to the promises and pitfalls of developing underground resistance organisations (URO) before a crisis in her excellent and timely 2021 Journal on Baltic Security article, ‘Exploring Resistance Operating Concept. Promises and pitfalls of (violent) underground resistance’. These pitfalls or areas of concern are: (1) Command and Control (C2), (2) Legitimacy, (3) Recruitment, (4) Potential Long-Term Problems, and (5) Strategic Communications. This study will address these five concerns from a non-military perspective, focusing on civilian control, political conditions, capabilities of the state, and legislated safeguards for each concern to accentuate promises and minimize risks. The study is based on a case study analysis of the Polish Underground State and highlights its legitimacy, enjoyed due to the legally organized, civilian-led URO and its shadow government leading the resistance in Poland and the Polish Government-in-Exile providing the legitimacy and organizing external support.

This study focuses on the unique characteristics in integrating the historically overt Territorial Defence Forces (TDF) with clandestine underground resistance organisations as part of efforts by various countries to build national resistance capacities prior to a conflict. This paper provides the theoretical and historical underpinnings of the concept of TDF and underground integration, including observations from the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Case studies of the Polish Home Army’s integration into the Polish Underground State in WWII under primarily German occupation and subsequently the Polish Independent Underground until 1963 under Soviet occupation are used to better understand the unique aspects of TDF and underground integration. In both cases, the respective TDFs were operating against equally brutal but distinctly different occupiers. The case study analysis identifies and discusses three key lessons for integrating military and civilian capabilities in national resistance programs built prior to a conflict: 1) the criticality of civilian control, 2) ambiguity, protractedness, and the TDF, and 3) the scaling the TDF and underground. Finally, recommendations are offered to support the implementation of the lessons learned. While these lessons and recommendations are focused on TDF and underground resistance organisation integration, they also similarly apply to every ministry, department, and agency of nations developing similar capabilities and may enable the successful implementation of related efforts. No single ministry or department can effectively establish a viable national resistance organisation in a vacuum. This research also sets the conditions for further distinct analysis to increase the theoretical understanding of these concepts.

This article aims to discuss how a state could best use its resources in resisting an aggressor when joint operations have failed. Focusing on the potential role of special operations forces (SOF) in resistance operations, the article examines scenarios where small states are attacked by a superior opponent. Based on the example of Sweden, currently still a militarily non-aligned country that nevertheless has adopted a security policy based on cooperation with other states, we explore how a small state not belonging to NATO might plan and prepare for alternative scenarios. Not being covered by Article 5, Sweden needs to be prepared to fight the war on its own. A better, but less likely, scenario would be fighting together with partners, at home, or in the near abroad. Since Ukraine shares similarities with Sweden in terms of its status as an enhanced NATO-partner, it will serve as an additional, and highly relevant, point of reference in the discussion. The developments in this war indicates that for a non-NATO member the primary alternative will be to conduct the fight on its own. Based on the above, the article will go on to investigate a number of old truths from the late 20th century as well as flipped lessons learned from twenty years of counter insurgency, primarily in the Middle East, South Sahel and South East Asia. Small states tend to have very limited size SOF which indicates that mission prioritization will be a key factor for the utility of SOF in resistance operations. There are, however, ways of finding other relevant roles, than the traditional ones, for SOF in resistance operations.