Journal on Baltic Security

Contemporary global power competition has turned the world into a hybrid battlefield. In modern battlefield, authoritarian regimes have the strategic advantage of being irresponsible, reckless and aggressive. This advantage is combined with the ability of the authoritarian regimes to find cheap and effective - short of war - solutions for achieving geopolitical objectives. In past decades authoritarian regimes such as Russia and China have been actively applying hybrid strategies against the Western dominated rules based international system. Those strategies are being constructed based on identification and utilization of the vulnerabilities of the democratic political systems, institutions and societies. Pandemic crisis caused by unpredictable and unprecedented spread of the mutated new Corona virus, have underlined vulnerabilities and opened up new possibilities for the hybrid warfare. The pandemic influences every power on the global stage, but will COVID-19 be a turning point for the Euro-Atlantic Security environment?

The attempts by Russia under President Putin to assert its hegemonic ambitions against Ukraine and the other countries in what Russia perceives as its 'Near Abroad', have posed serious challenges to the security of the region and the entire international order of the 21st century. 'Lawfare (legal warfare) is a pivotal element of Russia's hybrid toolbox that has remained under-studied by the analytical community Given Lawfare's central role in Russia's comprehensive strategy, NATO must develop a deeper understanding of this Russian hybrid warfare domain, and design a unified strategy to counter this major challenge to the European security architecture.

This paper aims to discuss the implications of Ukraine crisis to the U.S. foreign policy towards the Baltic

This article addresses a key legal debate that the Baltic NATO members ought to engage in: what constitutes an “armed attack” and what interpretation should be made of this concept in order to deter recent Russian hybrid warfare strategies. These questions are considered in connection with a more general issue regarding the law of self-defence: the question of what constitutes an armed attack in international law. This article will try to present a broad definition and context of Russian hybrid warfare and how it is challenging traditional jus ad bellum paradigms. Too few policy-makers have paid detailed attention to the new Russian “lawfare” in Ukraine, using specific military and non-military tactics in order to blur the lines between “armed attack” and mere political intervention. Meanwhile, legal scholars detach their analysis from actual policy-serving considerations and tend to acquiesce to some very restrictive theories of the use force in self-defence. For some countries, like the Baltic ones, facing strategic exposure – because of both threatening neighbours and low military capacities – the jus ad bellum paradigm should not be construed as another layer of obstacle.

The annexation of Crimea in 2014 was a clear sign that Moscow is looking to extend its sphere of influence and it forced the Baltic States to take a very close look at their deterrent capabilities. The article introduces the basic concepts of deterrence and discusses the differences between the deterrent capabilities of Ukraine and the Baltic States. Furthermore, the threats that Russia presents, the factors that were responsible for Ukraine’s deterrence failure and the challenges that the Baltic States are facing are analysed. The article concludes that while the Baltic States are significantly better prepared for possible Russian aggression, their deterrent capabilities must continuously evolve to reflect the changes in the nature of modern warfare.