Journal on Baltic Security

This article explains the importance of the underwater critical infrastructure as a domain of hybrid warfare operations and the setting for increasing strategic competition. In addition, the article highlights the growing need for NATO and European Union (EU) defense cooperation in this area, particularly to respond to the strategic ambitions of the Russian Federation and its strategic partnership with China as revisionist powers. Taking a pragmatic case study approach, the article evaluates Russia’s current maritime doctrine and characteristic cases of undersea hybrid tactics with several operational examples of Russia’s undersea sabotage capabilities. This leads to outlining the emerging NATO–EU inter-organizational defense cooperation in protecting undersea infrastructure. The article concludes with policy advice that the Baltic states, as small open-to-sea member states, should take an active interest in the capability development of the undersea infrastructure protection in both NATO and EU formats.

Abstract: Russia’s war against Ukraine has reignited discussions on resistance and total defence, influencing policy discourses and shaping national security documents. Nordic and Baltic countries, in response, have re-centred resistance in their national defence doctrines. This article critically examines the portrayal of total defence, resistance, and the role of society in these documents, highlighting the implicit assumptions of societal and individual agency. Despite presenting national populations as constructive agents essential for resilience and resistance, the analysis reveals a more nuanced reality. From Finland, to Sweden, to Lithuania, populations are positioned, whether through planning documents or political rhetoric, as indispensable defenders of their nations, with predetermined roles and expectations. This article argues that such dynamics, particularly the responsibilisation of individual actions in wartime, obscure the illiberal foundations of sovereignty inherent in the defence strategies of numerous liberal democracies.

Owing to the worsening security environment and the uncertainty of the security guarantees provided by the U.S., Europe needs to revise its strategy towards Russia going forward. To provide recommendations for a new strategy, this article in the first part considers Russian understanding of deterrence, analysing the conceptual differences with the Western though and emphasizing why it matters. The second part of the article looks at the Cold War past and considers the policy of containment as the conceptual basis for a new and revised strategy towards Russia. Conclusion includes recommendation for the policy makers on elements that the new strategy should include.

The article discusses Russia’s non-linear (hybrid)P warfare concept. In order to fight a new generation war, Russian has created ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ forces, which are used situationally depending on need. Russia employing mentality of secrecy and ‘maskirovka’ and following own rationale, Russia not only created the concept, suggesting a specific modus operandi, but designed and established a system of command, control, and coordination for this warfare. Since the time that the ‘Gerasimov Doctrine’ first articulated this concept, it is being used daily and everywhere – outside Russia and inside the country. At the same time, it has taken the West too long to realise the novelty and shrewdness of this approach warfare, an approach that requires constant vigilance.