The Baltic Security Strategy Report provides an indepth security review of the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. As highlighted in this important work, the Baltic States' various national and collective strategies to address recurring regional threats since achieving statehood over a hundred years ago present notable case studies useful to contemporary policymakers and defense planners. Scholars Olevs Nikers and Otto Tabuns based this report on a series of discussions and workshops involving key European and American experts and stakeholders engaged in Baltic regional security matters. The participating experts assessed current challenges pertaining to defense and deterrence, societal security, economic security and cyber security. In addition to exploring the security considerations of each of the three Baltic States, the workshop discussions and resulting papers collected in this report specifically examine avenues of subregional cooperation that may prove more potent than individual national effort in certain fields. Consequently, the authors provide a detailed list of recommendations on how to proceed with a more coherent, goaloriented, and efficient regional cooperation strategy that serves to buttress the security of each of the Baltic States and the Transatlantic community more broadly. The report is a rich guide to issues and opportunities of Baltic intraregional security, and a valuable resource for policymakers, advisors, scholars and defensesector professionals on both sides of the Atlantic.

"Russia's recent aggression against Ukraine has disrupted nearly a generation of relative peace and stability between Moscow and its Western neighbors and raised concerns about its larger intentions. From the perspective of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the threat to the three Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania -- former Soviet republics, now member states that border Russian territory -- may be the most problematic of these. In a series of war games conducted between summer 2014 and spring 2015, RAND Arroyo Center examined the shape and probable outcome of a near-term Russian invasion of the Baltic states. The games' findings are unambiguous: As presently postured, NATO cannot successfully defend the territory of its most exposed members. Fortunately, it will not require Herculean effort to avoid such a failure. Further gaming indicates that a force of about seven brigades, including three heavy armored brigades -- adequately supported by airpower, land-based fires, and other enablers on the ground and ready to fight at the onset of hostilities -- could suffice to prevent the rapid overrun of the Baltic states"--Publisher's web site.

Russia's Military Strategy and Doctrine is designed to educate Russia watchers, policymakers, military leaders, and the broader foreign policy community about the Russian Armed Forces and security apparatus across the full spectrum of geographic, doctrinal and domain areas. Each chapter addresses a different strategic-level issue related to the Russian military, ranging from naval and maritime doctrine, to the role nuclear weapons play in its strategy, to cyber and electromagnetic warfare, to Moscow's posture in the Arctic or the Black Sea, to the lessons its Armed Forces have learned from their ongoing operations in Syria and eastern Ukraine. And each section of the book is written by one of the world's foremost experts on that theme of Russia's military development. The key questions emphasized by this book include "how Russia fights wars" and "how its experiences with modern conflicts are shaping the evolution of Russia's military strategy, capabilities and doctrine." The book's value comes not only from a piecemeal look at granular Russian strategies in each of the theaters and domains where its Armed Forces may act, but more importantly this study seeks to present a unifying description of Russia's military strategy as a declining but still formidable global power. Russia's Military Strategy and Doctrine will be an essential reference for US national security thinkers, NATO defense planners and policymakers the world over who must deal with the potential military and security challenges posed by Moscow.

In this new Brookings Marshall Paper, Michael O'Hanlon argues that now is the time for Western nations to negotiate a new security architecture for neutral countries in eastern Europe to stabilize the region and reduce the risks of war with Russia. He believes NATO expansion has gone far enough. The core concept of this new security architecture would be one of permanent neutrality. The countries in question collectively make a broken-up arc, from Europe's far north to its south: Finland and Sweden; Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus; Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan; and finally Cyprus plus Serbia, as well as possibly several other Balkan states. Discussion on the new framework should begin within NATO, followed by deliberation with the neutral countries themselves, and then formal negotiations with Russia. The new security architecture would require that Russia, like NATO, commit to help uphold the security of Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, and other states in the region. Russia would have to withdraw its troops from those countries in a verifiable manner; after that, corresponding sanctions on Russia would be lifted. The neutral countries would retain their rights to participate in multilateral security operations on a scale comparable to what has been the case in the past, including even those operations that might be led by NATO. They could think of and describe themselves as Western states (or anything else, for that matter). If the European Union and they so wished in the future, they could join the EU. They would have complete sovereignty and self-determination in every sense of the word. But NATO would decide not to invite them into the alliance as members. Ideally, these nations would endorse and promote this concept themselves as a more practical way to ensure their security than the current situation or any other plausible alternative.

This report considers the various possible forms of hybrid aggression in the Baltics and concludes that the major vulnerability of the Baltics is to conventional aggression.

International experts assess the components of the Baltic security puzzle by placing the security and political interests of the states of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania within the historical, economic, and political narratives of the greater Baltic region. They first reevaluate Baltic history as a progression of conflict, partial integration, Cold War division, up to today’s efforts to build a security community. Next, they focus on economic and social relations by contrasting patterns of democratization, domestic politics, EU membership, and the economics of crime. Lastly, they analyze military security and evolving regional perceptions of threats as well as the dynamics of alliance behavior and the recent geostrategic clashes unearthed by Russia’s behavior in Ukraine.

The report Baltic Sea Security: Regional and Sectoral Perspectives offers a multifaceted discussion of the complex security issues affecting the Baltic region that have important implications for the cohesion of the wider Transatlantic alliance. The Baltic littoral countries have chosen to respond to similar security concerns using differing approaches, keeping the region's strategic situation a challenging puzzle for the future. In 2019 and 2020, scholars Olevs Nikers and Otto Tabuns, the founders of the Riga-based Baltic Sea Security Initiative, gathered together regional and international experts and security professionals to provide an in-depth analysis of the current levels of defense and security cooperation among the Western countries in the Baltic basin. This series of discussions focused on 1) military cooperation and interoperability in maritime and air defense, 2) societal resilience in resisting information warfare and other hybrid threats, as well as 3) a joint approach to dealing with economic, financial and critical infrastructure threats. In addition to elucidating the variety of national perspectives in the region, the work of the experts spotlights the significant regional and sectoral issues that overstep the boundaries of national policy. Moreover, the study identifies the current limitations of international organizations such as NATO and the EU to respond to the threats faced by their Baltic littoral member states. Long-term strategic coordination among the Baltic partnering nations should be on the minds of all regional security and defense stakeholders. This report is intended to aid in that endeavor and to serve as a valuable resource for policymakers, professionals and scholars seeking to address the challenges facing the West in the Baltic Sea region.