Germany and the Baltic Sea Region: Proposals for the New Federal Government

Abstract

The Baltic Sea Region (BSR), consisting of Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Russia, Finland, Sweden, and Denmark, has increasingly become a theater for confrontation between Russia and the West. As the largest Western state in the BSR and a member of both NATO and the European Union, Germany should take the lead in developing regional approaches that more effectively address Russian threats while signaling an abiding interest in cooperation with all the region’s states. Tensions in the BSR have increased recently due to illegal Russian incursions into Ukraine in 2014. More concerning, it remains clear that in lieu of traditional military tactics, Russianbacked organizations have adopted a methodology of combat that relies heavily on a combination of cyberattacks and the purposeful spread of disinformation, a process known as hybrid warfare, to destabilize the BSR and deter NATO objectives from being accomplished in the area. To address this issue, the new Federal Government should recognize that many of the concerns inherent in the BSR represent issues of critical interest to Germany, and should undertake a multi-faceted approach that addresses prevalent military, cybersecurity, and information threats without provoking Russian retaliation.