Studies

Final Pieces of the Puzzle: Increasing Deterrence and Defense in NATO’s Northeast Quadran

The accession of Sweden and Finland to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has fundamentally altered Europe’s security environment. Finland and Sweden represent the final pieces of NATO’s geographic “puzzle” in northern and northeastern Europe, connecting the High North with the greater Baltic Sea subregion. Proper exploitation of their geography and advanced military capabilities provides NATO with new opportunities to reinforce deterrence and defense against the evolving threat posed by Russia in the region.

In Final Pieces of the Puzzle: Increasing Deterrence and Defense in NATO’s Northeast Quadrant, CSBA experts Dr. Katherine E. Dahlstrand, Jan van Tol, and Casey Nicastro argue that this completed regional puzzle enables NATO to revise its approach to defense planning for northern and northeastern Europe. They propose a conceptual geographic framework that considers the region as a comprehensive and holistic “Northeast Quadrant” that includes the areas surrounding the broader Baltic Sea from northeastern Germany and northern Poland through the Baltic states, and the Nordic countries (less Iceland). This approach brings together subregions that are deeply interconnected from a defense and deterrence standpoint, but which heretofore have been treated as separate areas of operation.

Dahlstrand, van Tol, and Nicastro outline the military challenges and strategic advantages of the Northeast Quadrant concept. By treating NATO’s Northeast Quadrant as a single unified area of operations, NATO can take maximum advantage of its new geography, existing regional cohesion, and specialized defense investments to make the region –and thus the whole alliance—stronger.

Experts