In the past three years, the Nordic-Baltic group has reached unprecedented levels of coherence and prominence. The main drivers of the alignment are the shared threat assessment that Russia poses an existential threat to them all, and the strong sense of urgency to support Ukraine.
The history of Nordic-Baltic cooperation goes back to the end of the Cold War: as soon as the Iron Curtain had been torn down, the countries began arranging meetings on various levels. The first foreign minister summit took place in 1990 in what was initially called the “5+3” format (for five Nordic countries and three Baltic states), but the change of name into “NB8” in 2000 indicated a step towards a more coherent and equal grouping.
However, as an informal format, the NB8 was not a top priority for many of the countries in the region—until Russia’s full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine jolted the region together like never before. All the countries in the region are now in the top 10 of military supporters for Ukraine per capita, with the Nordic countries, except Iceland, even among the top 10 in absolute terms. In addition, they have found innovative solutions to support Ukraine: Denmark has begun financing Ukraine’s own defence industry directly, instead of simply donating equipment—known as the “Danish model”; Sweden and Denmark co-procured infantry fighting vehicles for Ukraine when they ordered more for themselves; a Finnish company has teamed up with Ukrainian counterparts to start producing drones for Ukraine in Finland; and an Estonian company developed an anti-drone missile for Ukrainian—and future European—needs. The unwavering consensus on Ukraine and the Russian threat, combined with the fact that the countries put their money where their mouth is, has given the region a strong voice in Europe on matters related to the continent’s security and defence.
Defending the Northeastern Flank: From Cooperation to Integration
In terms of defence cooperation, the Nordic countries have their own NORDEFCO (Nordic Defence Cooperation) format that has gained momentum since Finland and Sweden decided to join NATO. The Nordic countries are now well on their way to moving from cooperation to integration of their military forces, thus combining their individually limited capabilities and scaling up effects onto a regional level. Air force integration, especially, has progressed rapidly: a joint Nordic Air Operations Centre is to be established in Norway, with a location either in Bodø or Rygge. The Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish air forces operated under the joint Nordic Air Power Concept for the first time during the Nordic Response NATO exercise in early 2024 and a year later, a Nordic Division was established under the Norwegian Joint Air Operations Centre, consisting of 13 officers from the Nordic countries. The aim of the Nordic Air Operations Concept is “to achieve ability to operate as one force in full-scale joint air operations with day-zero readiness”.
In the land force domain, a new NATO Forward Land Force (FLF) will be established in Finland, under Sweden as the Framework Nation. The Finnish FLF will have an Arctic profile, with locations in Rovaniemi and Sodankylä in Finland’s northernmost region. The Baltic states, in turn, are working together on the Baltic Defence Line border fortifications.
The wider Nordic-Baltic group is united in the British-led Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) that also includes the Netherlands. As a flexible format, the JEF can work as a gap filler between national-level defence and NATO’s (increasingly uncertain) collective defence, especially in cases where NATO is either not the appropriate level of response, such as when dealing with incidents of hybrid or grey zone warfare, or decision-making in NATO’s main body, the North Atlantic Council (NAC), is too slow. For example, the JEF was activated on short notice after the Christmas Day cable-cutting incident in the Gulf of Finland, involving the vessel Eagle S. NATO later followed up with the vigilance activity “Baltic Sentry”.
A Frontline Region
The choice of location for Finland’s FLF indicates that a frontline in a possible conflict with Russia would not limit itself to NATO’s eastern flank and the Baltic states but would stretch to the High North, where apart from Finland with its 1 340km long land border with Russia, Norway finds itself in an exposed position. Norway shares a short border with Russia in the north, where proximity to Russia’s Kola peninsula military base, harbouring Russia’s second-strike-capable nuclear submarines, has always been a sensitive issue. Furthermore, the remote Svalbard archipelago, almost 1 000km to the north of mainland Norway’s northern coast, is a possible vulnerability. Svalbard has a special status in international law, defined in the Svalbard Treaty of 1920. According to the Treaty, Svalbard cannot be used for “warlike purposes” and Norway’s military presence is limited to a minimum of a coast guard. At the same time, Svalbard is included in NATO’s Article 5 collective security guarantee territory. Estonian town of Narva at the Russian border is a popular choice of Moscow’s attack scenarios—not least because of the recent increase in interference from the Kremlin—but the northern flank, and especially Svalbard, would deserve equal attention.
Looking at geography, the whole Nordic-Baltic region is particularly exposed to possible Russian sub-threshold or armed aggression. Apart from the five countries that share a border with Russia (Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), Sweden’s Gotland is an island in the middle of the Baltic Sea and thereby in a vulnerable location. Iceland, which does not have its own armed forces due to a population of less than 400 000, is located along the so-called Greenland-Iceland-UK (GIUK) gap that marks an important defence and supply line, which Russia would want to disrupt in a conflict. Mainland Denmark and Sweden have an important role as the gatekeepers of the Danish Straits, an access point into the Baltic Sea. Denmark’s Arctic constituencies—Greenland and the Faroe Islands—are located, like Iceland, along the GIUK gap and increase Denmark’s exposure to Russian warfare both below and above the threshold of armed conflict. Apart from the eastern flank, regional cooperation is, therefore, beneficial for the defence of the wider northeastern flank.
Importantly, however, the newly achieved regional cohesion goes beyond the field of military security. The region has been targeted by Russian hybrid warfare for a long time, and since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, even more intensely so. Coordination efforts have been intensified in the field of civil defence and societal resilience, making the region a frontrunner in Europe in whole-of-society preparedness. The Nordic countries have conceptualised the approach as “total defence,” but the Baltic states are no strangers to full-spectrum threats targeting all parts of society and civilian life either. More work needs to be done on scaling up the hitherto national civil defence concepts onto a regional level, potentially including relevant larger Allies like the UK. Also, in the field of civil defence, Finland and Sweden’s NATO accession has opened up new possibilities for regional cooperation and, further down the line, integration.
Teaming up for Greater Agenda-Setting Power
The Baltic and Nordic countries share many concerns, but they also align on shared values and interests beyond security and defence arrangements. The positive knock-on effect of the region-building process, strongly driven by existential military threats, has the potential to boost cooperation in other policy fields, too. Once the countries perceive each other as part of one and the same region, they will more naturally build even closer economic and people-to-people connections.
The new degree of like-mindedness, spurred on by Russia’s war against Ukraine and Finland and Sweden’s NATO accession, has even led to closer coordination among the EU members in the region on EU policy issues. The small Nordic-Baltic states have severely limited human resources, which is a disadvantage given the high workload of the EU’s legislative and policy preparation processes. Developing a shared agenda would help overcome these hurdles. By combining their forces also on the EU front, they can become more effective in agenda-setting and keep the EU on track with important initiatives, such as the recent decisions on Europe’s military empowerment, should the sense of urgency begin to wane in southern or continental Europe or the Franco-German tandem prove unable to facilitate consensus-building.
For the non-EU members, Norway and Iceland, and especially given Norway’s high degree of integration with the EU, it is beneficial to have a regular format and a close-knit group with EU member states to stay well informed and prepared about the EU’s policy processes. A Norwegian and Icelandic EU accession would greatly benefit the Nordic-Baltic region-building and conclude the process that Finland and Sweden’s NATO membership kicked off.
A New Centre of Gravity
Essentially, what the region-building process has so far fostered and future progress can further solidify is that the eight small states can together unfold a larger impact and have a stronger voice in European affairs than any single one of them could individually. Partially, the NB8 has responded to the leadership vacuum in Europe that emerged in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion, with Germany and France struggling to find the right approach to offering credible leadership and the UK off stage due to Brexit.
While France and the UK have now found a new leadership role in the coalition of the willing that is coordinating support for Ukraine since Donald Trump took office as US president, and Germany hopefully recovers from domestic political instability with the new government, new players have emerged in Europe that cannot be ignored in the future. Of the larger countries on the continent, Poland and Italy have taken on a more central role in European politics, and the NB8 group has become one centre of gravity in the northeast of Europe, in addition to the traditional integration centres in continental western Europe.
The region’s increasing degree of integration also means that the countries interact directly with each other more and do not necessarily need larger partners to facilitate cooperation, such as Germany, which has traditionally been an important point of reference for most of the Nordic-Baltic countries. While Germany, Poland, and the UK are all important and close partners to the region—and even France increasingly so—the beauty of the NB8 format is that it enables small states (ranging from Estonia’s 1.3 million to Sweden’s 10.5 million) to cooperate on a more equal level than is possible for them with larger states. It is, therefore, important to keep the core group exclusively Nordic-Baltic and engage and cooperate with larger partners in different NB8+ formats.
The Nordic-Baltic region has the potential to become one strong pole in an emerging European security architecture. Whatever the transatlantic relationship’s future, Finland and Sweden’s NATO accession has enabled a completely new degree of regional cooperation that can also be utilised if new arrangements become necessary when Europeans take responsibility for their own security. The region has understood that it will, in all likelihood, be the first responder in a potential conflict and has to improve its own defence capability to be able to hold the line until outside help can be activated and arrive. Instead of a passive recipient of support from larger countries, the Nordic-Baltic region is becoming a contributor to European security and setting an example for others to follow.
This article was written for the Lennart Meri Conference special issue of ICDS Diplomaatia magazine. Views expressed in ICDS publications are those of the author(s).