On May 27, a nine-person delegation from the Finnish Institute for International Affairs (FIIA), headed by Dr. Mika Aaltola, Programme Director, The Global Security Research Programme, visited the ICDS.
ICDS researchers Kalev Stoicescu, Henrik Praks and Pauli Järvenpää gave brief remarks on the upcoming Warsaw NATO summit, the Russian policies in the Baltic Sea region, and the nature of deterrence in a situation where both sides to the conflict have nuclear weapons. The remarks were followed by a lively discussion on the future security of the Baltic Sea region, the future of deterrence, the nature of national resilience, and the possibility of Swedish and Finnish memberships in NATO in the next few years. The visit was concluded with a strongly-felt conviction on both sides that it would be useful for FIIA and ICDS to have closer links between their researchers than what has been the case so far.