On April 6th, by the invitation of Global Affairs Canada, ICDS Head of Studies, Tomas Jermalavicius, gave a speech in Ottawa. The audience consisted of Canadian diplomats and analysts dealing with security and defence affairs, NATO issues as well as with Central and Eastern European and Baltic regions.
A full range of security challenges in the Baltic area – from military threats to non-military vulnerabilities – and ways of addressing them through national, bilateral, multilateral, NATO and EU policies and actions were covered during the initial remarks and following discussions. The focus of the talk was set on Russia’s strategy towards the West in general and the Baltic States in particular. It highlighted how, and to which strategic ends, Russia uses a broad array of state power tools to challenge the values-based European security order as well as to undermine national security of the Baltic States. Tomas Jermalavicius shared his assessments regarding NATO’s deterrence posture in the Baltic area, national efforts by the Baltic States to strengthen their national resilience and defence capabilities as well as regional security and defence cooperation between the Baltic states.