NATO’s presence in a strategic sea it shares with Russia is about to get bigger

• NATO has ramped up its presence in the Baltic Sea, sensing a threat from Russia.

• Countries that border the strategic waters are also ordering more vessels.

• The sea is important both to Russia and to NATO.

NATO countries that share a strategically important sea with Russia have boosted their presence there and are buying more warships, as they eye Russia warily.

Denmark, which sits at the mouth of the Baltic Sea, announced plans to buy dozens more ships amid rising threats in the Baltic and the Arctic.

The Baltic Sea is a major trade and telecomms route that has seen increased patrols and alleged sabotages of undersea cables since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Many European officials say they believe Russia is behind the severing of cables.

Lithuania, which borders Russia and the sea, announced this month that it is buying two new attack boats. Poland is also building new frigates and is planning to buy submarines. Estonia, which has only eight ships and one of the world’s smallest navies, aims to purchase up to 12 new vessels.

Sweden, which joined NATO after Russia invaded Ukraine, is also procuring four more surface vessels.

Much of Sweden’s military was designed with a fight against Russia in mind, and it has even issued its citizens a booklet advising them about how to prepare for such a war.

Pål Jonson, Sweden’s defense minister, told BI in February that Sweden is “in the process also of procuring four new surface vessels,” saying they will “be significantly bigger” than its existing Visby class corvettes.

Bryan Clark, a naval operations expert at the Hudson Institute who served on the US Navy headquarters staff, said the vessels, combined with Sweden’s submarines, would be “very useful for closing off the Baltic Sea if they wanted to, using the combination of the submarines and those surface combatants.”

The Swedish Defence Materiel Administration said last year that two of the ships were planned to be delivered to the Swedish Armed Forces in 2030.

The country’s admission to NATO boosted the alliance’s maritime presence, particularly in the Baltic Sea, which is flanked by countries including Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland.

Russia’s naval presence in the Baltic as of December 2023 included one attack submarine, five guided missile destroyers, one guided missile frigate, and 35 smaller ships, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

However, Russia moves its naval assets around, changing what is based in each port.

Many alliance members have started calling the Baltic the “NATO Sea,” after Sweden and neighboring Finland joined NATO.

Sweden brings submarine capabilities that few other NATO members in the region have. Estonia, Latvia, Denmark, Finland, and Lithuania have no submarines, while Poland has just one.

Sweden’s submarines are also well suited for the Baltic Sea in particular, according to naval warfare experts.

Steven Horrell, a former US naval intelligence officer and now a warfare expert at the Center for European Policy Analysis, told BI that Sweden’s small and quiet submarines are perfect for a sea with “smaller inlets, small islands, small shallow waters.”

Jonson said Sweden could bring “unique capabilities” to NATO’s operations in the Baltic Sea, underwater and on the surface.

Sweden also knows the sea well: Jonson described operating there as “something we’ve been doing for hundreds of years, and we like to think that we know the Baltic Sea inside out.”

He said “a lot of things” were being done to protect critical infrastructure on the seabed, adding that Sweden was using its own navy and coast guard, but NATO had also stepped up its efforts.

Sweden is part of NATO’s Baltic Sentry operation, which has put more ships and control vessels in the sea. But Jonson said more could be done.

Sweden’s defense minister warned last year that, even though Russia’s forces were “tied up” in Ukraine, “We cannot rule out a Russian attack on our country.”

In addition to boosting defense spending, Sweden is giving Ukraine its biggest-ever support package this year, worth about $1.6 billion.

Jonson described that as a message to its allies: “We have to all step up and provide more assistance to Ukraine.”

He called supporting Ukraine “the right thing to do and the smart thing to do because it’s really also an investment into our own security because the stakes before us are enormous.”

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