Sea Control - Sea Control 489 - The Strategic Importance of NATO's North Flank with Julian Pawlak

Episode Date: January 11, 2024

Link:Collective Defence and Bastion: The Strategic Importance of NATO’s Northern Flank, by Julian Pawlak, German Institute for Defence and Strategic Studies, March 2022.

Hey folks, it's Jared. My guest this week is Yulian Pavlak, and we're discussing a 2022 paper he did on the strategic importance of NATO's North Flank. This episode was edited and produced by Jim Jarvie. Here at SimSec, we aim to further international maritime security through an exchange of ideas and the rigor of critical thought and writing. If you haven't already, please check out SimSec.org for new articles on the most important maritime topics. If you'd like to contribute to the discussion, check out the Write for SimSec tab to learn how you can submit articles for publication. Finally, I want to take the opportunity to recommend our partners in the SimSec Podcast Network, The Bilge Pumps. You can find Alex, Jamie, Drack, and a pile of our brew bottles wherever you download your podcasts. And with that, Kimber's Men.

You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Security. Aloha, Shoemates, and welcome back aboard Sea Control. My guest today is Julian Pavlak, and we're going to be discussing his 2022 report for the German Institute for Defense and Strategic Studies, Collective Defense and Bastion, the Strategic Importance of NATO's Northern Flank. So, Julian, welcome back. Could you start by reminding the listeners a little bit more about your background, please? Sure.

Hi, Jared. I'm a research associate with the German Forces University in Hamburg, where I'm also the coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Research Focus for Maritime Security. And at the moment, I am a visiting fellow at the Swedish Defense University in Stockholm. As a reminder to the listeners, all opinions are our own and not reflective of any institution with which we might be otherwise associated. We'll start. Is the northern flank still an appropriate descriptor with the addition of Finland and Sweden and NATO? Hopefully Sweden and NATO very shortly now that Turkey has pushed it forward. Yeah, true. Hopefully soon it will change.

No, I mean, the first thing is, after all, there is no coherent definition of a northern flank, right? So you have different descriptions, yes, but not a general one. And they changed also during the years, basically. So if we look a little bit back, the name itself stems from its Cold War origins, of course. So the designation as a northern flank is based primarily on the calculation or the expectation of a comprehensive, decisive land battle we would have had in Central Europe, right, or in Central Germany in particular. So while that's not the case anymore, the name NATO's northern flank remained. And also before Finland and Sweden were about to join NATO, and we still use this description, you're right. So for the study or for today's understanding on the definition, it bases on the idea, on a concept of what I call like bridging the gaps because it helps to show the or to identify this strategic region because we have basically one strategic area and it includes the different important gaps.

So on the one hand, the famous UK gap, Greenland-Iceland-UK gap, from the North Atlantic to the Norwegian Sea. On the other, if you go further north, the Bear Gap, so from Norway to Svalbard, where you have the maritime corridor, so to say, to the Barents Sea and to the Arctic. And of course, if you go to the east, the Sovalki Gap, so next to the Baltic Sea between Poland and Lithuania and Kaliningrad. So you see that all this area put together is one big security complex, so to say, which includes different operational areas, but which are all of importance and have implications on each other. So I would say, yeah, the wording is one thing, but on the other, it's very important to understand that we have one overarching security context here, which you can still define or support a northern flank because it's still a flank or one of the main areas for NATO to deal with. So we should time stamp this for the listeners. I forgot that early on here, but we're recording this Saturday, October 28th. Is there any sort of developments related to anything that we're talking about that occur after this?

That's why we're not bringing it up. But how did the Northern Flank factor into alliance thinking during the Cold War? And how did that thinking change over the course of the Cold War? Yeah, I mean, it was also a target of various changes in policy. And not only policy, but also membership structure, force organization, capabilities, capacities, all had an influence on the flank itself, on the thinking about the flank, on the strategic role. And also, for instance, you had advanced technologies changing the area.

You had different areas of operation, which fell into different weights of the strategic thinking. So as just said, on the one hand, we had the northern flank as a more tactical northern flank compared to the main European Central Front. So actually, in the beginning, you had the first descriptions of a northern flank only limited to the geographical area of southern Scandinavia. So the Baltic Sea, its approaches, the Danish Straits,

because this was like the immediate northern part of the Central European Front. So this changed later on, like with the naval arms race at sea, which we had in the 70s and later on in the 80s when you had the concept of maritime operations of NATO, so where you had to deal with the Soviet Navy, which became increasingly strong in terms of size and capabilities. So we have had real highlight of the relevance of, for instance, also the Norwegian Sea for defense planning,

Because if we consider the flexible response, for instance, so the relevance of the SLOCs, the sea lines of communication, was even more important for providing credible conventional deterrence also to Europe. Because, of course, you need to safely bring over reinforcements from the US, from Canada as well, to the UK and then to the European mainland. So this was already a change in the perspective on how the northern European water space had been seen. And then on the other, you needed to deal with the idea or with the plans, for instance, of the Soviet Navy to reach on the one end through the Baltic and the Danish Straits into the North Sea and from the other to come over the Norwegian Sea, for instance, to the Atlantic. So you had very different tasks and changes over the years in the strategic perspective on this area. So eventually this changed back again after, of course, after the end of the Cold War, some years of neglect. And now again, it is recognized as a crucial strategic importance for NATO. My friend and colleague Jeremy Sturz called it very well, from battlefront to backwater and back again, that you have this twofold strategic paradigm shift along Europe's shores, which describes it pretty well, I would say.

Do the Russian and NATO command and control arrangements for this area mirror one another? And if not, how are they differentiated? Well, I would not say mirror directly, but of course, you have definitely adaptations on both sides, right? For NATO side, we had it already before the beginning of the re-invasion of Ukraine now, for instance, with the creation of JFC Norfolk or Joint Force Command Norfolk already in 2019, following the initial beginning of the war in 2014. So already underlining the growing strategic importance of the Northern Atlantic, of the Northern European region, and all of NATO, right? And now with the Finnish and Swedish admission to NATO and the debate developed to what command I will be responsible also for where they will join to Norfolk or to Branson, meaning including a more central Eastern European oriented area with the Baltic and the Baltic states, for instance, or more into the northern area, including the North Atlantic, the Norwegian Sea, the Arctic so this is of course of importance because

you need to have a good approach kind of for the countries also to be and if we look at the Russian side interestingly there we can also see adaptations for instance regarding its

military organization which have been frequently in the recent years if you take a look at this but let's say very famously in in 2021 when the northern fleet actually became an own military district right and to the to the northern military district but now quite recently it was like that the the the news or the development that this will transform back actually to the leningrad or st petersburg military district so the whole organization will be split back into into

St. Petersburg and Moscow, like you had it already before 2010, actually. So you even see here the same, that adaptations are starting to the changing strategic situation on the northern flank. So it's not only, of course, NATO or the West and NATO adapting, but of course, also on the Russian military level. How is Russian thinking about the north flank changed? Yeah, this definitely links together. So as we said initially, so you don't have any more the thinking about you need to provide for the whole Soviet Navy the access to the Atlantic or the breakthroughs to the Baltic and the Danish Straits. In fact, you can see, if you look last year, the 2022 maritime doctrine by Russia, for example, clearly shows that now the Arctic is the main maritime priority or the most prioritized region, followed then by the Pacific and the Atlantic area afterwards.

So in the latter, you see, if we stay with the Atlantic area or the northern flank, you see that their NATO's capacities and capabilities, maritime and also, of course, other domains are the main strategic concern for the Russian thinking. And this, of course, still makes sense even when you don't prioritize it so much anymore compared to the other maritime regions, because on the one hand, yes, we have the Kola Peninsula with the nuclear, of course, deterrence traction from the Russian side. bastion concept you still would try to keep up in the region. On the other, you still rely on the Baltic Sea and the Baltic Sea lines of communication on the one hand for the

large parts of the economy which still goes there from the sea-borne sea trade economy for Russia. On the other, of course, because you still have the enclave of Kaliningrad and you don't want to leave it defenseless, so

to say in the region so you still have factors and areas which make it very important for you and then even now with the the prolonging of the NATO-Russia border which Finland joining the alliance this also of course plays into the role that from the Russian perspective you see that there's a very high level of now NATO forces actually in front of your door and capable. And you, from this perspective at least, of course, try to react to this and rebuild forces, capabilities, and capacities

as you actually have had in the years before the war and with the Russian military modernization, we have had an increase of capabilities of capacities more modern units in the maritime domain we we talked in the years about the famous caliberization of the fleet with particularly smaller units which getting more capable and which is now basically confronted with the fact that also in all those areas in in the baltic fleet of northern fleet we have a large decrease of forces due to the invasion of Ukraine, right? So, as for instance, when you have reports from the Norwegian colleagues

talking about that Russian capacities in the region are back to one-fifth of what they were before, this is, of course, I mean, you can argue that they don't still have the naval components, or many of them are still up there, which are not locked in the Black Sea. But still, you have issues, and it will be interesting how this will change again in the upcoming years in terms of the strategic importance. And because, of course, what from the Russian side has been said is that, again, you will strengthen your military capabilities in northwest Russia following Finland's entry to NATO and probably Sweden's entry to NATO. And, of course, what will happen, in fact, is another thing. But I think there was some weeks ago or just recently the news about the Russian corvettes

who will be based in the Lake Ladoga near Finland. So to perhaps have a more safe maritime area for them to stay in the Baltic. But I'm not so sure if that's the case, actually. But this is what the news are told, right? And what is interestingly to see is that the Baltic White Sea Canal actually is getting more importance with that, which is often when you talk about the Baltic, overlooked because you just talk, you have the entrance through the Danistrates and the Kiel Canal. But, of course, there's the possibility to move smaller vessels compared to the other entrances.

But there, to the White Sea and from the north, basically, to the Baltic and back again, those Russian corvettes are, of course, built particularly to move from the inner rivers, if you want. So within Russia, then this is a perfect opportunity. So this is a really interesting development to see how and if this will become even of higher importance in this regard. Yeah, I'll be interested to see it develop. I think there's a lot of justifiable questions and skepticism about the Russian capacity upgrade, given the performance that we've seen in and around the Black Sea. and secondly when we talk about moving a couple of corvettes around i mean how much actual firepower are they delivering as they move it around and i'm not sure that i buy that they're

quote-unquote safer on an inland lake that's like within you know fighter bomber distance you know from a potential adversary border like that seems to me like you were just kind of setting them on a there to be to be struck uh as well as like you know inland waterways are also notoriously difficult to navigate and easy easily obstructed um so exactly it'll be interesting to see uh all this i i mean i think finland sweden like i i agree 100 with sebastian bruins that like the baltic is not a nato lake but is a very challenging body of water it's going to be Extremely challenging for the Russians. It's challenging for NATO as it is. But were they to want to do anything in that area? I don't see how those forces would continue to exist. If you're talking about like the NATO fires and strike complex that they would be facing and like the opportunities that they would have to evade that complex. But you publish this in March.

Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. you're right this would be of course if we stay with the Baltic of this region difficult so both sides I'm thinking about to see

if we now consider the Black Sea and Ukraine approaches to naval warfare in this regard you see that even if you have limited coastal area and limited naval forward you can have a huge impact on the whole naval theater or operational area in this regard, right?

And, I mean, we see in this, with the developments of NATO in the Baltic Sea region, that, yeah, Russia has a limited coastal area and a limited presence in the Baltic Sea, but I'm thinking about how would they learn from this? How would they adapt about having perhaps limited means in a region, But you can still denial on paper way larger force just to operate or to put such a high risk or stake in the region that operating would be perhaps very costly. So this is a development we will need to observe, definitely. All right. Appropriate transition because you published this in March 2022, meaning it was probably completed some months prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February of that year. So how have you observed that the alliance's thinking changed since?

Yeah, definitely. I think the most important changes or changes in thinking are, of course, the new strategic concept, the back to core of deterrence and collective defense, the new force model, the admission of new states, as we just talked about, Finland and hopefully soon Sweden. And there's a lot of changing of the events and a lot of change regarding the strategic weight also of the north flank or the northeastern area. On the one hand, of course, because of the impact of the Russian war on Ukraine and for those regions and the relevance of NATO again for the region and to think about Russia and how to deal with it. And on the other, of course, the political weight is increasing the relevance of the region. And on the other, observe change of thinking, of course, the changes in the respective member states,

like in the states in Northern and Eastern Europe in particular. So we have on the one hand a lot of changes and adaptations besides the alliance level. Of course, on the single state level, you have them as well. I think, yeah, sure, the most famous one due to the wording, the Germans, the sea change. Besides, it's real, the reality of what's happening, at least the name or calling it is very, yeah, it's a wording which keeps up with the changes. But then you have, yeah, change and increase procurement and capabilities and force restructuring, for instance. But on the other, which is interesting, that many of those statements, and this is particularly on the national level, about the now changed security situation, the turn back to defense and high-intensity warfare against a peer competitor. if you if you look back eight years or nine years you you have had similar statements already after

2014 right and you said okay now we need to change back everything and to to this kind of defense and there's a little bit of a discrepancy here like okay what what really happened then in those eight years when you at some point you can you can look at statements which look very similar and yeah was it yeah still not realized so this is hopefully a change we can consider now that this was a final wake-up call um there's still a long way to go to really have a really if what what the states are all aiming for actually well i'm sorry that that's all we have time for today i'd like to thank my guest julian pabloca julian where can we find you online and what are you working on next um yeah you can still find me on on twitter or

ICT, basically, but not so active there anymore, but still available on the other. And I'm still working here on my study about actually what we just talked about, about the changing security strategies of the nation states here around the Baltic region following Russian war in Ukraine, basically already since 2014. Well, thank you again for joining us. To the listeners, thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next time. © BF-WATCH TV 2021

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