The current threatening and turbulent geopolitical situation heightens the need for strong mechanisms to acquire and assess intelligence. This needs to accurately inform governments about the challenges and potential challenges that they face and so advise them about how best to meet them.
This need, which is always there, has been exacerbated by the fundamental changes that have taken place in the last 15 or 20 years and have undermined the relative stability which had otherwise existed in Europe since 1945.
The Baltic Sea has of course often been a theatre of intelligence and counterintelligence conflict, notably during the Cold War but also before that, notably during the period of the Russian Revolution.
But the challenges now are greater, and I suggest here the five important overlying current intelligence tasks and suggest that targeting and properly assessing these fields should be the immediate priority for such work.
First of all, we need to develop the capacity to understand Russia much better than we do at the moment. Russia and its actions were much better understood just a decade or so ago, and insight has declined. That includes in regard to the current intentions of the leadership regime and any possible changes to it. Speculation is always rife about Putin himself, including his intentions, the influences upon him, his health and the effectiveness of his command over his government.
Such guesswork becomes even more extravagant when considering possible processes by which he might leave office and which individual or individuals might replace him and what are their attitudes. There is now an enormous hole in our understanding of these dynamics. This has deepened as a result of the increased isolation of Russia including from its neighbouring countries in the Baltic Sea region. We need to fill the hole in order to achieve greater predictability but that requires a lot of work.
Second, we need to understand properly current Russian military doctrine and its evolution. This is particularly important in the field of nuclear weapons and their location and possible use. But it also extends to the deployment of non-nuclear forces, land, sea and air, associated as they are with perceived threats to Baltic Sea region countries. Both Kaliningrad and the Saint Petersburg area are particularly important geographical spaces whose significance in contemporary Russian military doctrine needs to be better understood.
At sea we should understand better the significance of, and threats to, undersea communications of a variety of different types, and, on the surface, the operation of the ‘dark fleet’.
The third need is to better understand Russia’s significant regional military ally, Belarus. The leadership of Lukashenko, whose attitude to the Russian leadership is flexible and self-interested, always puts the stability and actions of the country into question.
Fourth we need to better assess the capacity of Russia to mobilise Russian speaking populations to support Russian foreign policy and military ambitions.
Russia uses ‘hybrid warfare’ to exploit ethnic and linguistic identity fault lines and weaken state legitimacy. It seeks to lay the groundwork for ‘humanitarian intervention’ narratives, such as those used in Crimea and Donbas.
The main techniques – designed to engineer tensions – include ‘protecting minorities’, amplifying their diaspora by supporting and recruiting various religious, cultural and community NGOs linked to Russia. They also try to instrumentalize migration, for example at the Lithuanian and Latvian borders and to co-ordinate ‘grey-zone’ activities such as cyber-attacks on municipalities as well as inflammatory pranks and falsified incidents, such as vandalism of Soviet-era monuments,
It remains very important to wind the substantial work which has already been done into an appreciation of Russia’s overall approach.
And finally, we need better to understand the capacities and intentions of other major world forces, notably the United States and China, to engage effectively in the Baltic Sea region. This applies both from the point of view of deterring possible conflict in the region and of establishing what engagement, if any, might take place in the event of conflict.
There are many mechanisms for acquiring intelligence in each of these five intelligence fields and some Baltic Sea countries are already doing effective work. However, it’s important to focus resources on each of these challenges and there are enormous benefits in coordinating intelligence activities across the Baltic Sea region to maximise the impact of the good work which needs to be done.
These important intelligence challenges in the Baltic Sea region urgently need attention. They are very difficult to address but address them we must.
Rt Hon Charles Clarke
UK Home Secretary 2004-2006
Baltic Geopolitics Programme
Cambridge University
United Kingdom
charlesclarke2109@gmail.com
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