Global Britain's Grand Strategy: The Baltic Pivot

In recent years, leading British politicians, security analysts, and heads of government have come to recognize the considerable shifts in the nature and global distribution of power with critical implications for the United Kingdom’s security and long-term prosperity. Since 2016, a wide range of policy documents, speeches, and Parliamentary debates,  have attempted to define and delineate the role which post-Brexit “global Britain” was to play in a changing security environment. This was prompted in no small measure by the ‘declinist’ narrative, which has come to dominate the conventional political narratives of highly developed Western societies confronted with the rapid rise and economic influence of China and its increasing dominance of global markets, shipping routes, supply chains, and military capabilities.

Elucidating what “global Britain” means for post-Brexit British political elites and what it ought to represent has been a considerable challenge, however. 

"The most frequent complaint we have heard ... is that the only thing that is clear about global Britain is that it is unclear what it means, what it stands for or how its success should be measured." 

- ‘Global Britain’, House of Commons: Foreign Affairs Committee (2018)

One of the defining documents aptly titled, “Global Britain in a competitive age: The Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy” presented to Parliament in March 2021 by the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, recognizes considerable shifts in the nature and distribution of global power in a highly competitive multipolar world. The document acknowledges that rapid technological change, systemic competition, a plethora of transnational challenges, and geopolitical and geoeconomics shifts will continue to have critical implications for the U.K.’s security and prosperity. Ideological competition between political systems of governance will exert pressure on the existing multilateral institutional architecture and weaken established rules and norms governing international conduct. Both China and Russia will challenge Western powers on multiple security fronts — including in the conventional military domain — as well as in technological innovation, cybersphere, and space. 

To successfully navigate the geopolitical shifts in power and influence, authors of the Integrated Review argue, the United Kingdom will need to bolster alliances and partnerships worldwide, including, investing in collective security through NATO, NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence and Response Force and ensure the implementation of NATO’s new Deterrence and Defense Concept as well as providing support to collective security arrangements in the Black Sea, the High North, in the Baltics, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Yet, as one of many leading government documents on global Britain’s place in the post-Brexit world — “The Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy” — is rather thin on specific details regarding U.K.’s engagement in the Baltic Sea region and remains vague on Britain’s attitude towards prospective conflicts over energy sources, shipping routes, Russia’s military adventurism, as well as the potential for the pursuit of overlapping economic and political interests with allies in the region.

"The first pillar of our global Britain strategy will be to continue to prove that we are the best possible allies, partners and friends with our European neighbours. […]
The next pillar of our global Britain strategy will be the U.K.’s role as an energetic champion of free and open trade. […]
Finally, the third pillar of our global Britain will be the U.K. as an even stronger force for good in the world." 

- Dominic Raab, Foreign Secretary, U.K. Parliament: Debate, 3 February 2020

It is generally recognized that in times of relative stability, the Baltic region — despite its geopolitical importance — has historically constituted an inconsequential area of interest to the leading global powers. The 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea, the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, and the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, however, have elevated the region’s security situation and strategic significance and revealed a profusion of competing political, economic, and energy interests between both adversaries and allies alike. It is this dynamic and ever-evolving geopolitical security context in the Baltic that presents Great Britain with the historic multilateral alliance- and partnership-building opportunities as well as an amalgam of major security challenges. Among them, (i) the EU-NATO interoperability challenges, (ii) the Baltic and Arctic circle challenges for the Nordic states, (iii) energy, shipping, and natural resources security in the region, (iv) Chinese economic influence and financial control of Europe’s ports, (v) Russia’s hostile disinformation campaigns, its revisionist foreign policy agenda, and cyber-attack capabilities, and (vi) the EU and American sanctions regimes and their overlapping and competing economic and security interests in the Baltic region.  

What follows seeks to remedy key omissions in the “Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy” by providing the requisite background and analytical framework for a nuanced and well-rounded understanding of the security context in the Baltic region, which not only seeks to elevate the region’s relevance in the contemporary geopolitical security paradigm but emphasize its substantial role in defining Global Britain’s [grand] strategy. 

THE BALTIC PIVOT?

There are, at minimum, six consequential geopolitical challenges and security dilemmas that will undoubtedly accompany Britain’s prospective foray into the Baltic region. They are:

THE NATO PACT AND THE EVOLVING SECURITY LANDSCAPE IN THE BALTIC

While the United Kingdom is no longer part of the European Union, it nevertheless remains a vital member state of NATO and maintains an observer status in the Arctic Council.  

Brexit offered a catalyst for reconsideration and rethinking of Britain’s strategic commitments, igniting a policy debate on the modifications necessary to keep pace with an evolving security environment and the country’s relationship with five major regional economic, security, and military blocs, which in addition to the EU and NATO should also include Britain’s relationship with the eleven member states of the Council of the Baltic Sea States, eight Arctic Council members, and twelve member states of the Three Seas Initiative.

Source: Joanna Rozpedowski — Regional Alliances

It is often said that the U.K. needs a bold new approach to foreign policy and national security that links together foreign policy, defense, diplomacy, development, and trade more effectively. The country will be increasingly confronted by direct and indirect regional challenges, which may require the U.K. to, among others: (i) Identify overlapping zones of interest with the five leading cooperation mechanisms in the Baltic region; (ii) Assess military interoperability when crises ensue including military, systems, communications, and medical interoperability capabilities; (iii) Delineate zones of geopolitical insecurity, which include systematically combating Russia's hostile disinformation campaigns, its revisionist foreign policy agenda, and cyber-attacks in the Baltic region that may prove paralyzing to Britain’s and its NATO allies; (iv) Assess U.K.'s contributions to NATO's "security governance” as NATO robustly reinvests and redefines its security relationships in the Baltic Sea region; (v) Identify overlaps, opportunities, benefits, conflicts, challenges with ongoing EU Initiatives, including Britain’s relationship to the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region and the EU Interreg Baltic Sea Region Programme. 

The evolving geopolitical landscape in the Baltic will be increasingly characterized by constant competition between both state and non-state actors, the growing risk of great power confrontation, and increasing environmental and demographic pressures. These particular challenges and fluctuations in the balance of power in the region will present as many opportunities as risks. Britain can benefit from greater cooperation with regional intergovernmental organizations — such as the Three Seas Initiative —and endeavor to articulate overlapping security, energy, and infrastructure interests in both the Baltic and the Black Sea regions with its like-minded allies and partners.

THE ARCTIC CHALLENGE

A real possibility of a serious international conflagration exists in the Arctic region as it undergoes significant climatic transformations, opening new shipping routes and uncovering invaluable natural resources. 

Global governance gaps, political and economic interests in this area threaten to fuel major diplomatic tensions among regional actors, that is Arctic coastal states and non-regional players, over natural resource deposits, navigation rights, control of shipping routes, and fishery management thus increasing competing claims to continental shelves and economic trade routes, worsening diplomatic frictions, and resulting in pronounced regional and international instabilities  — or resource wars — between major powers such as the United States, Canada, Norway, Russia, China, Japan, and South Korea.

Some eighty-four percent of oil, gas, and rich mineral deposits in the Arctic occur in geopolitically contestable locations. The winners of the ‘Scramble for the Arctic’ or the race to become the next great polar power will be able to unilaterally delineate areas of territorial control and write the new rules of engagement in the region. Non-contiguous states such as China, Japan, and South Korea expressed diplomatic interest in the governance of the Arctic trading routes, and security and strategic interests drive investments in new capabilities, military presence, and surveillance in the region by Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia, United States.

Source: The Brookings Institution

The Arctic is a strategically important area for the United Kingdom. As a consequence of its geographic proximity and geopolitical importance, Britain maintains important defense, economic, commercial, and scientific relationships with its Arctic neighbors and the Arctic Council member states — relationships which may come under duress if directly challenged by Russia or other non-contiguous states with an economic stake in the region, including China, Japan or South Korea. 

The 2014 U.K. National Strategy for Maritime Security has warned  that the “opening of Arctic shipping routes presents the U.K. with potential new maritime security threats, and international co-operation would be an essential means of managing this.” Britain’s adherence and promotion of negotiated and consensus-driven agreements, treaties, and conventions such as the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the IMO, and the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic (OSPAR Convention) may proof the international system against undesirable conflicts and conflagrations between competing powers in the region and provide a platform for international cooperation. Britain’s trade and energy security would come under significant strain should plurilateral security cooperation mechanisms in the region fail. Therefore, apart from actively contributing to the maintenance of a normative international consensus, Britain working in tandem with its NATO and Arctic Council partners must develop robust military capabilities for the Arctic and near-Arctic environments to effectively repel isolated or coordinated challenges to the region’s security and stability. 

ENERGY SECURITY IN THE BALTIC

For Russia, the Baltic Sea region is a strategically important area albeit one with considerable geopolitical challenges. The majority of the Baltic’s southern territories belong to the NATO pact member states. A major conflagration between NATO members and Russia, therefore, has the potential of severely imperiling Russia’s naval assets in the region and cutting off its fleet from accessing the North Sea.  

Multiple U.S. administrations have expressed reservations about the joint German-Russian Nord Stream 2 pipeline project intended to export gas from Russia to Europe across the Baltic Sea. The United States and its regional allies have long regarded the project as a particularly pernicious geopolitical challenge intent on weakening European energy security. In 2019, the U.S. Congress passed a significant sanctions legislation and the U.S. Department of State urged entities involved in the financing and construction of Nord Stream 2 to immediately abandon work on the pipeline.  The position of the U.S. government has since been reversed by the Biden administration and the project is set to conclude in the second half of 2021.

Source: Warsaw Institute

The Nord Stream 2 pipeline is one of several energy projects, however, which will require an organized and robust long-term policy response from the United States, Great Britain, and their European Union partners, particularly when dealing with Russia’s energy supplies and the potential for a major energy-supplies disruption. Alternative strategic infrastructure and energy supply corridor in the form of the Baltic Pipe, set to open in October 2022, promises to buffer against prospective Russian energy sabotage. By transporting natural gas between Norway and Poland via Denmark, the Baltic Pipe is vital to the ongoing geopolitical realignment in the Baltic Sea region.

Great Britain’s success in the Baltic region will depend on its adroit handling of multiple, overlapping, and often competing U.S. and E.U. economic and security interests and their respective sanctions regimes, which prove disruptive to a constructive regional dialogue. 

SECURING EUROPE’S PORTS AGAINST CHINESE ECONOMIC INFLUENCE AND FINANCIAL CONTROL

According to a recent study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Chinese companies have acquired stakes in 13 European ports  — including in Belgium, France, Italy, Greece, Malta, the Netherlands, and Spain, which collectively handle about 10 percent of the continent’ shipping container capacity adding up to $1 billion in exports trade per day. China’s foray into Europe is part of the country’s strategic 21st Century Maritime Silk Road that aims to connect the country to commercial hubs in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Oceania and advance China’s financial and naval influence in those regions.  

Source: NPR

The United Kingdom and its European allies will need to confront the security challenges posed by China’s commercial expansion and its control of strategic European ports. This will entail, among other things, formulating and maintaining a unified European military and economic posture concerning Chinese influence in the region. 

CONCLUSION

A nuanced understanding of the geopolitical challenges identified above and a robust and open debate on the security context in the Baltic region and beyond in the British and European Parliaments is much overdue.

By enhancing and elevating the Baltic region’s relevance in the contemporary geopolitical security paradigm will not only help to inform Europe’s strategic political, military, and economic policy interests but assist also in identifying prospective bilateral and multilateral alliance- and partnership-building challenges and opportunities.

It is highly likely that Europe’s vital assets, however broadly defined — ranging from cultural to commercial to financial assets — will become the next great frontier of great power competition between China, Russia, and the United States. 

AUTHOR: DR. JOANNA ROZPEDOWSKI is a political scientist and international law scholar based in Washington, DC. She specializes in international human rights and humanitarian law, geopolitics, and global security and can be found on Twitter @JKROZPEDOWSKI

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