Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 fundamentally altered the security landscape in Europe. Among European NATO member states there has emerged a consensus that military investments present the only viable means of security. Alongside support for Ukraine, these investments include massive reinforcements in allied defence and deterrence capabilities. A key assumption behind this wave of militarization is that a Russian victory in Ukraine could ultimately embolden Russia to attack the alliance. As NATO Secretary General Mark Rütte warned last Thursday, ‘We are Russia’s next target, and we are already in harm’s way.’
While European NATO members’ defence planning revolves around worst-case assumptions about Russia’s aggressive intentions beyond Ukraine, another and arguably a more probable risk is being neglected: inadvertent escalation. In addition to the potential expansion of the war in Ukraine, the risk of inadvertent escalation is particularly high in Northern Europe, where related tensions and militarization have created destabilizing subregional dynamics of their own. The Baltic Sea region has already seen several close encounters between NATO and Russian forces. At the same time, NATO military reinforcement in the Arctic, while boosting allied defence capabilities, has unintended consequences for strategic stability, raising the spectre of nuclear escalation. Given the high stakes and the likelihood that tensions in Northern Europe will outlive the war in Ukraine, there is an urgent need for North European states and Russia to prioritize measures aimed at risk reduction.
Recent incidents in the Baltic Sea region
Most of the incidents between NATO and Russian forces have taken place in and around the Baltic Sea. Related to the broader conflict dynamics centred on the Ukraine war, one key driver behind tensions in this region is the economic sanctions targeting Russian oil exports. These sanctions, jointly imposed by the European Union, the G7 and Australia in 2022, include penalties on insurance companies for insuring shipments exceeding a designated price limit for Russian oil. In response, Russia has begun to export oil with a ‘shadow fleet’ of tankers which lack adequate insurance and sail without a flag or engage in ‘flag-hopping’.
Since December 2024, when Finnish authorities seized the tanker Eagle S on suspicion that it had damaged undersea cables linking Finland and Estonia, other NATO states have also boarded and detained such tankers on the basis of flag registration or insurance issues.
Russia has characterized such actions as piracy and responded by offering military protection to the vessels in the form of naval escorts and air support. For example in May 2025 as Estonian authorities sought to direct the tanker Jaguar into Estonian territorial waters for inspection, Russia intervened by flying an Su-35 fighter jet past the ship, briefly entering Estonian airspace and prompting the scrambling of Portuguese F-16s to the scene. The potential for similar incidents seems to be increasing as Russia continues to provide military cover to the tankers and European countries seek new ways to justify tanker inspections and seizures on legal grounds.
Most of the close encounters between Russian and NATO forces appear to coincide with naval exercises—the frequency and scale of which have significantly increased. For example, in June 2025, as NATO’s BALTOPS exercise in June 2025 was taking place, British RAF Typhoon fighter jets were scrambled to intercept Russian planes six times in six days—including in response to a Russian Su-24M aircraft making a low pass over (‘buzzing’) a United States Navy ship.
Other incidents in the region in 2025 have included Russian violations of Estonian airspace in September; drone sightings in the territories of several NATO member states, including the Baltic countries, Denmark, Germany and Poland, also in September; and balloon incursions into Lithuania since October. In September, Ukraine’s counter-offensive also reached the Baltic Sea region with drone attacks against Russia’s oil port at Primorsk in the Gulf of Finland.
High tensions combined with the frequency of incidents point to a risk of escalation that could lead to open conflict between NATO and Russia in the Baltic Sea region. This could happen if an incident were to end up claiming casualties, for example if an aircraft would fly dangerously close to an adversary’s aircraft or ship, causing an accident, or if it would be shot down while violating territorial borders. Concerns have also been raised that Ukrainian drone attacks against oil tankers—which have already occurred in the Black Sea—could take place in the Baltic, where they might escalate the tensions between Russia and NATO member states related to the oil sanctions.
Crisis instability in the Arctic
While the possibility of nuclear escalation is present in any conflict involving nuclear-armed states, in the Russian-US nuclear deterrence relationship the risk of nuclear war is traditionally associated with ‘crisis instability’. According to this notion, deterrence is relatively stable as long as vulnerability to the other’s nuclear threat is mutual. However, if one side develops the ability to undermine the other side’s retaliatory capacity, thus potentially incentivizing a first strike, this creates pressure for the other side to launch a pre-emptive nuclear attack.
The Arctic has always been key to such deterrence dynamics given the deployment of Russia’s strategic nuclear submarines (SSBNs) in the region. Notably, NATO’s Nordic enlargement and the bilateral defence cooperation agreements (DCAs) between the USA and the Nordic countries have increased US presence near the Russian SSBN bases in the Kola peninsula. This includes US nuclear forces, as demonstrated by overflights and exercises involving US B-52 bombers near the Finnish-Russian border in the Arctic.
Together with the combination of US strategic missile defences and advanced conventional weapons, as well as recent allied procurements of the latter, these developments can be seen by Moscow as adding to US ‘damage limitation options’—meaning its potential ability to destroy Russian nuclear-armed missiles before launch to prevail in a nuclear war.
For example, the air-launched precision-strike missiles possessed by Finland and Norway would be able to reach deep into Russian territory, including the Kola peninsula. Tomahawk cruise missiles, which the USA deploys in its tactical submarines, and JASSM-ER missiles, which are to be deployed in Finnish F-35 fighter jets, also have a theoretical capability to destroy hardened targets such as nuclear missile silos. At the same time, Norway’s investments in new anti-submarine warfare capabilities, including plans to procure underwater drones, will contribute to the ability of US forces to detect Russian SSBNs during underwater patrols.
Thus, while allied force build-up in the Arctic is intended to boost territorial defence, it has unintended consequences for strategic stability. Indeed, Russian experts have pointed to the possibility that Russia might respond to massive deployments of long-range deep-strike capabilities in Europe with a more pre-emptive nuclear doctrine.
Adding to Russia’s strategic threat perceptions, the taboo against attacking early warning and nuclear weapon delivery systems and related infrastructure has been broken during the Russia–Ukraine war. Notably, the Ukrainian drone strikes in June 2025 against Russian strategic bombers, including at the Olenya airbase in the Kola peninsula, demonstrated that non-nuclear weapon states could purposefully target such high-value assets during a crisis. While it has not led to a nuclear response in the context of the Russia–Ukraine war, the situation would be very different in a conflict between nuclear-armed states.
Exaggerated threat perceptions
It is common for conflict parties caught up in a security dilemma to overestimate the hostility of the adversary while underestimating how their own actions play into the other side’s threat perceptions. Such cognitive bias, which typically leads to worst-case thinking focused on the adversary’s capabilities, is arguably a key feature of the current security policies of Europe and Russia.
As noted, threat perceptions on the European side centre on the assumption that some NATO member states could be the next victims of Russia’s expansionist ambitions. Indeed, this view, which assumes Russia’s aggressive intent, has contributed to frequent predictions about the likelihood of a war between NATO and Russia within the next 10 years.
However, a Russian invasion of a NATO member appears highly improbable. Unlike during the cold war, the regional military balance overwhelmingly favours NATO, with its combined conventional military capabilities and defence spending far exceeding those of Russia—even if the USA is excluded from the comparison. This big picture is unlikely to change even after Russia rebuilds its capabilities following a potential peace deal with Ukraine.
Indeed, European threat perceptions are largely based on a fait accompli scenario whereby Russia quickly seizes NATO territory, notably in the Baltic, before NATO forces can be mobilized. According to this scenario, Russia would then seek to deter an allied counteroffensive by threatening a limited nuclear strike, thus compensating for its lacking conventional capabilities.
Yet, the military and economic costs of invading NATO territory would seem to far outweigh any potential military gains for Russia. In addition to the potentially suicidal consequences of nuclear escalation, such adventurism in the Baltic would also jeopardize vital sea lanes of communication and invite a blockade of Kaliningrad by NATO, whose naval dominance in the Baltic Sea was cemented by Finland’s and Sweden’s NATO accession.
A more likely reading of the current situation in Europe is that Russia is already deterred by NATO, with the problem being its own exaggerated threat perceptions about the alliance—including the possibility of a massive first strike against Russia. Indeed, Russian efforts to keep NATO from becoming directly involved in the Ukraine war suggests that, despite all the posturing and hybrid activities, Russia ultimately wants to avoid a military conflict with the alliance.
Steps to reduce risk in Northern Europe
Regardless of the confrontational dynamics, both NATO and Russia have a shared interest in making sure escalation does not get out of control.
One modest but necessary step towards risk reduction would be to establish or restore military-to-military communication channels between all North European states and Russia. These could mitigate escalation risks by preventing any potentially dangerous misunderstandings during close encounters with NATO and Russian forces. While such channels would be needed especially in the Baltic Sea region, they could also help to prevent incidents in the Arctic, where—although tensions are lower—the potential for close encounters has grown with increasing military activity by both NATO and Russia.
Dialogues between European and Russian experts should also be encouraged in an effort to better understand mutual threat perceptions and to explore possibilities for risk reduction. Russia’s re-engagement with the working groups of the Arctic Council in 2024 has created an opening for subregional dialogue on softer security issues of common interest, including prevention of, preparedness for and response to environmental emergencies and accidents. In addition to helping to revive the Arctic governance framework and rebuilding some degree of trust among key actors, engagement on these issues could also plant the seeds for dialogue on hard security issues.
Concurrently, various track 2 dialogues could provide the opportunity to reality check both sides’ threat perceptions and explore potential shared interest in cooperative risk reduction. In this manner, such contacts could help to anticipate and mitigate action-reaction dynamics, such as adversarial responses to new military deployments in Northern Europe.
Another way to alleviate threat perceptions would be unilateral statements signalling non-aggressive intent. Although Russia has already communicated its lack of interest in attacking NATO and the latter emphasizes its defensive posture, both sides are concurrently highlighting their readiness for war. For example, while Russian President Vladimir Putin recently said ‘if Europe wants to wage a war against us and suddenly starts a war with us, we are ready’, certain officials from NATO member states have underscored the alliance’s ability to blockade Kaliningrad.
In addition, after weighing the perceived military benefits against the risks of deploying conventional deep-strike missiles, Nordic NATO members could issue a joint statement promising not to target Russia’s strategic assets with such weapons. Since both NATO and Russia are concerned about each other’s deep-strike missiles, each could also explore possibilities for freezing their further deployment in certain regions contingent on reciprocity from the other side. Strategic stability in the Arctic would also be enhanced if US strategic bombers avoided overflights near the Russian border, including during military exercises.
Towards regional stability
In the long term, more ambitious steps could be taken to improve stability in Northern Europe. The 1990 Vienna Document, a key transparency and confidence-building instrument under the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), already provides a set of advanced risk reduction tools that, while no longer being implemented, could be revived. These include prior notification and observation of military exercises, various communication channels and consultation mechanisms, and other transparency and confidence-building measures.
Some bilateral US–Russian (originally Soviet) agreements also provide models for institutionalized military restraint. One is the 1972 Incidents at Sea (INCSEA) Agreement, which established an operational code of conduct to limit dangerous naval and aerial activities in the high seas. Several other countries—including Germany and Norway—have such agreements with Russia. It would make sense for other states in the region to seek similar bilateral agreements or a multilateral NATO–Russia INCSEA agreement. Although the existing agreements only apply to the high seas, and are thus not directly relevant to the Baltic Sea, the related protocols and naval communication channels could be adjusted to the North European context.
Another cold war risk reduction concept is embodied in the 1989 US–Soviet Agreement on the Prevention of Dangerous Military Activities, which outlines procedures for the two sides’ armed forces when operating in geographic proximity. Unlike INCSEA, this agreement also applies to territorial waters and involves higher military levels, including headquarters and command structures.
Ultimately, dialogue on mutual security concerns and commitment to risk reduction in Northern Europe could pave the way for mutual limits on military exercises as well as troop and weapon deployments—that is, conventional arms control. While local arms control options in the Baltic Sea region could include limitations similar to the Montreux Convention, a logical way to address Russia’s strategic stability concerns, as well as European concerns regarding Russia’s dual-capable missiles, would be a new treaty on intermediate-range missiles. Such a treaty could cover sea- and air-launched systems as well as land-based missiles.
Initially, any steps towards risk reduction are bound to face resistance, as they would be in stark contrast to the current approaches to security. But the alternative—staying on the path of militarization based on worst-case assumptions—could bring about the very outcome states are seeking to avoid. Given the high stakes in any potential conflict involving the nuclear alliance and nuclear-armed Russia, Northern Europe needs to chart a different course that reduces risks rather than creating new ones.
The authors would like to acknowledge the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs for their support of research on this topic.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Dr Tytti Erästö is a Senior Researcher in the SIPRI Weapons of Mass Destruction Programme.
Dr Wilfred Wan is the Director of the SIPRI Weapons of Mass Destruction Programme.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 fundamentally altered the security landscape in Europe. Among European NATO member states there has emerged a consensus that military investments present the only viable means of security. Alongside support for Ukraine, these investments include massive reinforcements in allied defence and deterrence capabilities. A key assumption behind this wave of militarization is that a Russian victory in Ukraine could ultimately embolden Russia to attack the alliance. As NATO Secretary General Mark Rütte warned last Thursday, ‘We are Russia’s next target, and we are already in harm’s way.’
While European NATO members’ defence planning revolves around worst-case assumptions about Russia’s aggressive intentions beyond Ukraine, another and arguably a more probable risk is being neglected: inadvertent escalation. In addition to the potential expansion of the war in Ukraine, the risk of inadvertent escalation is particularly high in Northern Europe, where related tensions and militarization have created destabilizing subregional dynamics of their own. The Baltic Sea region has already seen several close encounters between NATO and Russian forces. At the same time, NATO military reinforcement in the Arctic, while boosting allied defence capabilities, has unintended consequences for strategic stability, raising the spectre of nuclear escalation. Given the high stakes and the likelihood that tensions in Northern Europe will outlive the war in Ukraine, there is an urgent need for North European states and Russia to prioritize measures aimed at risk reduction.
Recent incidents in the Baltic Sea region
Most of the incidents between NATO and Russian forces have taken place in and around the Baltic Sea. Related to the broader conflict dynamics centred on the Ukraine war, one key driver behind tensions in this region is the economic sanctions targeting Russian oil exports. These sanctions, jointly imposed by the European Union, the G7 and Australia in 2022, include penalties on insurance companies for insuring shipments exceeding a designated price limit for Russian oil. In response, Russia has begun to export oil with a ‘shadow fleet’ of tankers which lack adequate insurance and sail without a flag or engage in ‘flag-hopping’.
Since December 2024, when Finnish authorities seized the tanker Eagle S on suspicion that it had damaged undersea cables linking Finland and Estonia, other NATO states have also boarded and detained such tankers on the basis of flag registration or insurance issues.
Russia has characterized such actions as piracy and responded by offering military protection to the vessels in the form of naval escorts and air support. For example in May 2025 as Estonian authorities sought to direct the tanker Jaguar into Estonian territorial waters for inspection, Russia intervened by flying an Su-35 fighter jet past the ship, briefly entering Estonian airspace and prompting the scrambling of Portuguese F-16s to the scene. The potential for similar incidents seems to be increasing as Russia continues to provide military cover to the tankers and European countries seek new ways to justify tanker inspections and seizures on legal grounds.
Most of the close encounters between Russian and NATO forces appear to coincide with naval exercises—the frequency and scale of which have significantly increased. For example, in June 2025, as NATO’s BALTOPS exercise in June 2025 was taking place, British RAF Typhoon fighter jets were scrambled to intercept Russian planes six times in six days—including in response to a Russian Su-24M aircraft making a low pass over (‘buzzing’) a United States Navy ship.
Other incidents in the region in 2025 have included Russian violations of Estonian airspace in September; drone sightings in the territories of several NATO member states, including the Baltic countries, Denmark, Germany and Poland, also in September; and balloon incursions into Lithuania since October. In September, Ukraine’s counter-offensive also reached the Baltic Sea region with drone attacks against Russia’s oil port at Primorsk in the Gulf of Finland.
High tensions combined with the frequency of incidents point to a risk of escalation that could lead to open conflict between NATO and Russia in the Baltic Sea region. This could happen if an incident were to end up claiming casualties, for example if an aircraft would fly dangerously close to an adversary’s aircraft or ship, causing an accident, or if it would be shot down while violating territorial borders. Concerns have also been raised that Ukrainian drone attacks against oil tankers—which have already occurred in the Black Sea—could take place in the Baltic, where they might escalate the tensions between Russia and NATO member states related to the oil sanctions.
Crisis instability in the Arctic
While the possibility of nuclear escalation is present in any conflict involving nuclear-armed states, in the Russian-US nuclear deterrence relationship the risk of nuclear war is traditionally associated with ‘crisis instability’. According to this notion, deterrence is relatively stable as long as vulnerability to the other’s nuclear threat is mutual. However, if one side develops the ability to undermine the other side’s retaliatory capacity, thus potentially incentivizing a first strike, this creates pressure for the other side to launch a pre-emptive nuclear attack.
The Arctic has always been key to such deterrence dynamics given the deployment of Russia’s strategic nuclear submarines (SSBNs) in the region. Notably, NATO’s Nordic enlargement and the bilateral defence cooperation agreements (DCAs) between the USA and the Nordic countries have increased US presence near the Russian SSBN bases in the Kola peninsula. This includes US nuclear forces, as demonstrated by overflights and exercises involving US B-52 bombers near the Finnish-Russian border in the Arctic.
Together with the combination of US strategic missile defences and advanced conventional weapons, as well as recent allied procurements of the latter, these developments can be seen by Moscow as adding to US ‘damage limitation options’—meaning its potential ability to destroy Russian nuclear-armed missiles before launch to prevail in a nuclear war.
For example, the air-launched precision-strike missiles possessed by Finland and Norway would be able to reach deep into Russian territory, including the Kola peninsula. Tomahawk cruise missiles, which the USA deploys in its tactical submarines, and JASSM-ER missiles, which are to be deployed in Finnish F-35 fighter jets, also have a theoretical capability to destroy hardened targets such as nuclear missile silos. At the same time, Norway’s investments in new anti-submarine warfare capabilities, including plans to procure underwater drones, will contribute to the ability of US forces to detect Russian SSBNs during underwater patrols.
Thus, while allied force build-up in the Arctic is intended to boost territorial defence, it has unintended consequences for strategic stability. Indeed, Russian experts have pointed to the possibility that Russia might respond to massive deployments of long-range deep-strike capabilities in Europe with a more pre-emptive nuclear doctrine.
Adding to Russia’s strategic threat perceptions, the taboo against attacking early warning and nuclear weapon delivery systems and related infrastructure has been broken during the Russia–Ukraine war. Notably, the Ukrainian drone strikes in June 2025 against Russian strategic bombers, including at the Olenya airbase in the Kola peninsula, demonstrated that non-nuclear weapon states could purposefully target such high-value assets during a crisis. While it has not led to a nuclear response in the context of the Russia–Ukraine war, the situation would be very different in a conflict between nuclear-armed states.
Exaggerated threat perceptions
It is common for conflict parties caught up in a security dilemma to overestimate the hostility of the adversary while underestimating how their own actions play into the other side’s threat perceptions. Such cognitive bias, which typically leads to worst-case thinking focused on the adversary’s capabilities, is arguably a key feature of the current security policies of Europe and Russia.
As noted, threat perceptions on the European side centre on the assumption that some NATO member states could be the next victims of Russia’s expansionist ambitions. Indeed, this view, which assumes Russia’s aggressive intent, has contributed to frequent predictions about the likelihood of a war between NATO and Russia within the next 10 years.
However, a Russian invasion of a NATO member appears highly improbable. Unlike during the cold war, the regional military balance overwhelmingly favours NATO, with its combined conventional military capabilities and defence spending far exceeding those of Russia—even if the USA is excluded from the comparison. This big picture is unlikely to change even after Russia rebuilds its capabilities following a potential peace deal with Ukraine.
Indeed, European threat perceptions are largely based on a fait accompli scenario whereby Russia quickly seizes NATO territory, notably in the Baltic, before NATO forces can be mobilized. According to this scenario, Russia would then seek to deter an allied counteroffensive by threatening a limited nuclear strike, thus compensating for its lacking conventional capabilities.
Yet, the military and economic costs of invading NATO territory would seem to far outweigh any potential military gains for Russia. In addition to the potentially suicidal consequences of nuclear escalation, such adventurism in the Baltic would also jeopardize vital sea lanes of communication and invite a blockade of Kaliningrad by NATO, whose naval dominance in the Baltic Sea was cemented by Finland’s and Sweden’s NATO accession.
A more likely reading of the current situation in Europe is that Russia is already deterred by NATO, with the problem being its own exaggerated threat perceptions about the alliance—including the possibility of a massive first strike against Russia. Indeed, Russian efforts to keep NATO from becoming directly involved in the Ukraine war suggests that, despite all the posturing and hybrid activities, Russia ultimately wants to avoid a military conflict with the alliance.
Steps to reduce risk in Northern Europe
Regardless of the confrontational dynamics, both NATO and Russia have a shared interest in making sure escalation does not get out of control.
One modest but necessary step towards risk reduction would be to establish or restore military-to-military communication channels between all North European states and Russia. These could mitigate escalation risks by preventing any potentially dangerous misunderstandings during close encounters with NATO and Russian forces. While such channels would be needed especially in the Baltic Sea region, they could also help to prevent incidents in the Arctic, where—although tensions are lower—the potential for close encounters has grown with increasing military activity by both NATO and Russia.
Dialogues between European and Russian experts should also be encouraged in an effort to better understand mutual threat perceptions and to explore possibilities for risk reduction. Russia’s re-engagement with the working groups of the Arctic Council in 2024 has created an opening for subregional dialogue on softer security issues of common interest, including prevention of, preparedness for and response to environmental emergencies and accidents. In addition to helping to revive the Arctic governance framework and rebuilding some degree of trust among key actors, engagement on these issues could also plant the seeds for dialogue on hard security issues.
Concurrently, various track 2 dialogues could provide the opportunity to reality check both sides’ threat perceptions and explore potential shared interest in cooperative risk reduction. In this manner, such contacts could help to anticipate and mitigate action-reaction dynamics, such as adversarial responses to new military deployments in Northern Europe.
Another way to alleviate threat perceptions would be unilateral statements signalling non-aggressive intent. Although Russia has already communicated its lack of interest in attacking NATO and the latter emphasizes its defensive posture, both sides are concurrently highlighting their readiness for war. For example, while Russian President Vladimir Putin recently said ‘if Europe wants to wage a war against us and suddenly starts a war with us, we are ready’, certain officials from NATO member states have underscored the alliance’s ability to blockade Kaliningrad.
In addition, after weighing the perceived military benefits against the risks of deploying conventional deep-strike missiles, Nordic NATO members could issue a joint statement promising not to target Russia’s strategic assets with such weapons. Since both NATO and Russia are concerned about each other’s deep-strike missiles, each could also explore possibilities for freezing their further deployment in certain regions contingent on reciprocity from the other side. Strategic stability in the Arctic would also be enhanced if US strategic bombers avoided overflights near the Russian border, including during military exercises.
Towards regional stability
In the long term, more ambitious steps could be taken to improve stability in Northern Europe. The 1990 Vienna Document, a key transparency and confidence-building instrument under the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), already provides a set of advanced risk reduction tools that, while no longer being implemented, could be revived. These include prior notification and observation of military exercises, various communication channels and consultation mechanisms, and other transparency and confidence-building measures.
Some bilateral US–Russian (originally Soviet) agreements also provide models for institutionalized military restraint. One is the 1972 Incidents at Sea (INCSEA) Agreement, which established an operational code of conduct to limit dangerous naval and aerial activities in the high seas. Several other countries—including Germany and Norway—have such agreements with Russia. It would make sense for other states in the region to seek similar bilateral agreements or a multilateral NATO–Russia INCSEA agreement. Although the existing agreements only apply to the high seas, and are thus not directly relevant to the Baltic Sea, the related protocols and naval communication channels could be adjusted to the North European context.
Another cold war risk reduction concept is embodied in the 1989 US–Soviet Agreement on the Prevention of Dangerous Military Activities, which outlines procedures for the two sides’ armed forces when operating in geographic proximity. Unlike INCSEA, this agreement also applies to territorial waters and involves higher military levels, including headquarters and command structures.
Ultimately, dialogue on mutual security concerns and commitment to risk reduction in Northern Europe could pave the way for mutual limits on military exercises as well as troop and weapon deployments—that is, conventional arms control. While local arms control options in the Baltic Sea region could include limitations similar to the Montreux Convention, a logical way to address Russia’s strategic stability concerns, as well as European concerns regarding Russia’s dual-capable missiles, would be a new treaty on intermediate-range missiles. Such a treaty could cover sea- and air-launched systems as well as land-based missiles.
Initially, any steps towards risk reduction are bound to face resistance, as they would be in stark contrast to the current approaches to security. But the alternative—staying on the path of militarization based on worst-case assumptions—could bring about the very outcome states are seeking to avoid. Given the high stakes in any potential conflict involving the nuclear alliance and nuclear-armed Russia, Northern Europe needs to chart a different course that reduces risks rather than creating new ones.
The authors would like to acknowledge the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs for their support of research on this topic.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)