By Olivier Védrine 
Jean Monnet Association
TdG.

I was invited this November, after already being invited last year in October, to give a lecture at the Baltic Defence College (BALTDEFCOL). Founded in 1999 by the three Baltic States—Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia—the Baltic Defence College is an educational and training center accredited by NATO.

Russia has long been perceived in the Baltic States as a concrete military threat, and the war in Ukraine as a prelude. The entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO marks a major turning point, transforming the Baltic Sea into a lake of the Atlantic Alliance. For several years now, Moscow has multiplied acts of subversion in this region: construction of military infrastructure, cyberattacks, sabotage of undersea cables in the Baltic Sea, instrumentalization of Russian-speaking minorities, and migration warfare through artificially directed flows of illegal migrants from sub-Saharan countries, etc.

However, short- and medium-term strategic projections are much more worrying. According to Germany and Denmark, the rapid restoration of Russian military capacity would allow Russia to deploy troops in the Baltic area within six months after the end of the conflict in Ukraine, and to wage a large-scale war against Europe by 2030. This pushes neighboring countries to think of war as a deadline. Mark Rutte, NATO Secretary General, reinforces this assessment; according to him, Russia now produces every three months the equivalent of an entire year of production by the allied countries.

The response of NATO’s northeastern flank states matches the level of alert. Finland will raise its military spending to 3% of GDP by 2029; Estonia will increase it to 5.4% of GDP; Latvia has committed to reaching 5% by 2026; Lithuania aims for between 5 and 6%; Poland has already reached 4.7% of GDP. These budgets are directed toward three priorities: strengthening territorial defense, integrating breakthrough technologies, and relocating the defense industry to ensure strategic autonomy.

Strengthening NATO’s northeastern flank involves reinforcing physical defenses. The experience of the war in Ukraine has helped rethink defense strategies in the face of Russian human-wave tactics. In the Baltic States, mobility and speed of execution take precedence over fixed installations, while the Poles rely on the use of terrain and fixed defenses. However, all agree on massive use of breakthrough technologies. The “drone wall” is a good example—compensating numerical inferiority through automated defense and inflicting maximum losses on the enemy without unnecessarily exposing one’s own troops.

Estonia, a key actor
In this context, Estonia has become a key player, particularly in autonomous systems such as robots, fixed or mobile firing systems, and the coordination of AI-guided or remotely operated drone swarms. The prospect of a potentially long war requires changes in certain manufacturing methods and increasing production volume, such as for ammunition or shelters.

Medical evacuation logistics and the placement of medical stations are also being reconsidered in light of unscrupulous Russian attacks on such infrastructure. The factor of time also leads to the resumption of military equipment production. Poland and Finland have refocused their production on national soil and gained strategic autonomy to avoid dependence on critical materials and equipment. But this same time factor also forces these countries to purchase large quantities of equipment abroad—for example from South Korea or the United States—to compensate for insufficient national production. Nevertheless, Europeans have managed to remain competitive in certain sectors.

Source: TdG.