5

In light of Russia’s current foreign policy, the Baltic Sea region requires special attention. In this area the risk of confrontation is very high. The three Baltic States—Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania—are very vulnerable vis-à-vis Russia. International cooperation is essential to the countries around the Baltic Sea, for they are too small and too weak to defend themselves. Among the nine countries in the region, the three Baltic states along with Poland, Germany, and Denmark, are protected by Article 5 of the Washington Treaty. Two other countries—Sweden and Finland—continue to gamble on a policy of military non-alignment. The security architecture of the region thus remains fragmented, even though new regional initiatives are being implemented and Swedish and Finnish security policies have been changing since the war in Ukraine.