German cooperation with the Scandinavian countries in the Baltic Sea amid the escalation of the European security crisis

Amid a marked escalation of the European security crisis, the evolution and doctrinal framework of the collective West’s approach to security in the Baltic Sea deserves close scrutiny. This article examines the transformation of the Federal Republic of Germany’s cooperation with Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Norway in the Baltic maritime theater. The inquiry is deliberately confined to the German-Scandinavian track. It is delineated not by the formal geography of the “Scandinavian Peninsula”, but by a constellation of institutional, politico-military, and economic linkages that confer on these Northern European states the status of Germany’s principal partners in the land, maritime, and air projections of security along the Northern flank. Finland is included on the basis of its informal designation as a “Nordic country”, its participation in core Northern European formats, and its direct access to the Baltic Sea. Throughout the paper, the term “Scandinavian” is employed as an operational category encompassing the Nordic states critically engaged in the security of the Baltic-North Sea space. This framing illuminates the specific mechanisms of interaction with Germany: the maritime component; energy and infrastructure connectivity; cooperation in high-technology segments of the defense industrial base and the joint armaments programs. Using comparative and event-based methods, the study addresses the historical premises of the German-Scandinavian interaction from 1945 to the “turning point” of 2022; the implications of Finland’s and Sweden’s accession to NATO for the Alliance’s force distribution; the evolution of the “NORDEFCO – Germany” formats, the Joint Expeditionary Force, and the EU’s Baltic Sea initiatives; naval, infrastructure, and energy integration; and prospective scenarios. A core contribution of the study is an assessment of a military-political interaction between Germany and the states under review through the lens of military-political and military-technical cooperation. The analysis evaluates the challenges confronting Germany and the Baltic littoral amid the accelerating erosion of Europe’s security architecture. The principal research tasks are to trace the development of the Federal Republic’s military-political approaches to the relations with the Scandinavian states; to analyze the current level and maturity of Berlin’s policies and those of the states in question; and to assess the extent to which the German-Scandinavian cooperation shapes Europe’s security in the context of escalation of the military-political crisis in the Baltic region.

1. Bunde, T. and Onderco, M. (2024), “Permissive dissensus: The nuclear dimension of the German Zeitenwende”, The Nonproliferation Review, vol. 30, no. 4–6, pp. 221–240.

2. Colbourn, S. (2022), Euromissiles: The nuclear weapons that nearly destroyed NATO, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York, USA.

3. Danilov, D.A. (2025), “Regional Naval Headquarters ‘CTF Baltic’ in West Germany. Military-political and legal-political aspects”, Analiticheskie zapiski Instituta Evropy RAN, iss. 4, no. 30, pp. 58–68.

4. Flanagan, S. (2024), “Sustaining political cohesion”, in Olsen, J.A., ed., Routledge handbook of NATO, Routledge, London, UK, pp. 343–357.

5. Grinyaev, S.N. (2025), “Transformation of Northern European security. The role of NORDEFCO under geopolitical tensions”, Analiticheskie zapiski Instituta Evropy RAN, iss. 2, no. 18, pp. 61–68.

6. Hardt, H. (2024), “NATO after the invasion of Ukraine: How the shock changed Alliance cohesion”, International Politics, vol. 61, no. 2, pp. 213–233.

7. Kovalyov, A.A. and Balashov, A.I. (2018), “Military security of the Baltic region in the conditions of NATO military infrastructure advancement to the borders of the Russian Federation”, National Interests. Priorities and Security, vol. 14, iss. 6 (363), pp. 74–86.

8. Leshchenko, K.E. (2013), “Energy policy of Germany. National and supranational context”, Zapiski Gornogo instituta, vol. 204, pp. 97–104.

9. Lomakin, A.S. (2023), “A comprehensive concept for the modernization of the Bundeswehr. Prospects for implementing the ‘Capability Profile’ ”, Mirovaya ekonomika i mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, vol. 67, no. 5, pp. 69–79.

10. Mearsheimer, J. (2014), The tragedy of great power politics, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, USA.

11. Novikova, I.N. and Mezhevich, N.M. (2016), “Finland and NATO: how the forgetting of lessons of the past can lead to their repetition”, Administrative Consulting, vol. 88, no. 4, pp. 123–134.

12. Ovcharuk, A.P. (2024), “NATO militarization of the Baltic region and the risks to the security of Russia”, Vestnik Baltiiskogo federal’nogo universiteta im. I. Kanta. Seriya: gumanitarnye i obshchestvennye nauki, no. 4, pp. 38–53.

13. Stalvant, C.E. (1999), The Council of Baltic Sea States, in Cottey, A., ed., Subregional cooperation in the New Europe, Palgrave Macmillan, London, UK, pp. 46–48, https:// doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-27194-8_4

14. Stryukovatyi, V.V. (2024), “Geostrategic position of Russia in the Baltic as a threat of naval blockade in modern conditions”, Vestnik Baltiiskogo federal’nogo universiteta im. I. Kanta. Seriya: gumanitarnye i obshchestvennye nauki, no. 1, pp. 14–26.

15. Trunov, P.O. (2025), “Peculiarities of the German-Norwegian co-operation in the military-political sphere (the late 2010s – the first half of the 2020s)”, Arctic and North, no. 58, pp. 10–25.

16. Ulatowski, R. (2024), “The illusion of Germany’s ‘Zeitenwende’ ”, The Washington Quarterly, vol. 47, iss. 3, pp. 59–76.

17. Westad, O.A. (2017), The Cold War: A world history, Penguin, London, UK.