NATO’s New Map and the Requirements and Challenges of Operational Integration

For much of their history, three Nordic countries, Finland, Sweden, and Norway, were one nation within the Swedish Empire. Now, after Finland and Sweden have abandoned their neutrality and joined their Nordic counterparts – Denmark, Norway, and Iceland – in NATO, they want to fight together again as if they were all one army. This requires NATO to redraw its maps to make the alliance’s fjords, ports, seas, and lands one region under the protection of Article 5, which is the alliance’s collective defense commitment.

General Erik Kristoffersen, Chief of Defense of Norway, said: “The Baltic Sea and the High North are so closely connected that they essentially form one strategic operational area, but in different directions. North in the High North, and east in the Baltic Sea.”

How can all this geography be reduced to one comprehensive strategy? How can patrols be conducted in such a vast area, from Russian bases in Kaliningrad, to the straits, to ice-covered Svalbard, to underwater internet cables that stretch across the Atlantic Ocean? Where should the line be drawn in the Baltic Sea between the Nordic countries and continental Europe?

Requirements for NATO’s New Map

Taking advantage of NATO’s recent expansion requires everything to be connected on the new map. The new alliance command in Norfolk, Virginia, USA, whose mission is to fight across the Atlantic, must double its staff to unite the new allies under one command; it must determine the feasibility of integrating Nordic military forces into one fighting force; and Norway, Finland, and Sweden must reorganize their routes that go in different directions to transport thousands of troops to battlefields when needed.

Norway’s coastline stretches for 100,000 kilometers, and it does not want China and Russia to be alone in the Arctic, as all its fish and energy wealth comes from there in huge quantities. The Norwegian Coast Guard has only four destroyers for patrols throughout the High North, and they are only leased until 2030. The only way to reduce the size of the Arctic, the North Sea, and the Baltic Sea is to get help. Kristoffersen said: “We must integrate our forces in the region and in NATO. That means integration in the land domain, the air domain, the maritime domain, the cyber domain, and the space domain.”

The idea of integrating forces dates back to World War I, when the U.S. Army sent its troops to fight directly within more British and French units. Kristoffersen added: “We must not have different responsibilities. We must all have a balanced force, but we must integrate it.”

Scandinavian defense chiefs are already envisioning the establishment of a land command for the region in Finland, an air command in Norway, and a logistics command in Sweden. Scandinavian defense chiefs have not yet decided where to establish a naval command, as they are dealing with how to distribute their ships between the North Sea, the Baltic Sea, and the Atlantic Ocean. However, they know that they want to form a joint naval force with the Baltic Sea navies.

Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden are considering integrating forces even at the level of tank units and infantry brigades, while air forces in the region have been conducting joint exercises for years. On the ground, Sweden has begun sending battalion-sized units across the border to Finland for live-fire training.

Challenges of Operational Integration

The question is to what extent integration can be achieved, as the Scandinavian countries formed a defense bloc in 2009, but have been disagreeing over the precise details for over a decade. For example, they disagreed over building a joint armored personnel carrier, with only 25% of the vehicle being made jointly, and they even argued over the color of their military uniforms.

In this context, Ketil Olsen, the former Norwegian military representative to NATO, who now runs the “Andøya Space” platform for launching rockets in northern Norway, said: “We couldn’t agree on anything, frankly.” The Scandinavian countries will need to establish a corps-level headquarters for the region that is large enough to accommodate up to 45,000 troops in wartime, but the big problem is fighting on a large scale. Finland can mobilize around 280,000 civilian troops for war and put more than three times that number of reservists into active service, but Norway and Sweden can only call up a fraction of that number, and will need more forces in the event of a confrontation with Russia.

Finland and Sweden want to be with Norway in the alliance’s military structure, fighting across the Atlantic and patrolling the High North. Swedish Defense Chief General Mikael Bydén said: “If you look at the map, it is clear to me that the Scandinavian countries must be together, and when you look at the Baltic states, they align with continental Europe.” This means drawing a line across the Baltic Sea between Finland and Sweden in the north, and the Baltic states in the south.

NATO has established a command center for the Baltic Sea in Rostock, Germany, where allies will monitor Russian submarine movements between Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg. But where will Scandinavian naval patrols end and the rest of Europe begin? The allies do not know yet. A NATO official, who requested anonymity to discuss war plans still under consideration, said: “Do you put it on the eastern side of the Baltic Sea, or the western side, or in the middle? It can certainly be done, but it is very politically sensitive” (Foreign Policy, July 27, 2024).

In contrast, the Baltic states – Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia – and Poland do not believe that anyone should draw lines in the Baltic Sea. A senior Lithuanian official, who requested anonymity to speak frankly about ongoing policy discussions, said: “Our position is very clear: the Baltic Sea must be one operational area. We are against dividing the Baltic Sea into two parts.”

Swedish Defense Minister Pål Jonson said in an interview: “The NATO Military Experts Committee will make a decision on where to draw the line by the end of the year.” But at the same time, the Scandinavian countries will also need to adapt to the idea of defending not only the home front, but also continental Europe.

Concerns about a Sudden Threat

Finland and Sweden’s abandonment of their relative balance in their relations between Russia and the United States represents a radical shift in the geostrategic equation in Europe. This shift came after the Russian military operation in Ukraine, which raised fears among Russia’s neighboring countries of facing the same fate, prompting them to strengthen their defense capabilities by all available means. Naturally, the ongoing military consultations and coordination within NATO keep Moscow in mind as the most important, if not the only, threat. This is evident from statements made by a NATO official to Foreign Policy magazine on July 28, 2024, who said: “The Russian attack could also come from the Atlantic Ocean. There are clear areas of potential tension in Kaliningrad and the Baltic states.”

Evidence of historical conflicts in the region still exists in the Nordic countries, as you can see the trenches and radar antennas in the hills of the Norwegian village of Bleik in the Arctic. These trenches date back to World War II, when they were built by occupying Nazi forces to try to detect Soviet troop movements heading towards Murmansk. These areas in the Arctic have been inhabited for centuries, and some residents of Bleik have found Viking skeletons still wearing their full armor buried under their homes.

Norway wants these places to now also be inhabited by radars that can provide early warning of a Russian attack, but the current antennas are too large to be raised on the side of the mountain. Norwegian military forces need smaller antennas that can be carried to provide clear lines of sight. With two-thirds of the country covered by mountain ranges, and those mountains eventually equipped with small radar stations, Norway may be able to detect any hostile military movement in time, but it may have to try to repel this attack alone for up to 30 days.

This is the standard that military forces follow in their plans regarding the duration that Norway can withstand a Russian invasion before NATO reinforcements arrive, but by the time NATO forces arrive, the Russians may have already crossed the border, and Norway, or even all the Scandinavian countries, may be completely dependent on the United States for supplies, and may be isolated.

Odin Halvorsen, Director of Security and Emergency Planning at the Norwegian Shipowners’ Association and former Norwegian Foreign Minister, said: “If you look at the map, Scandinavia is essentially an island… it is completely dependent on open sea routes for communication, not only across the Atlantic and from Europe, but on a global level.”

It has become clear that the alliance is taking steps to respond faster, and with other allies considering establishing a long-range surveillance drone base in northern Norway, where the U.S. Army previously had turbine-powered surveillance aircraft, according to Olsen, the former Norwegian military representative to the alliance. NATO uses the air base in Bodø. The U.S. Marines have stored weapons, vehicles, and ammunition in the Trondheim mountains since the 1980s. The United States has spoken to the Norwegian government about reviving its use of the Olavsvern base, a secret Cold War naval base with dry docks large enough for six submarines carved into the side of the mountain.