Divergent Frontiers: Contrasting Russia’s Strategic Culture Toward the Baltics and Ukraine and the Implications for NATO

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

ABSTRACT By employing the concept of strategic culture, which includes historical, cultural, and geopolitical aspects, the article compares Russia’s approach toward Ukraine in contrast to the Baltic states. While Russia seeks to exert control over post-Soviet independent countries, Russia’s kinetic approach toward Ukraine does not imply that it is similarly willing to use – or even capable of using – military force to control the Baltics. Instead, given their NATO membership, Russia’s use of non-kinetic, sub-threshold means, including sabotage, cyber, and information warfare, is a more pressing threat to the Baltic states than any potential threat of conventional military force.