More Different Than Meets the Eye? Three Cases of Nordic Security and Defence Policy Adaptation, Post-2014

This paper investigates the question of how, why and to what extent the small Nordic states choose to adapt their security and defence policy following the Russian annexation of Crimea. With the gross violations of Ukraine’s territorial integrity from 2014, also the Northern European security order was changed. In the Nordic and Baltic states as well as Poland, the new perception of Russia as a threat and the general understanding that the countries of the region would have to deal with an increase in Russian military activities in their immediate proximity and prepare for possible violations of their sovereignty changed the conditions for national security and defence planners. The five Nordic states are regarded as very similar. Norway, Sweden and Denmark are direct neighbours and face similar security and defence challenges, with Russia being the notable main source of security threats and responsible for the deterioration of the security environment in Europe’s North. Despite the apparent similarities between them and long history of Nordic cooperation, there are significant differences in the threat perceptions, the measures taken post-2014 and the extent to which their national security and defence policies have shifted from pre-2014 to meet the current and future security threats. This contribution takes a closer look at the two NATO members, Norway and Denmark and NATO outsider Sweden which has developed a close partnership with NATO. Denmark and Sweden are EU members, but only Sweden is fully participating in the EU’s defence and security policy cooperation, while Denmark maintains its opt-out on security and defence policy, and Norway is an EU-outsider. The investigation of these three direct neighbours that share many similarities, but have undergone different national trajectories allows a closer scrutiny of key conditioning factors (domestic politics, structural civil-military and in terms of bi- and multilateral regional and international cooperation, geography, defence industry, civil-military relations) that shape the national security and defence policy choices of small states in Europe’s North that have had to grapple with the threats posed by the nuclear superpower Russia. All three are also active participants in shaping the development of NATO-EU cooperation, increasing their own and their neighbours resilience against non-linear threats and are engaged in clusters of NATO Centres of Excellence and the European Centre of Excellence for Hybrid Threats based in Finland. However, the national choice of engagement in these formats, by Norway, Sweden and Denmark diverges, and domestic defence and security policy developments are also markedly different, revealing a host of challenges that will have to be overcome by the EU and NATO in deepening their cooperation. If already three otherwise likeminded and similar states reveal significant differences, what does this tell us about the prospects for deeper EU-NATO security and defence cooperation?