Cooperation Or Competition?

EDITOR: OLAV F KNUDSEN Cooperation or Competition? A Juxtaposition of Research Problems Regarding Security in the Baltic Sea Region RESEARCH REPORTS 1/02 olav f knudsen (editor) Cooperation or Competition? A Juxtaposition of Research Problems Regarding Security in the Baltic Sea Region södertörns högskola 2002 Published in cooperation with THE SWEDISH INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS Conference Paper No. 29 ISSN 0349-7796 ISBN 91-7183-897-X SÖDERTÖRNS HÖGSKOLA Research Reports 1/02 Huddinge 2002 ISSN 1403-5111 ISBN 91-89315-11-1 Table of Contents . Introduction: Four Queries . The Strategic Context of the Baltic Sea Region: Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives . . Comments on Regina Karp’s Paper . Regina Karp’s Response . Stable Peace In The Baltic Sea Region: Prospects and Problems . Comments on Rikard Bengtsson’s Paper . Russia’s Baltic Regions Between Moscow and the West: The Roots of Regionalism . Comments on Ingmar Oldberg’s Paper . The Signficance of Security Considerations to Transnational Actors: Three Puzzles from an Ongoing Research Project . Comments on Michael Karlsson’s Paper. Or: Unraveling Regional Linkages of Baltic NGO's . Explaining Security Agenda Setting: Beyond the Domestic Realm . Comments on Johan Eriksson’s Paper . Is America a Baltic Power? . Persistent Obstacles to Mutual Understanding: Security Paradoxes in the Baltic Sea Region . . Comments on Nadia Arbatova’s paper . Reply to Olav F. Knudsen . . A Tentative Summing Up . Introductory Remarks these covers are the proceedings of a research workshop E organized as part of a project entitled Security and Cooperation in the Baltic Sea Region.1 The Swedish Institute of International Affairs participated in the workshop by making its facilities, infrastructure and incomparable ambiance available for the proceedings, and by the participation of its researchers.2 The intention behind the publication is to allow the research-oriented focus of our workshop also to flow out to readers with similar research interests, saving at least part of the discussion from being weeded out, as necessarily happens in a straightforward book format. The focus for the workshop was intractable research problems regarding security in the Baltic Sea region. The phrase refers both to questions pertaining directly to the security issues we study, and to questions concerning the way we interpret and analyze them. In preparing their papers, the participating researchers have been encouraged to use this occasion to serve up research puzzles which may already have been presented before, but to which they have not had any real feedback. They also have had the option of presenting a piece of work here for the first time. Regardless of the specific form of the papers presented, our task is analytical above all. Since the contributing authors have not received any more specific guidance regarding the substance except the overarching title and what was just said, the danger was real that the workshop would come to have somewhat of the appear- ance of a happening. But the intention was also to give serendipity a chance. At a minimum, my calculation was that a chance to work at our research tangles in an informal session of close academic colleagues would in itself be worth the event. 1 Project at Södertörns högskola (University College), funded by the Baltic Foundation (Östersjöstiftelsen). 2 Coordinator for SIIA has been Senior Associate Lena Jonson. 5 To give some common direction to our discussion, I presented the following general queries, which to me seemed central to all attempts to understand the security issues of the Baltic Sea region in their present state: Query 1: How can we explain the wide and persistent discrepancy in threat perceptions between Russia and the Western states of the Baltic Sea region, man- ifest both among elites and in the more informed public opinion? What are the consequences? Query 2: Is the Baltic Sea Region a power vacuum? Is the region marked by a lack of great-power engagement in the harder security issues? For the sake of argument, I suggest the answer to both is yes. But I would also want to discuss whether a power vacuum is good or bad from the point of stability. This leads me to my third query. Query 3: Is a region more stable when major players are actively engaging each other even when they disagree strongly—as is the case (e.g.) in Northeast Asia between the Koreas, China, the US, Japan and Russia? Or is it more stable when they are cautiously keeping a low profile and not seriously discussing difficult issues, such as NATO membership for the Baltic states or a demilitarization of Kaliningrad? Query 4: How do we go about documenting our claims, contentions and con- clusions, reliably and validly? Are we sufficiently aware of the dangers of posing as oracles when we make our comments on ‘the real problems of this region’? How can we know that which we pretend to know about the Baltic Sea region? With these basic questions in mind, the reader is invited to move on to the papers, which have gone through a process of editing and revision since their presentation in August 2000. The proceedings consist both of papers and of comments on papers. The con- tributors were asked to make the main papers short—the original intention was to keep them at a maximum of 8-10 pages. Some authors have stuck faithfully to this request. Others have bargained with the editor for more space, some with better luck—and better reasons—than others. Correspondingly, the comments were to be a maximum of 3 pages. Inconsistencies may expose the editor to charges of having been too liberal, to which he pleads partly guilty, trusting nevertheless in the probability of redemp- tion on account of the quality of his colleagues’ work. 6 The Strategic Context of the Baltic Sea Region: Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives Introduction ' and especially the Baltic Sea region today reflect a security E environment vastly different from their erstwhile Cold War setting. Individually and collectively, states in the region have been challenged to recon- ceive the political, military and economic boundaries of their respective relationships with intra-regional, European, trans-Atlantic and bilateral partners. Perhaps the most basic change brought about by the end of the Cold War is one of geopo- litical orientation, eroding, if not eliminating, a Nordic sense of separateness from the travails of European integration and transatlantic security building. As Bo Huldt explains, ‘the region is the meeting place of NATO, EU, Russian, Baltic, Nordic and Central European interests’ (Huldt 1998: 41). Taking his observation a step further, it might be suggested that because of these unique circumstances, the region still faces an indeterminate security environment. A decade after the Cold War and independence for the three Baltic states, the region continues to wrestle with two essential security issues. First, how does the region fit into European and transatlantic structures? And second, what role can, should, or must the region play in the settlement of the much larger question of continental security building? The region's very diversity invites challenging theoretical questions, too. How might theory help untangle new issues of power distribution and alignment? How can theory help explain the emerging connections between domestic preferences and systemically determined foreign policy choices? Using security theory and empirical evidence, this paper proposes an analytical model for how these questions might be answered. 7 The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, it attempts to engage the debate in security studies between structuralists, also known as realists, and comparativists over what determines the behaviour of states. Structuralists believe that a state's foreign and security policy is predominantly a response to its external environment and that policy outcomes are therefore externally determined. Comparativists explain policy outcomes in terms of a state's domestic environment, its political institutions and agents, as well as in terms of cultural preferences and predispositions. Using either theoretical approach provides very different explanations of why states behave the way they do. Making theoretical distinctions explicit is a necessary precursor to empirical analysis. Theoretical preferences are often hidden and need to be exposed before empirical analysis can reliably present evidence for different kinds of policy behaviour. This recognition leads directly to the paper's second purpose which is to test the propositions advanced by both theories against observable behaviour in post-Cold War Europe.1 Testing theoretical propositions can reveal the circumstances under which states conform to policy expectations proposed by either structuralist or comparativist theory. Testing also reveals how well state behaviour meets theoretical expectations and hence helps establish the veracity of either theory. The paper's third purpose is to apply the insights gained through the testing of theory to the security context of the Baltic Sea region. It is expected that the relationships between theory and state behaviour will help elucidate the context of regional security, suggest security strategies for states in the region and help identify the sources of stability and instability in Europe's north.2 Three developments in post-Cold War Europe serve to test theory: the unifi- cation of Germany, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the evolution of euro-atlantic institutions. The choice of test cases is determined by the profound impact these developments are having on the general structure of security in Europe and their relevance for the Baltic Sea region in particular. The paper posits that the process of testing theory must include political developments significant 1 Testing theoretical propositions thoroughly, that is over lengthy periods of time including a multitude of states in many different regional settings, goes far beyond the scope of this paper.

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