BALTIC SEA POLICY BRIEFING 1 /2013 Bo Österlund Mare Balticum - Mare Nostrum from Mare Clausum via Mare Sovieticum to Mare Liberum -The process of security policy in the Baltic Mare Balticum - Mare Nostrum from Mare Clausum via Mare Sovieticum to Mare Liberum -The process of security policy in the Baltic Bo Österlund ISSN 2323-4989 Bo Österlund Commodore (Ret) Flag Officer One Star Admiral Since the early 1980s, Commodore (flag officer, one star admiral, ret) Bo Österlund has studied closely the changes in the Baltic security policy and the pertinent research on the subject during his operative duties in the Finnish Naval Forces, as CO of the Gulf of Finland Naval Command. As military Attaché in Stockholm, and as Commander of the Military Command of Turku and Pori. His study “The Changing Baltic” was published in collaboration with Professor Mikko Viitasalo: he has also written several articles on the issue, and participated in planning the preparative security measures concerning sea traffic and the Finnish harbours. In recent years, a particular interest has been focused on the security of energy and maintenance activities and sea traffic in the Baltic region. Centrum Balticum is not responsible for the opinions expressed in the article. Baltic Sea Policy Briefing 1 / 2013 22.1.2013 1 The challenges of security policy have throughout our stormy history been characteristic of the Baltic region where the sea has always served as a traffic route, a centre of trade, a theatre of war, a seat of partitioning states, a seat of creating spheres of influence as regards security or defence policy. Sea control1 or denial of sea control has always created tensions between the parties involved. All in all, it can be alleged that the Baltic Sea unites, protects, shelters, transports, provides a livelihood but also isolates and separates. This article is a combination of what has changed in our past, what is changing at the moment, and what seems to change in our near future as regards the process of security policy. The situation in the Baltic area will be evaluated from the angle of the widely understood significance, momentum, and use of naval forces. Today, the naval war equipment to be used in the Baltic Sea in the year 2025 or so is already in operation, under construction, or on the designer´s desk. Mare Balticum – Mare Nostrum it was possible to erect defence construc- tions concealed from the sight of interes- In the course of centuries the Baltic Sea ted curious eyes, and to be provided with has provided traffic routes for seamen, sol- by vitally important plantations and grana- diers, pilgrims, travelers, and consumers, it ries. The navigable rivers also made it pos- has offered the livelihood and sustenance sible to concentrate secretly battle ships to those engaged in maritime occupations. and to take the hostile adversary by surprise Basic products, and, subsequently, proces- at an unexpected moment, in an unex- sed commodities as well as the demand for pected manner, and at unexpected sites. these have found their way from the Baltic coasts and their vicinity to coastal harbours As far as security policy is concerned, and further out across the sea to the the Baltic Sea has been, from time imme- opposite coast and, finally, the residents morial, regarded as an inland sea of the and consumers in the hinterland. From the coastal states in contradiction to say the Baltic Sea the vessels sailed towards the Mediterranean Sea which, at times, has east, using the waterways to the Caspian been blocked up. The Roman Empire Sea and the Black Sea, and further south had strong arguments in regarding the to the Mediterranean Sea and the water Mediterranean Sea as their own ”Mare routes and connections to the Far East. Clausum” (Closed Sea) since the Roman The Baltic Sea was reached by ships jurisdiction was valid all along its coastline. from the west, across the North Sea, the The Romans were, however, well aware Atlantic, and the Norwegian Sea or via of the fact that the sea was not infinite, the several rivers flowing into it. With it extended only as far as the opposite the developing Russian network of rivers coast. The sea embraced anyway all the and canals the trade reached an ever- surrounding coasts, and came therefore to increasing multitude of consumers in the be called their own sea ”Mare Nostrum” large country. Along the inland routes (Our Sea). 4 Baltic Sea Policy Briefing 1 / 2013 22.1.2013 1 The people of the world live and work main instruments of sea power politics. mostly on dry land, and have always a firm solid ground under their feet. Con- Some centuries prior to Mahan Sir Walter sequently, this may result in, and has, in Raleigh held that”he that commands the fact, already resulted in a situation where sea, commands the trade, and he that the energy of all political activity is is lord of the trade of the worlds is lord focused on sites where the operators of the wealth of the world” (Padfield have solid ground under their feet. Every 1999, 1-2). Sir Raleigh’s theses seem to be now and then, the importance of sea routes directly applicable to the Baltic Sea. seems to have been on the wane. The Danish Straits – the Bolt of the Baltic Sea James E. Toth (1955, 1) describes the para- dox of this situation in his work”Strategic Discrepancy between the coastal states of Geography” as follows: ”Man’s natural the Baltic Sea on the upkeep of the Baltic habitat is land, and land dominates his cons- Sea as a free sea area, and the free use cious Endeavour; social, economic, poli- of the sea routes across it, arose as early tical, and military: Yet, almost three quar- as the early 15th century when Denmark ters of his world is ocean. It is the original began to enforce and collect customs source of life for all earth’s species; it is duties on all foreign vessels sailing in or essential means of global transport for out through the Sound. England and the man’s produce, commerce, and military Netherlands, the two Sea Powers which strength. While the world ocean is beyond pursued widespread trade in the Baltic sight of much of mankind, its influ- region protested forcefully against this ence is ubiquitous.” one-sided decision. Denmark attempted to solve the dispute by promising to sa- In the latter half of the 19th century the feguard the trafficking of foreign vessels great master of naval strategy and geo- in the straits and keeping the Danish sea politics, Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Ma- territory free from pirates as a compen- han famously stated his view on the sation for collecting the duties. Sweden arguments of the control of the sea and chose to proceed along its own path in the power projection of naval forces as the question of customs duties. The King follows:”Control of the sea by mariti- of Sweden raised and gathered a navy me commerce and naval supremacy me- and an army, concentrated his troops on ans predominant influence in the world... the opposite shore, and then defeated (and) is the chief among the merely first Denmark and thereafter also Lübeck material elements in the power and pros- (Ehrensvärd, Kokkonen, and Nurminen perity of nations” (Livezey 1981,281-282). 1998, 26-27). Mahan believed that international po- Since the beginning of the 1530s Sweden litics was mainly a struggle over who had acquired a leading position as a sea gets what, when and how. The struggle power independently of its contestants, could be about territory, resources, relying on its own military navy, which political influence, economic advantage enabled it to widen its sphere of influence or normative values. The contestants to almost every corner of the Baltic were the leaders of traditional nation- region. With his naval forces and his land states: military and naval forces were their troops King Gustavus II Adolphus conque- 5 Baltic Sea Policy Briefing 1 / 2013 22.1.2013 1 red every significant port with the excep- as 3273 observations. This figure includes tion of Lübeck on the coasts of the Baltic the squadron of US aircraft carriers which Sea, in the 1620s and the 1630s, i.e. in sailed into the Baltic Sea for the first the latter half of the Thirty Years’ War. time in history (Holmström 2011, 259). The town of Lübeck was an important At the end of the Great Northern War, landmark even later in history during the when the Peace Treaty of Uusikaupunki Cold War when the countries of the War- was being worked out, the idea of the Baltic saw Pact were expanding their sphere Sea as a future Mare Clausum was raised, of interest after the Second World War. i.e. it would be closed in principle but open to the battle vessels of the coastal states. As a result of those conquests Sweden These ideas were materialized when gained a dominating position in the Baltic Denmark, Prussia, Russia, and Sweden region (Dominus Maris Baltici). As a con- cemented the armed neutrality treaty sequence of the Roskilde Peace Treaty in determining this agreement in St Peters- 1658 the scope of the supremacy of the burg on July 21, 1780 (Ehrensvärd, Kokko- Swedish control of the Baltic area was at nen, and Nurminen 1998, 27). The purpose its widest. It comprised the Gulf of Bothnia, of the agreement was then to blockade the the northern and southern coasts of the Danish Straits from English battle ships.