Pekka Holopainen

The Nordic states, just as other regions of Europe which neighbor Russia, are engaged in an urgent reexamination of their security and defense posture. Events in Ukraine in early-2014 threw into sharp focus a local lack of capability following decades of drawdowns and focus on crisis management operations instead of territorial defense. After an unpleasant awakening, countries in the region have turned their attention to the heightened security risks they face and their lack of preparedness for them. In an era of continuing austerity, the challenge for these states is how to design a working security and defense solution in the short and medium term which is both robust enough to survive in isolation, but also capable of being merged into a bigger framework such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) when the time is ripe.