Tailoring Deterrence for the High North: Nuclear Consequences of Sweden’s Accession to NATO
The Finnish and Swedish accessions to NATO enable the Alliance to play a more active role in the Baltic region.
The underpinnings for a comprehensive NATO general deterrence posture in the High North with Sweden and Finland are, to a large degree, already in place.
Russian behavior is increasingly relying on its nuclear weapons to further its security political aims in order to establish a new security order in Europe: from its leadership’s rhetoric to its self-suspension from Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (New START) and possible basing of nuclear weapons in Belarus.
For an integrated and tailored deterrence in the High North, Sweden and Finland must come to terms with the challenge of immediate deterrence with a nuclear dimension.
A strategy including participation in the Nuclear Planning Group (NPG), flying conventional support for nuclear operations (CSNO) and, for Sweden, enabling dispersed basing, would create the space needed for NATO to act in times of crisis. A more engaged approach would also add dual capable aircraft (DCA) and nuclear sharing arrangements (NSA) for Sweden and possibly for Finland, given that the latter makes the required adjustments to its current legislation.
Download the full analysis
This page contains only a summary of our work. If you would like to have access to all the information from our research on the subject, you can download the full version in PDF format.
Tailoring Deterrence for the High North: Nuclear Consequences of Sweden’s Accession to NATO
Author(s)
Related centers and programs
Discover our other research centers and programs
Security Studies Center
Heir to a tradition dating back to the founding of Ifri, the Security Studies Center provides public and private decision-makers as well as the general public with the keys to understanding power relations and contemporary modes of conflict as well as those to come. Through its positioning at the juncture of politics and operations, the credibility of its civil-military team and the wide distribution of its publications in French and English, the Center for Security Studies constitutes in the French landscape of think tanks a unique center of research and influence on the national and international defense debate.
Find out more
Discover all our analyses
From Cuba to Ukraine: Strategic Signaling and Nuclear Deterrence
Strategic signaling—the range of signs and maneuvers intended, in peace time, to lend credibility to any threat to use nuclear weapons—is back.
Return to the East: the Russian Threat and the French Pivot to Europe's Eastern Flank
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, has flung Europe’s Eastern flank into a new phase of strategic confrontation. It has had a major effect on France’s position, which was previously somewhat timid, leading it to significantly reinforce its deterrence and defense posture in support of the collective defense of Europe, in the name of strategic solidarity and the protection of its security interests.
Military Stockpiles: A Life-Insurance Policy in a High-Intensity Conflict?
The war in Ukraine is a reminder of the place of attrition from high-intensity conflict in European armies that have been cut to the bone after three decades of budget cuts. All European forces have had to reduce their stocks to the bare minimum. As a result, support to Ukraine has meant a significant drain on their operational capabilities. A significant amount of decommissioned systems were also donated, due to the lack of depth in operational fleets.
France’s Place Within NATO: Toward a Strategic Aggiornamento?
With a rapidly deteriorating security environment, a chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, internal disputes exploding into public view, and questions being raised about the scope of its security responsibilities, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) seemed to be in dire straits at the time of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.