The incidents of cable damage in the Baltic Sea are becoming a pattern. The four since October each seem to have involved merchant ships dragging their anchors over underwater cables.
The Baltic Sea is a busy shipping area with a great deal of undersea infrastructure. Accidents happen, but it appears increasingly likely that these incidents are both deliberate and connected.
The Baltic Summit last month presented a critical opportunity for European states along the Baltic to deepen their cooperation in safeguarding the region. This led to the launch of Baltic Sentry, a NATO initiative aimed at protecting vital undersea cables and pipelines from potential sabotage.
This is a complex issue to tackle. Undersea infrastructure is difficult to protect; pipelines and cables run for kilometres along the seabed. Baltic states simply do not have enough ships for constant patrolling of these distances.
It’s also a crowded space, with hundreds of ships occupying the Baltic at a time. It is hard to spot a dragging anchor from the surface. What's more, the ships identified as responsible for these incidents have no direct link to Russia; they are part of its “shadow fleet.”
Finding a proportional response
It is normal for a commercial vessel to be flagged in one state, owned by a company in another state, and have its crew comprised of multiple other nationalities. Still, the grey-zone nature of these incidents makes them hard to deal with. They blur the line between peacetime and war, damaging their target while remaining below the threshold of attribution — and therefore of response.
Russia relies heavily on grey-zone tactics, which allow the Kremlin to challenge NATO members without crossing a line that would trigger military action. The targeted countries then face a tricky problem: They may reasonably conclude that they are under attack, but lack an appropriate answer. A military one would be disproportionate, so what to do?
All levels of European governance need to acknowledge the scale of this hybrid threat. Critical infrastructure like cables and pipelines underpin the European economy.
While NATO should take the lead on the military side, the European Union can do a great deal to build up its own response and ensure that all member states can coordinate their efforts. A recent meeting of EU interior ministers was a key opportunity to present a united front, including enhanced sanctions, better information-sharing, and increased assistance for affected states to investigate suspicious events and enhance security measures.
Most of all, EU members need to increase their defence spending, procure more kit and recruit more personnel across the board. A belligerent Russia cannot be faced without strong European militaries and collective European defence. The Kremlin must be deterred from pursuing aggressive actions, whether hybrid or worse.
That demands an all-hands effort, involving the EU, NATO and others. Only together can European allies hold their ground.