Baltic Sea

Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania regained their independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Reaching energy independence—i.e., disentanglement from Russia’s energy infrastructure and market—will have taken more than three additional decades. Even after all three countries joined the European Union...

Editor’s note: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and renewed interest on the part of both Finland and Sweden to consider formal membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has brought new scrutiny to security threats in the Baltic Sea basin....

For Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is all too familiar. All three Baltic countries were occupied in 1940 by the legal predecessor of the Russian Federation and were forced to live almost half a century...

The shock wave of the Russian attack against Ukraine is sensed worldwide, yet the closer one stands to the epicenter of tragedy, the stronger one feels the trembling of the ground. Riga, the capital of Latvia, is situated less...

Introduction  On February 24, 2022 Russia began its invasion of Ukraine.  In times of crisis, balanced, in-depth analysis and trusted expertise is paramount. The Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) remains committed in its mission to provide expert analysis to...

In a time of democratic rollback and continued populist upswings, the European Union and United States increasingly advocate for coordination among members of the self-styled “international rules-based order.” This unity faces serious institutional challenges, especially visible at Europe’s edge...

What do rum, milk, beer, and chocolate all have in common? Other than a fun night and an upset stomach, they all are recent purchases that have found their way from the Baltic country of Lithuania to Taiwan. The...

Access the Winter 2022 issue of Orbis here. Abstract This article examines the idea of a Baltic Nuclear-Weapon Free Zone (NWFZ) in the context of the Russian Federation’s deterrence and escalation management theories, largely as enunciated by Russian military theorists....

Access the Winter 2022 issue of Orbis here. Abstract Germany’s recent Ostpolitik (Eastern Policy) has become a major topic in Western discussions about how to deal best with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. This essay proceeds from Interdependence Theory to argue...

It is sometimes said that when Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania joined NATO in 2004 each still harbored some lingering regret that they were not joining the NATO of 1949 — an alliance with a resolute and single-track focus to deter...