Redefining Security Around the Baltic: Environmental Issues in Regional Context

NATO expansion has drawn renewed attention to regional security questions around the Baltic Region. Contemporary security debates raise, but leave answered, many questions of identity, membership and institutional configuration in the region. Fundamentally, the debate centers on what constitutes “security” in the Baltic region. Environmental issues have “made it onto the table” within the dynamic security debates in the Baltic region. Environmental change and security are increasingly, but often implicitly, linked around the Baltic. Only be exploring these links can both environmental issues and security issues in the region be properly understood. Foreign policy-makers, inside and outside of the region, are advised to better integrate their rhetorical “environmental” pronouncements with tangible policy actions that reflect their stated priority as security issues. A concern for stability as a primary goal of environmental security suggests that traditional political-military considerations continue to dominate interest considerations. Environmental remediation matters on many levels, but it has not achieved equal footing with stability goals. As illustrated by fears of the many ecological dangers emanating from Russia, “environmental” threats are increasingly recognized as critical factors affecting the desired stability. However, Russians and their interests are not yet well integrated into the regional environmental and security organizations.