The Baltic paradox

Despite their relative sizes and economies, the Baltics have long attracted the attention of several heavyweights, including Russia and the United States. In a strikingly brief amount of time since their independence between 1990 and 1991, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania became in all but name a laboratory for hybrid warfare. To the East lies Russia attempting to re-establish its sphere of influence, undermine national identity, and test NATO’s cohesion; while to the West is the United States and Europe pushing for geo-economic integration via membership in NATO and the EU. The result thirty years later? The Baltics frustratingly maintain the title of the most exposed area to hybrid threats… but also that of the most resilient.

The recipe for such a cocktail is one characterised by self-assessment, bet hedging, and an honest risk analysis. The umbrella provided by the West, while essential, has historically been limited to military-centred deterrence, resting decisively on the ‘whole-mighty power’ that Article 5 entails. But because hybrid threats combine both military and non-military tools, Russia and other nonstate actors remain able to exercise substantial pressure on the Baltics. In doing so, these agents continue to test the limits of Western deterrence and its internal cohesion.

Unsurprisingly, the Baltics never stopped investing in their own security and resilience against these threats – following history’s most conventional wisdom of ‘learning from the past’, best embraced by post-Soviet Eastern European nations. And now that US President Trump’s second term threatens traditional NATO reliability in Europe, the Baltics may have a lesson or two for other European countries looking to borrow a page from the hybrid resilience self-help guide.

When deterrence is not deterring

Hybrid threats are potent techniques employed by such actors as Moscow, given that they are cost-efficient, as they remain infinitely cheaper than military action; and deniable, as they do not carry a flag or claim responsibility upon completion. In the Baltics, these tactics come in many forms, including sabotage – cutting deep-sea cables and data lines; cyber – often targeting government websites and the private sector; and disinformation – always a Kremlin evergreen for influencing elections and eroding national identities.

In almost all areas, the Baltics feature as the most targeted region by Russian hybrid attacks, with the latter responsible for over 40 occurrences between 2022 and 2025. Historically speaking, this is not the first time that great powers exercise pressure over smaller nations – not by a long shot.

But the case of the Baltics stands out in the extensive Cold War crowd given the continued relevance of its host. Typically, the host country becomes overshadowed by the contest for influence between the foreign powers, leaving it as little more than a defenceless target. In the Baltics, that has simply not happened. There, we witness a case of old-meets-new, where NATO’s traditional military deterrence measures fail to eradicate Russia’s modern asymmetrical warfare tactics.

The Baltics have been formidable in keeping up with defence expenses, exceeding the 2% of GDP NATO requirements long before President Trump’s rumblings about it, and have wisely called upon their military allies for support over such areas as maritime monitoring whenever useful. But Western military countermeasures cannot erase hybrid activity altogether, and NATO’s modus operandi remains mostly reactive rather than preventive. Henceforth, the region never stopped building on its own operations too. National government programmes have been dedicated to resilience building, societal awareness, and infrastructural stress testing. The so-called ‘Baltic model’ rests solidly – and historically – on the assumption that no one else will arrive in time, and that effective resilience architecture starts at home.

Security nowadays goes far beyond territorial defence, and implies continued investments in the functioning of societies despite pressures from both outside and within. Civil preparedness, infrastructure resilience, and cybersecurity now dictate a society’s survival just as guns and rockets once did.

Mind the gap

So what does all this tell us about today’s security architecture in Europe? The second term of President Trump in the White House has thus far brought little to rejoice in the corridors of NATO HQ in Brussels. This year’s US National Defence Strategy speaks plainly of a recentering of regional focus, where engagement in Europe is explicitly undermined by shifting priorities elsewhere. The ‘eye’ of the White House is prioritising its focus on the US homeland internally, and on China externally, implying several times that Europeans need to pick up the slack on their own continent. Concrete changes include the removal of 5,000 American servicemen across Germany, the cancelling of planned long-range strike capabilities, and the withdrawal of up to 200 US personnel from NATO structures worldwide.

While none of these seem to directly impact the Baltics hybrid defence capabilities, an underscoring message transpires nonetheless. The latter is a terrifying incentive to those agents of chaos – Russian or otherwise – to double down on hybrid warfare, as they see in these developments evidence of destabilisation in the NATO alliance, and what the Kremlin loves calling ‘Western decadence’.

One flagship programme that remains operational is the Baltics Sentry, launched by NATO on January 14th, 2025, only days before President Trump’s second inaugural – speaking of coincidences […]. The Sentry was meant as a range of assets to be deployed across the region as needed, including maritime, technological, and surveillance assets. Since then, the programme has tested more than 70 drones, hoping to establish an all-encompassing AI-enabled maritime resilience system, meant to offer situational awareness, detection, and deterrence. While successful, the Baltic Sentry showcases two main continued weaknesses. One is that it mainly remains a military asset limited to detection of attacks, and second, that its scope remains tied to NATO’s resolve to invest in it, which is wavering today.

In fairness, Europe has not stood silent on this. The invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was the first alarm, and the state of EU-US relations today is but another good reason to wake up in the morning and invest in regional defence. The Commission’s Work Programme 2026 and the White Papers Readiness 2030 reflect the importance of increased collective security and defence, as do the cyclical Council presidencies hosted by European Member States (MS) – whose top three focus areas now unsurprisingly all feature defence upgrading. Just days ago, after Russia’s drone strike on Leipzig airport in Germany, the EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas pleaded to step up efforts to defend against hybrid threats across the Union. Concretely, much has been put on the hybrid table: the Hybrid Toolbox for information sharing; the Cyber Diplomacy Toolbox to increase inter-MS cooperation; and the Hybrid Response Teams and FIMI toolbox to combat disinformation and foster media literacy.

Help those who help themselves

Across all these instruments, the Baltics offer a fitting testing ground, and one that unfortunately continues to provide plenty of opportunities to experiment. Hybrid attacks have not slowed in recent months, with dozens of instances across Europe’s Eastern flank since January 2026. So should Brussels feel confident in all of its new toys to protect Europe’s hybrid sphere? Or is the EU just nervously attempting to compensate for the uncertainty left by the crack with its partner across the Atlantic?

The key to this may be in the actors, rather than the numbers.

Baltic resilience is currently being stress-tested to the max, with Russia’s kinetic operations stretching far and wide to suppress pro-Ukraine actors, Western-leaning Baltic societal figures, and Russian dissidents. But notably, what has changed, or rather, what is changing, are the main actors countering these attacks. Just in April of this year, the Lithuanian authorities uncovered and charged 13 individuals linked to the Kremlin’s military intelligence agency (GRU). Estonia similarly exposed a Russian cyber espionage unit known as APT28, which was operating in the territory since 2024. And already in 2025, all three Baltic countries famously achieved full energy autonomy from Moscow, cutting once and for all their economic dependencies on Russian electricity, gas, and oil.

What we see is therefore a region that, while partially empowered by its old allies’ traditional military backing and Brussels’s new tools, is reaffirming ownership of its actions in the hybrid domain. True deterrence comes from an entity that routinely demonstrates it can defend itself, rather than one whose friends come to back it up during crises. The Latvian government recognised this already in 2023, understanding that because society itself was the primary target of these threats, strengthening and restructuring it was essential to countering them.

We never stop learning

Moving forward? Much emerges from the Baltic case, and Europe should pay attention. No one saves themselves alone, but collective action in the hybrid domain can only do so much without true agency from its host. This self-help reliance put forward by the Baltics should be considered in the halls of Brussels as a potential model to apply across the continent, given the increased popularity of hybrid threats in this digital world.

The transatlantic shift is damaging to Europe, but was always in the books, and the Baltics were smart enough to expect it, work around it, and adjust accordingly. In the end, there are lessons for all at this table: a NATO that has to reassess control of its own members, an EU that must invest in itself, and a Baltic regional bloc that, despite its continued need for Western support, still has lots to teach its allies about hybrid resilience building.

We would be wise to listen.