Work with Article 3 so you don’t need to think about Article 5!

In October 2017, the CBSS Civil Security team met with Professor Sundelius to discuss the rationale for international cooperation in the field of civil protection. The result of the discussion is published as an interview here.

In May 2023 we met again to revisit the questions and to clarify to ourselves if our job as facilitators of international cooperation is still as relevant as it was in 2017 and what can be done better.  

CBSS: In 2017 you said that “Not only is cooperation beneficial, it is necessary for preparedness… Failures of coordination, across many boundaries, will reduce effectiveness and cause loss of lives and costly damages.” Does it still stand in 2023 after the Corona pandemic and war raging at the region’s doorstep?

BS: The Corona pandemic showed very clearly how interconnected our societies are and that our vulnerabilities are shared across boundaries. Sadly, the initial reflex when the virus spread, was to panic and shut down societies and close borders. Even the very well-established (since the mid-50s) inter-Nordic open borders were closed and restricted with severe consequences for the societies and populations. Failures of coordination were clearly experienced in our region during the pandemic. 

So far, the pattern has been different in the face of the Russian attack on Ukraine.  Several coordinated efforts to keep open critical flows of energy, grain, food and weapons across borders were shown. Refugees have been able to relocate across borders. In this dramatic geopolitical conflict with armed fights over territory, the flow of security elements has been prominent and dependent on the shared capacity to coordinate responses and consequence management.

The regional security agenda is wide and must cover matters of immediate survival in the face of armed attacks, as well as fundamental and long-term survival in the face of climate change. Geopolitical disputes, concerns over flow security (CBSS: a security concept related to uninterrupted flows of data, goods, medical supplies, etc.) and questions of natural disasters and climate related survival all require the attention of political leaders and expert level coordination across boundaries. Baltic Sea Region cooperation formats such as CBSS Civil Protection Network and EUSBSR Policy Area Secure could be the vital node in this regional network-based work.

So, you think that cross-border cooperation is more needed than ever. Where should we concentrate our efforts? 

BS: In our region, we can think about the legally defined sovereignty borders between the nations not as barriers, but as door-hinges that connect societies and peoples. But these can be opened or closed by the will of our political leaders. The direct and indirect consequences of such closures as well as their relative openness for different flows should be examined well ahead of any sudden change. Otherwise, the panic reflex takes over. Uncertainties need to be clarified as much as possible in advance, when the time is short other concerns tend to dominate thinking. Early warning procedures and openness to “out-of-the-box” reflections about future scenarios are badly needed, and increasingly so in the complex flow security domain. There remains much analytical work and planning efforts to be done together in this security domain.

CBSS: Should we include the war in these future scenarios? 

BS: CBSS Civil Protection Network and EUSBSR Policy Area Secure have worked well with an “all-hazards” perspective. It may be time now to add to this foundation an “all-hazards PLUS” perspective to our joint activities. The PLUS would address the returned task to strengthen societal resilience within an adversarial context in our region. When ill-will is involved, special considerations of secure communications, hardened operation centres, hostile countermeasures, etc. must be added to the already complex work to meet all societal hazards without an active adversary.

Continued cooperation and coordination across various boundaries would be essential to such a working approach, engaging many stakeholders. Special caution must be practised to safeguard these procedures from hostile intruders. Mobilising the civic sector, businesses and many local, regional and national government agencies, in order to gain the desired cumulative effects, would still be the key elements in this long-term investment in regional safety and security.

The way forward in the societal security field is not an “either-or” choice with regard to geopolitical concerns and other immediate and future security challenges. The complex task must address both tracks as the threats and risks are multidimensional, compounded and overlapping several boundaries, as evidenced in the heroic Ukrainian case.

CBSS: With Finland joining NATO and Swedish membership pending, soon all CBSS Member States will be NATO members. What does it mean for our cooperation within civil protection?  

BS:  As we strived earlier to become a good practices model within the EU for Sendai-related work (UN Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction), now we can strive to become an exemplar for societal resilience in NATO (Article 3 of the Alliance’s founding treaty). Ukraine has shown the importance of a “whole-of-society” approach to be resilient in the face of a total attack on a nation. Article 3 concerns the capacities of the Alliance members to build such resilience to withstand, but also to deter, potential attacks by other governments.  A range of attacks has been unleashed recently, both armed and so-called hybrid attacks on people, society and governing institutions. We can expect this mixed pattern to continue in various combinations and with yet not fully understood consequences. Building joint capacities and reducing shared vulnerabilities well ahead of possible security threats seem as urgent as ever. 

CBSS: Many experts and politicians say that we can reduce these shared vulnerabilities by building the region’s resilience. What does it mean for you? How can we build resilience together?

BS: Resilience is shared and it should be handled in a forward-looking approach to be able to capture early signs of emerging threats, risks and opportunities. So-called creeping crises are not easily detected but give initially weak or confusing signals. More work together is needed on shared early warning procedures and mindsets to better capture such consequential but slowly moving developments. Traditional intelligence work may not be suitable for this novel mental and organisational challenge.

But we should also think of forward-looking resilience in the geopolitical space, as forward defence has long been practised by defence officials and strategists. Building durable resilience throughout our neighbourhood contributes to our own societal resilience and thus our national security. This is the logic of NATO Article 3 and it builds on gaining clear resilience effects long before considerations of Article 5 must be addressed. Such capacities may even have deterring effects on a potential aggressor. 

Our region could become even more robust in this regard than what one could hope for within the Alliance as a whole. The ambition would be to build an exemplar for good practices by all Alliance members and beyond. Continued assistance to Ukraine and other neighbouring nations across the wide scope of societal security would be investments in regional safety and security.

CBSS: In 2017 you thought the Baltic Leadership/Excellence Programme (BEP) was important as “capacity development among those individuals that shall carry the burdens of the leadership in the near future.” BEP became a staple in every Civil Protection Network Presidency, here is a description of the latest module in Hamburg. Do you see it as still relevant? Can it be improved considering new challenges in the region?   

BS: Training at all levels is important and the Baltic Excellence Programme could be strengthened to help prepare our future leaders for this wider task of an “all hazards PLUS” working approach. Elements of communications and documentation security, the need-to-know logic rather than the obligation-to-share mental outlook and other safeguarding aspects should be added to the curriculum. More interactive pedagogics, table-tops and brain-storming sessions around “out-of-the-box” scenarios would be helpful elements of the Programme.