Bastion, Backwater, or Battlefront? Changing Strategic Views Along Europe’s Northern Shores

In June 2016, a quarter century after the end of the Cold War, an article co-authored by Vice Admiral James Foggo III, then Commander of the US 6th Fleet, gained significant attention within the defense community. Titled “The Fourth battle for the Atlantic,” in bold letters the admiral warned that “Russia is claiming maritime battlespace across Europe and is deploying forces outside Russian borders [...] A fourth battle is not looming, but is being waged now, across and underneath the oceans and seas that border Europe.”2 In their piece, Foggo and co-author Alarik Fritz recalled that up until end of the twentieth century, the geostrategic relevance attributed to the waters connecting North America and Europe had seen little change. The ability to send reinforcement from the United States by winning the ‘Battles for the Atlantic’ had been vital to the survival of European democracies during both World Wars.3 Throughout the Cold War, U.S. and NATO contingency planning drew from a similar premise, namely that the North Atlantic and its littorals would be highly contested:4 “[A]