Reinforcing the Baltic: A Swedish perspective
The Memorandum | No. 11.2025
Sweden depends on safe shipping and maritime logistics for its economic prosperity and security. However, recent events have shattered assumptions of stable and secure sea transport. In the Baltic Sea region, a deteriorating security environment – marked by Russian grey zone activities and advanced anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities – threatens freedom of navigation, critical supply chains and infrastructure, with significant implications for allied reinforcement. Credible deterrence and resilience against these threats depend on the ability to reinforce the region effectively through cross-sector collaboration, robust commercial logistics solutions and strengthened maritime defences. Sweden’s experience offers valuable insights for the United Kingdom (UK).
Sweden and its allies must establish the necessary level of sea control to ensure safe passage and conduct sea denial to protect its maritime flanks, shipping and vital ports against enemy action.
Supply security is crucial to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO) strategic planning for Northern Europe and depends on robust infrastructure capable of supporting civilian and military logistics. As a key basing, logistics, and transit hub for staging operations and projecting power, Sweden must maintain a reliable transport system to facilitate rapid force deployment. Transportation capacity is crucial not only to national security, but to the provision of host nation support, and will depend on an efficient integration of civil-military logistics.
The successful defence of the region depends on the security of critical reinforcement approaches (including sea routes from the North Sea into the Baltic Sea region), logistics nodes, ports, air bases and chokepoints. Sweden and its allies must establish the necessary level of sea control to ensure safe passage and conduct sea denial to protect its maritime flanks, shipping and vital ports against enemy action. Sealift – with its flexibility, speed and mass – is critical for moving materiel, troops and supplies at scale, particularly when other routes are compromised. Like the UK, the Swedish government relies on commercial partners to provide strategic sealift through Roll-On Roll-Off (Ro-Ro) capacity.
Due to the limited capacity of small, specialised vessels, mass military logistics requires the use of larger vessels operating to and from a small number of deepwater ports. With only a few port facilities capable of supporting such operations, strategic supply hubs such as the port of Gothenburg – Scandinavia’s largest port and thus a critical point for reinforcement of heavy equipment for onward transportation – are vulnerable to various forms of sabotage, which calls for greater redundancy in the system. The ability to reinforce the Baltic region credibly contributes to deterring Russia from attempting a coup de main in the Baltic States.
The return of Russia as a major security threat has brought back the Total Defence model to national security as ‘the foundation of Sweden’s defence policy’. The 2024 Total Defence Bill (2025-2030) highlights the importance of civil-military collaboration to combat sustainability. Forming strategic partnerships and agreements with merchant shipping lines to complement and strengthen logistics capabilities is a core element to this effort. Part of a broader mission by the Swedish Armed Forces to ensure sufficient capacity to handle increased transit volumes, this involves the comprehensive task of selecting appropriate ship types, ensuring port capacity, insurance, crewing and legislation for efficient implementation.
Reinforcement and supply efforts must be multi-domain and cross-sector, supported by joint, integrated planning. An approach combining sea, land and air transport is essential to ensuring a resilient transport system.
Conditions in the Baltic Sea complicate logistical support efforts by restricting the use of certain vessels. Sweden and its allies must also contend with Russia’s land-based anti-ship and long-range strike capabilities and A2/AD umbrella which, alongside air attack and electronic warfare (EW), pose challenges to any resupply and reinforcement operation. Of particular concern are Russia’s missile bastion in Kaliningrad and missile brigade in St. Petersburg. In the past, ship losses had less impact due to higher defence industry production levels. Today, limited heavy equipment reserves make any loss a significant blow. For example, the sinking of a Point class Ro-Ro ship, capable of carrying approximately 220 Army vehicles, would result in the loss of 7% of the British Army’s 3,200 heavy vehicle inventory; a loss reminiscent of the Atlantic Conveyor in 1982. While such high-risk concentrations of high-value military cargo are unlikely, and a mix of military and civilian cargo is more common, it highlights the need for tailored protection approaches for sustaining military and civilian supply chains.
Reinforcement and supply efforts must be multi-domain and cross-sector, supported by joint, integrated planning. An approach combining sea, land and air transport is essential to ensuring a resilient transport system. The Swedish government has begun to make headway in this, for example having invested heavily in road and rail networks to transport heavy equipment from southern ports. Effective reinforcement and sustainment will depend not only on the availability of naval and commercial ships for port-to-port operations – the typical narrower focus of the navy – but on managing the end-to-end supply chain through the support of commercial logistics partners operating terminals, processing and support centres, and inland distribution networks. Furthermore, partnering with commercial logistics providers to expand shipyard capacity is vital for total defence and sustainment, ensuring that ships operating in the region can be maintained, serviced, towed and retrofitted as needed. This could include investing in movable assets such as barges. Maritime coastline logistics opportunities and resources – long underutilised – remain largely untapped and could play a significant role.
Several approaches can be explored to enhance maritime logistics resilience.
First, short of deterring seaborne invasion, the main function of the Swedish Navy is to safeguard shipping and critical supply lines. Maritime defences must be strengthened to protect vital sea lanes and ports in the face of Russian A2/AD capabilities. While Sweden has operated in this environment for some time, the Swedish Navy is primarily configured for coastal defence and sea denial, lacking sufficient escort capabilities. To safeguard supply lines between Swedish and foreign ports, frigates and destroyers will need to be assigned to close escorts or convoy duties of high-value cargo, although this is slowly changing, with an emphasis on surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), and the addition of four new Luleå class surface combatants (larger well-armed multi-role escort ships over 110 metres in length with enhanced air defence capabilities) by 2035. However, Sweden (as well as Finland, Poland and the Baltic States) currently lacks sufficient assets to provide such escorts, and the addition of some frigates is alone unlikely to be sufficient to protect the sheer volume of goods transiting the Baltic Sea.
This calls for complementary defences, including, but not limited to, combat air patrol (CAP) efforts, forward-deployed SAMs and allied ship contributions. Furthermore, the Total Defence Bill also introduced an expanded coastal missile capability, and the Swedish government is considering ‘dedicated logistics battalions’ to improve decision making on coastal deliveries. Modernising and expanding critical port infrastructure is also essential to enhance redundancy and reduce vulnerability, with Integrated Air and Missile Defence (IAMD) being the key to restoring maritime logistics redundancy. This includes plans to extend some ports’ capacity to accommodate ships over 200 metres in length.
Next, Sweden’s (and Finland’s) NATO membership has removed many barriers related to military planning, information sharing and logistics. There is opportunity for collaboration on logistical solutions within military frameworks, and between services and regional partners on joint patrols, exercises and intelligence sharing. Cooperation forums such as the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) will be instrumental in ensuring smooth cross-border transport and military mobility. Collaboration extends to commercial partners, where involvement in planning, joint exercises and information sharing can help streamline and scale logistics solutions. Involving civilian partners in peacetime exercises helps assess feasibility, strengthen preparedness, and enhance capacity and availability; incorporating the merchant marine should be a top priority. Furthermore, since the delivery of supplies to end-users – whether military units, facilities, or forward positions – depends on commercial military transport support, civil-military planning models must be prioritised. The shipping industry, with all the capabilities they bring to the table, can strengthen and support military logistics capabilities through end-to-end supply chain solutions. Sweden is looking to some of Norway’s more established approaches, which have privatised specific military logistics support services.
Finally, because Euro-Atlantic fleets have reached a point where they are expensive and lack sufficient scalability, capabilities which sit in the private sector must be leveraged to complement naval capability. The Euro-Atlantic holds significant advantage in terms of merchant vessels, logistics expertise, infrastructure and operational control. This includes, but is not limited to, the shipping sector’s ability to provide strategic lift capacity.
Securing commercial partnerships to address capacity gaps is critical to guarantee access to complementary ship capacity in times of increased demand. This involves assessing fleet requirements to identify suitable vessels (types, numbers, tonnage) for military and civilian sustainment needs. In Sweden, sufficient icebreaking capabilities to allow for cargo to leave ports year-round has been identified as a priority. Following such assessments, access to the necessary ship types – a reserve of national-flagged vessels in times of crisis – must be secured through contracts with commercial partners. The Swedish government is taking steps to incentivise national shipping and secure sufficient crews.
Sweden’s challenges highlight the complexity of sustaining large-scale operations in contested waters and provide key insights for the Royal Navy. First, the Swedish case emphasises the need for closer collaboration with commercial logistics providers – including the shipping community – in planning, exercises, capacity building and expertise. Second, the threats to maritime infrastructure in the region has significant implications for sea control strategies in the face of sophisticated A2/AD capabilities, both within and beyond the Baltic Sea. Finally, dialogue is needed to explore measures for protecting ships in conflict, including escort capacity in contested littoral zones and the Royal Navy’s role in supporting regional allies, alongside anti-submarine warfare commitments against Russia’s Northern Fleet.
Reinforcement considerations in the Baltic Sea region serve as a reminder of critical supply chain vulnerabilities. After years of underinvestment in maritime logistics, investment in robust transport capacity and protection measures to ensure military and civilian supply is required. Given that Baltic operations will require a combination of port-to-port transport and end-to-end logistics, a collaborative approach with commercial logistics partners, established in peacetime, will be essential.
So, what does this mean for the Royal Navy? Three primary recommendations arise from the examination of Sweden’s situation, although this list is by no means exhaustive.
Firstly, the Royal Navy needs to enhance its escort capabilities. It should bolster its ability to provide close escort for high-value logistics convoys. Increased frigate deployments, integrated air defence and convoy protection measures will be essential to ensuring secure reinforcement routes and uninterrupted supply chains.
Secondly, it needs to expand its civil-military logistics integration. Leveraging commercial shipping for strategic sealift is critical. Establishing agreements between British and allied merchant fleets, conducting joint exercises with commercial logistics providers and developing contingency plans to mobilise and protect civilian assets rapidly during crisis operations in the Baltic, should be prioritised.
Finally, the Royal Navy must strengthen regional maritime coordination. Deeper cooperation with Baltic allies through NATO frameworks, joint patrols, intelligence sharing and integrated escort planning will enhance deterrence, improve operational readiness and secure sea lines of communication for rapid force reinforcement.
Charlotte Kleberg is an Associate Fellow at the Council on Geostrategy and an Associate Fellow at the Royal Navy Strategic Studies Centre
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More Swedish paranoia and endless search for farting herrings in fjords please.
This piece is simply globalist justification, focused on hyping up the imaginary threats and providing justification for forceful realignment of Swedish state.