Naval and air command of the Mediterranean is one of the truly great strategic assets of the Western coalition, in its task of defending free Europe against encroachment or attack from the east. Because they command the Mediterranean Sea, the Western Powers can support such valued allies as Turkey and Greece, can maintain access to Middle Eastern oil sources, and could in wartime utilize this 2000-mile sea corridor for offensive operations to the north and east of the Aegean Sea area if necessary. But NATO has no comparable advantage in the Baltic Sea, which flanks the northern shore of the main peninsula of Europe. As things stand today, the Baltic Sea is pretty much a Russian lake. It is made so by geography and by political and military domination of most of its shore line by the Soviet Union.
Nevertheless, there are political forces at work in Scandinavia which should reduce the danger in this vital region. These forces, combined with the extension of NATO power to Denmark and Norway, probably can be relied on to prevent the Russians from seizing and utilizing the whole Baltic area as the Germans did with such telling effect in World War II. It is the purpose of this article to survey the geographic, military, and political factors and developments of this area, with a view to evaluating its over-all role in the defensive strategy of the West.
The Baltic Sea is about 900 miles long and from 50 to 400 miles in breadth. It is comparatively shallow, averaging 40 to 50 fathoms, and slopes from quite shallow water along the Polish-German coast downward to deep water, as much as 230 fathoms, along the Swedish coast. The water is colder and clearer than the oceans generally, and less salty. The tides are negligible, but whimsical winds at times create some serious navigation problems. For three to four months of the year, large areas of the Baltic are frozen. There are three natural exits through the Danish Islands, the Oeresund (The Sound), the Great Belt, and the Little Belt. The first of these, between Sweden and Denmark, is the usual commercial route. In addition, there is one man-made exit, the Kiel ship canal, which saves up to 500 miles for vessels plying between Baltic ports and those of western Europe and beyond.
Centuries ago, the Baltic was a theater of nearly continuous war, chiefly involving Sweden, Denmark, and Russia. For the last century and a half, the history of the Baltic has been more placid, even though two world wars have surged around its perimeter. In recent decades, the Baltic has been dominated by German naval power most of the time. During the German attack on Russia in 1941, German naval forces utilized the Baltic effectively for support of ground forces advancing into the region of the Gulf of Finland. Later, Soviet sea forces used it in reverse for support of Red army operations westward across the northern plain of Europe. In two world wars, the Baltic was of greatest strategic significance as a protected sea route on which high-grade Swedish iron ore was brought to Germany. In neither of those wars did Allied sea forces attempt seriously to penetrate the Baltic and assert their maritime strength inside. With the eclipse of Germany as a sea and air power in 1945, the Russians moved quickly into the vacuum so created in the Baltic.
Today the Soviet Union has a considerable and growing fleet. Besides an estimated 350 submarines, constituting its principal naval arm, it has at least three battleships, fifteen cruisers, and sixty-five destroyers, as well as minecraft and torpedo vessels, plus naval aircraft to the number of possibly 1000. A large part of this navy, possibly half of it, is normally concentrated in the Baltic, which the Russians naturally regard as their principal sea frontier. Naval power, however, is not the key to Soviet control of the Baltic. It is the other way ’round. Because the Soviet Union controls most of the perimeter of the Baltic, it can safely maintain the bulk of its surface and undersea forces there and assert command of those waters.
It is likely that the Red Fleet keeps far more submarines in the Baltic than it can possibly use to advantage there. But this, we must suppose, is only in anticipation of a time when adequate facilities are completed at Arctic and Far Eastern ports. It is also possible that a surplus of Red submarines is kept in the Baltic on the theory that initial land operations early in any future war would make submarine bases available to the west—in Denmark, for example, or on the North Sea coast of Germany. A pattern for such use of North Sea ports was set by the Germans and vastly augmented the effectiveness of their submarine fleet.
The strategic stakes of the Baltic area are imposing—much greater than a mere canvass of its human and material resources might suggest. The four nations—Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland—have a total population of only eighteen and one-half millions. And aside from fishing and forest industries, they have an industrial development that is remarkable only for the fact that it has been achieved with such scanty natural resources at hand. Sweden, the most heavily industrialized, labors under the tragic handicap of having no good coking coal, so it exports most of its iron ore instead of becoming a major steel producer.
From the Soviet standpoint, the strategic value of the Baltic lies first in the opportunity to deny the Western powers access to the area—by controlling the exits, or by dominating the waters of the Baltic itself, or by commanding enough of the shore line. While they can do this, the Russians protect the northern flank of their all-important position in Middle Europe. The north European plain is their avenue westward. If its northern flank were accessible to western sea and air-sea power, as the Mediterranean flank of Europe now is, Russia would find its superiority in infantry and armor in Middle Europe to be a flimsy advantage. Instead, it has an enormous initial advantage as its ground forces face those of the NATO coalition on the main peninsula of Europe.
In reverse, Soviet command of the Baltic area confers the means of developing bases for aerial or submarine onslaught against Great Britain. Thus it has an offensive value as well as defensive, although for the Russians this probably will remain secondary, since Soviet striking power lies in ground forces. For the Germans, in 1939-40, it was otherwise. Theirs was a military machine for precision offensive operations, a machine of great striking power and mobility combining ground, sea, and air forces in close coordination'. They seized Denmark and most of Norway in a single day, and largely by fifth- column methods, not so much to protect their northern flank as to gain the means of striking new offensive blows. Norway offers especially strong positions from which to deploy air power and naval power against the British Isles. Denmark offers that control of the exits by which naval forces in the Baltic can be put to use in the open oceans. A secondary but not negligible advantage, for the Soviet Union, lies in the fact that positions in northern Norway are squarely on the flank of the sea communication line by which American or British air-sea forces might strike at the Petsamo-Murmansk area and the Soviet Arctic generally.
In respect to natural resources, the most important stake in the Baltic area is the ore of Swedish Lapland. Before World War II, Sweden was third (after the United States and France) in production of iron ore. Displaced by the Soviet Union since, it remains fourth on the list today, approximately matching the production of Great Britain. Swedish iron deposits are scattered, but those of first magnitude are in the extreme north, above the Arctic Circle, near Gallivare and Kiruna. The ore there is a very high-grade hematite, about sixty-five per cent iron content. Nearly all is exported as ore.
Currently, this ore goes to the Western bloc nations. During World War II, it was carried to Germany via the Gulf of Bothnia, and was a major increment to the German war effort. The protection of this ore route alone would have justified the German Norwegian campaign, so great was the value of Sweden’s ore. The U.S.S.R. of course has potential access to this ore field, by land across Finland, as well as by sea. And the Soviet Union is not indifferent to this great strategic resource, so temptingly close to Russian territory in terms of miles. This was shown when the Soviet Government insisted on Finland constructing a railway across the middle of the country linking the Russian rail system with that of northern Sweden. This was needed, from the Soviet standpoint, not to bring back ores, which can better be carried by sea, but to insure the means of striking quickly into northern Sweden if necessary, to make certain which way the ore goes from Kiruna-Gallivare.
In comparative terms, Swedish iron ore output is impressive. In 1949 production was fourteen million long tons, and in 1950 exports alone came to fifteen million tons, or close to one half of the production of the Soviet Union. Major capital investments are being made in the Lapland fields at present, so ore output should increase by forty per cent by 1955. It is conceivable that Sweden may move ahead of the Soviet Union once more and even rival France as the largest producer of ore outside the western hemisphere. At a time when the United States is developing new sources of ore as far away as Labrador and Venezuela to supplement its dwindling domestic supply, we must expect that our chief rival in world politics, the U.S.S.R., is looking at this singularly rich, compact ore field in Sweden, only 200 miles from Soviet territory, with covetous eyes.
Mindful of all these strategic advantages arising from geography or natural resources, Soviet leaders have worked steadily to extend and tighten their control of the area. Having no hope for outright capture of the Scandinavian states as satellites, however, they have aimed at (1) neutralization of these countries and (2) extension of their own dominance of the Baltic Sea itself.
Russia’s present hegemony in the area results from a long succession of political and other developments. After their two wars with Finland, the Russians not only “rectified” their frontier in the Lake Ladoga region but acquired a naval base at Porkkala, commanding the entrance to the Gulf of Finland and supplementing the base just opposite, at Tallinn. Meantime, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were added to the Soviet Union, providing a succession of defensive positions along the eastern shore of the Baltic. In time, East Prussia was consolidated into the Soviet system, partly by annexation and partly by inclusion in a satellite Poland. As Poland was brought fully under Communist control, a great segment of the southern shore of the Baltic was made secure for Soviet purposes. And in the division of Germany into four occupation zones, the Soviet Union extended its de facto control westward to Lubeck, to within forty miles of the Kiel Canal.
The change is a startling one. In 1939, the Russians had no actual control of any Baltic shore except for a few miles on either side of Leningrad and Kronstadt, at the head of the Gulf of Finland. Ten years later, they controlled the entire eastern and southern shore from the head of the Gulf of Bothnia around to a point quite near the Danish frontier. In terms of miles, the Soviet Union increased its effective frontage on the Baltic from less than 100 miles to more than 1800 miles. Only Sweden and Denmark remained outside the Soviet Union’s Baltic system, after Finland fell into line in 1948 with a treaty pledging that it would make no international agreement inconsistent with a policy of friendship and non-aggression with the Soviet Union.
Pursuing their Baltic policy with single- minded thoroughness, Soviet leaders also took from the Finns by treaty a patch of territory in the extreme north, including Petsamo and its ice-free fjord. This not only gave Russia a port superior to nearby Murmansk, but also a common frontier with Norway. While that common frontier is only seventy-five miles long and is in forbidding country, it is a useful thing for war-of-nerves purposes and conceivably for actual invasion of northern Norway without involving Finland. This territorial change supplemented the unsuccessful Soviet campaign of several years to induce Norway to share with the U.S.S.R. the responsibility for defense of Svalbard (Spitzbergen), 400 miles north of the Norwegian Cape. It is worth noting, incidentally, that of the fourteen NATO countries, only Norway and Turkey have common frontiers with the Soviet Union. These are at the extreme ends of the European defense line—at the North Cape, and along the Caucasus range, in easternmost Anatolia.
By still another provision of the settlement with Finland, the Soviet Government obliged the Finns to complete construction of the east-west railroad across Finland. This railroad, although of no economic value to anybody, links Kandalaksha, on the Murmansk- Leningrad route, with Kemi, at the head of the Gulf of Bothnia, which in turn is linked with the Swedish iron ore fields and with Narvik and Tromso, on the Atlantic coast of northern Norway. Thus the Finns were compelled to build a railroad so that the Russians might use it as a threat against both Sweden and Norway.
Along the Arctic Circle, where any war is cold, the cold war has been waged with significant vigor. But Moscow did not get all it went after, by any means. The Finns have not yielded an inch on their firm stand against Communism within their own borders, which makes Finland something of a buffer. And had the Norwegians yielded on the issue of Svalbard, Russia at once would have had a north-south line of valuable positions—Petsamo, Bear Island, some 200 miles to the north, and Svalbard, 200 miles farther and lying half way between the Soviet Arctic and the northern margin of Greenland—-which is becoming the American Arctic, for military purposes. Thus Norway’s firmness has become a major asset to the NATO coalition.
Another important effort of Soviet Baltic policy was revealed at the end of 1948, when the Scandinavian nations were casting about for some mutual security formula. The North Atlantic Pact was in the blueprint stage. All the Scandinavian nations were potential members. But Sweden was (and still is) in a very different position from the others. Finland, sometimes considered one of the Scandinavian countries and for a long time part of Sweden, was already a prisoner of the Soviet Union, by the cold logic of geography. Denmark and Norway, facing away from the Baltic and into the Atlantic, were strongly disposed to align openly with the Western Powers, whose command of the open oceans was an assurance of strong support in an emergency. But Sweden, facing into the Baltic, greatly dependent for sea transport and fisheries on this Soviet-dominated sea, was understandably cautious. As an alternative to a pact that would antagonize and perhaps provoke Russia, Stockholm proposed a Scandinavian security pact'—a neutral bloc standing between the projected NATO combination and the Soviet world. Denmark for a time also urged the formation of such a bloc.
Rightly or wrongly—and as events have turned out, it would appear wrongly from the Soviet viewpoint—Moscow chose to thwart the independent Scandinavian defense union. Soviet policy-makers feared that such a bloc eventually would swing to the orbit of the West, and so they made an intensive campaign of propaganda and pressure against it. The Swedish-Danish scheme collapsed partly because of this hostile Soviet pressure and also because the United States made it clear that such an independent Scandinavian bloc could not expect arms and other aid from the West. But the breakdown of this scheme of course led Denmark and Norway to enter the North Atlantic alliance. And it is a safe guess now that this is much more disadvantageous to the Soviet Union than an independent, neutral Scandinavian bloc would have been.
Moscow threw away its chance to neutralize the whole of Scandinavia and keep it outside the structure of NATO. In a tardy effort to compensate, it has since tried to get the Finns to press for a nordic neutrality bloc of some sort—a plan that is getting nowhere. And in a further effort to salvage something from its Baltic blunder, Moscow also is intensifying its pressure on Sweden. This was made easier because the net result of the entry of Denmark and Norway into NATO was to leave Sweden completely isolated.
Just as happened when they succeeded in isolating Czechoslovakia and Hungary, the Russians began to use direct, coercive tactics against Sweden. They first extended their territorial waters (by unilateral action) from the customary three or four miles to twelve. They commenced to seize Swedish fishing craft whenever found near the twelve-mile limit, as a systematic device of continuous harassment. They made more and more trouble for Swedish (and Danish) craft that entered Soviet-controlled Baltic ports. They also intensified their espionage activities in Sweden, operating directly from the Soviet embassy at Stockholm. Or at least they did until seven Swedish citizens were caught red- handed, early last summer, passing military secrets to the Russians for pay, and were brought to trial.
Only in fairly recent months have the Swedish people begun to get a full picture of the penetration of their country by Communists, native and Russian. From 1945 to 1947, the Swedish Communist leader, Hilding Hagberg, belonged to the special commission for the reorganization of Sweden’s national defense—with access to top secret military data. Even in 1949 the Swedish Prime Minister was still evading parliamentary debate on the question of retaining Communists in high government positions. Soviet espionage, the recent trials have revealed, was directed towards Stockholm, the capital; Goteborg, the chief commercial seaport; and most especially the iron ore railway from Lulea, on the Gulf of Bothnia, through Kiruna to Narvik.
During the last year, however, Swedish Communists have lost their hold on many key labor unions, in Goteborg and in the mining areas of Lapland. Parallel with this is a decline in Communist voting strength in all of Sweden. The trend has been strongly anti- Communist, and undoubtedly will be even more so in months to come, after the disclosures of espionage of this past summer.
This war of nerves against the Swedes—in diplomacy, economics, and espionage—came to some sort of climax in June of 1952, when Soviet jet fighters shot down an unarmed Swedish Air Force Catalina, over international waters, while it was on a mercy mission. Possibly, Soviet fighters also shot down the Swedish training plane for which the Catalina was searching when it met disaster. The angry reaction of the Swedish government and people at the time suggested that in this case Moscow overplayed its hand. Sweden is in some measure a prisoner of Baltic geography; but it is not a satellite and does not mean to become one. Stockholm not only sent out its own jet fighters with orders to “shoot to kill,” but launched a program to expand its air and sea power. Thus, although Sweden still holds to a scrupulous neutrality between the two great power blocs, she means to make it a neutrality of strength, not of weakness.
Meantime, Soviet policy-makers are engaged in a still different diplomatic offensive. They are setting out a doctrine that the Baltic is by legal and historical right a “closed sea,” that it may be closed to the naval vessels of “third parties” whenever the Baltic coastal states may choose. This is analogous to the proposal made earlier by the Soviet Union that all the Black Sea Powers join to form a Black Sea league which would determine the conditions on which naval vessels of other states might enter the Black Sea. This was a poorly camouflaged attempt to induce the Turks to yield a share in the control and defense of the Straits to Russia. Seeing through the camouflage, Turkey scotched that project. And so far the Swedes and Danes have shown no enthusiasm for the parallel effort of the Russians to make the Baltic a closed sea.
The unfinished business of Soviet Baltic policy, then, consists of two chief matters— completion of the process of neutralizing and isolating Sweden and preparation of the means of seizing the entrances to the Baltic, in event of hostilities. At present, the Soviet Union has in the Baltic alone naval tonnage easily three times that of Sweden, whose fleet is the only real counter-weight to Soviet sea forces in the area. Soviet air superiority is even greater, despite the fact that Sweden’s air force is probably the third-strongest in Europe.
But superiority, even in a confined area such as the Baltic, does not necessarily insure the collapse of the weaker nation in a cold- war situation. Swedish leaders made the choice some years ago to avoid alliances and to trust in strict neutrality. And in so doing they accepted the hazards of becoming isolated. Now it begins to appear that Moscow is not willing to let them remain a neutral buffer in the Baltic area. In that dilemma, it is not at all likely that Sweden will succumb to Soviet threats and coercive measures. Sweden is not in the position of Czechoslovakia, when it was isolated and marked for seizure by Communist forces. Its position is more akin to that of Turkey or Yugoslavia, each of whom fronted on the Mediterranean and therefore could be supported by sea from the West. When the screws were tightened on the Turks after the war, they responded by defiance, by strengthening their forces, and by joining openly with the United States, eventually, entering the North Atlantic Pact. When the heat was turned on Yugoslavia in earnest, three years ago, Marshal Tito broke with the Comin- form and the Soviet Union, and set about developing a close working relationship with the Western democracies, even though it did not go to the length of a formal alliance.
Sweden’s position is roughly comparable, in military geography, even though its tradition and attitude are altogether different. It does not have the large combat forces that Turkey and Yugoslavia have, nor the chip- on-the-shoulder spirit. But neither is Sweden so directly exposed to Soviet ground force strength as they are. Sweden does have a great military tradition, however, a good and rather large air force, and a first-class armament industry. Most important of all, Sweden has a west coast, as well as an east coast. From the narrow Oeresund northwards for 200 miles, Sweden fronts on the Cattegat and Skagerrak, which are a broad arm of the North Sea—strategically not part of the Baltic system. Its chief seaport, Goteborg, is on this shore, outside the prison of the Baltic, and is well connected with all parts of the country by rail.
It is a reasonable guess, therefore, that if Moscow does not have the good sense and self-restraint to leave the Swedes to the enjoyment of the neutrality they have chosen, Stockholm will go the way of Ankara and Belgrade, and swing towards the orbit of the West, rather than knuckle under as Finland and Czechoslovakia have done (in very different ways). Conceivably, Sweden can be driven into the arms of the western coalition, although it would take more than pinpricks and idle threats. But it is difficult to visualize her being coaxed or cajoled by the Western democracies into joining their camp. And it is still more difficult to imagine her swinging the other way and aligning with Russia, unless she were made the victim of actual military force and were simultaneously deserted by the Western powers.
Whatever the outcome of the persistent pressure campaign against Sweden, the Soviet Union has a still tougher nut to crack at the Oeresund and the Great Belt—parallel exits from the Baltic. Given their clear-cut naval and air superiority in the Baltic, the Russians probably can rely on its remaining more or less a Russian lake for an indefinite time, and in war as well as in peace. But this only enables the Soviet Union to deny the Baltic to the Western allies. It still does not enable the Red Fleet to use the Baltic with its many protected ports as a great base with the characteristics of a sanctuary, for naval operations. Nor does it give the Soviet Union those commanding positions on the Atlantic coast of Scandinavia which the Germans seized with lightning speed and then used with such deadly effect. In two world wars, the Danes promptly mined the Sound and the Belt, and successfully enforced respect for their policy—until in 1940 the Germans took Denmark entire and became the masters of the passages into the Cattegat.
As a member of NATO, Denmark today is a forward extension of that massive coalition. It will function in any future emergency, not as a weak and uncertain neutral, but as the extended arm of a major alliance with unified forces of land, sea, and air. Therefore, if the Baltic is closed to the forces of the West, it probably will be because they do not choose to operate in the Baltic with all the hazards involved, and not because its entrances are beyond their control. Turned around, this means that Soviet forces in the Baltic are likely to be impounded there, as German surface naval forces were, and limited to roles and missions related exclusively to the Baltic area. Like the Black Sea fleet, the Red Baltic fleet could be immobilized.
To achieve this measure of security for themselves, however, the Western Allies must plug up the weakest gap in their Baltic defense line—the low, flat ground between the Iron Curtain at Lubeck and the Danish frontier at Flensburg, seventy miles to the northwest. It is this direct, obvious vulnerability to Soviet ground-force strength in East Germany that underlies the defeatism of the Danes. Nor can one blame them very much, if he troubles to recall the events of April 9, 1940. The people of Copenhagen were bicycling to work that morning when they met a column of German soldiers marching toward the Royal Palace. It was not, as many of them thought, a sequence being shot for a movie. The Palace Guard fired, the fire was returned, and the King at once sent his adjutant out to stop the shooting before anybody was hurt. So Denmark was captured by the Wehrmacht.
That disillusioning experience helped to persuade the Danes to join the North Atlantic Pact, so that any future attack on Denmark would automatically be an attack on the United States and other NATO members. But it also has persuaded them of the futility of trying—a nation of four and a quarter million people—to accumulate the troops and weapons for a serious defense, when natural defenses are wholly lacking and Soviet-controlled territory is only seventy miles from their frontier. Danish military expenditure in 1949-50 was only two per cent of national income, compared to outlays twice to three times that percentage in Great Britain and Holland. Even with the augmented defense program adopted by the Western coalition, the Danes, with a long tradition of neutrality, are spending only three per cent of their income for armament —the lowest of all the NATO countries (except Iceland, which has no armed forces).
Nevertheless, by the simple, daring act of joining NATO, Denmark has closed the back door to Sweden and Norway and the vital Sound and Belt. For to repeat the German invasion, the Soviet Union would have to commit an act of war against all the fourteen members of NATO. Denmark’s decision was more an act of faith than adoption of a military policy. And, supplemented by Norway’s much more vigorous participation in NATO, it makes the Swedish policy of neutrality viable. If Denmark and Norway were not in the NATO system, Sweden by now would be under immensely greater pressure to align with Russia.
Denmark’s present usefulness to the Swedes is worth noting carefully. Land invasion of Sweden is possible only across northern Finland—an unattractive enterprise for the Russians on several counts. But for a country with powerful land forces in possession of Denmark, Sweden would be an easier prey. At its narrowest point, the Sound is only three and one-half miles wide. The military problem there (once the political problem of invading a neutral nation is resolved) is essentially that of a river crossing. Fortunately, the salinity of the water has increased or else winter temperatures have changed, in two centuries. For in time past, the Sound occasionally froze solid. And once when that happened, King Charles X of Sweden marched an army across on the ice to win a history-making victory over Denmark. The Sound has not frozen over since 1740, however, and so it seems improbable that nature will play into the hands of any power seeking to invade Sweden the easy way.
In terms of their own politics, the Scandinavian states have been moving towards a stronger anti-Communist position. And this is important, for a fifth column supporting the Communists could be just as disastrous in the future as was the fifth column supporting the Nazis in 1940. After World War II, there was a small, although potentially dangerous, hard core of Communist strength in all four countries. But with the seizure of Czechoslovakia by the Communists in 1948, the atmosphere changed abruptly. Responsible men in all of Scandinavia realized that an amiable posture towards the Soviet Union would not insure their being left alone. Elections in Denmark since then show a reduction in Communist strength. In Sweden the Communist vote dropped from 11.2 per cent of the total in 1946 to five per cent in 1950. In Norway and even in Finland, the numbers and influence of the Communists fell away.
In view of this political trend and of the sharp resentment towards Soviet encroachments and provocative incidents, it would seem that little change in the alignment in the Baltic area is to be expected. The Danes and Norwegians are firmly wedded to the North Atlantic alliance. They are adding to their own defenses and correlating them with NATO strategy. Sweden is firmly committed to neutrality, despite the agitation of a few articulate leaders who favor a western alliance. Finland appears settled in its paradoxical role—beating down its Communists at home with firmness but being Russia’s prisoner on vital foreign policy questions. Having advanced westward to Lubeck and northward to the head of the Gulf of Bothnia, Russia has a firm grip on the Baltic Sea. But she has no good prospect of extending her domination to Sweden, Norway, or Denmark, unless by overt moves with superior force that would cast the die for general war.
The problem for the Western Powers, therefore, is no longer diplomatic in character. It is rather to make those preparations which will insure effective defense of the Danish islands and sea passages, and also protect the northernmost part of Norway— the two most vulnerable sectors in the entire Scandinavian segment of that vital line from the North Cape to the Caucasus.
Given Russia’s control of so large a part of the perimeter of the Baltic Sea, and given the fact of Swedish neutrality, NATO’s strategic planners must acquiesce in a far less satisfactory position in northern Europe than they have in southern Europe. In the foreseeable conditions surrounding hostilities, they cannot hope to use the Baltic as they can confidently expect to use the Mediterranean. But it is also true, and somewhat more comforting, that while the Baltic is pretty much a Russian lake, the Scandinavian area as a whole is just as much a buffer for the West as it is a bastion for the Soviet Union.
One other encouraging fact emerges from a survey of the Baltic region. In the present circumstances of nervous peace, the western coalition has a far better opportunity to build up its strength in Norway and Denmark and northwestern Germany than has the Soviet Union to extend its domination of Scandinavia beyond its present limits. But to do this, we shall need a judicious combination of policies—of steady build-up of our own forces and bases, of prodding our allies, and of discretion in dealing with Sweden, whose neutral role is not only unique but is also the key to a delicate balance of power in the Baltic.