By Sebastian Bruns and Julian Pawlak*
“The Baltic Sea has grown to a never-seen strategic significance in the past years.” This is how Vice Admiral Andreas Krause, former Chief of the German Navy (2014-2021), described the current situation of what is sometimes referred to as a ‘flooded meadow’ in naval circles. This nickname for the Baltic Sea originated as a description for the marginal and shallow basin that characterizes the operating environment, but has also been used to describe the relative calm of this theatre between 1991 and 2014. It is remarkable that Krause, who joined the West German Cold War Bundesmarine as a career submariner, would attribute an even larger strategic role to the contemporary Baltic than during the superpower confrontation.
