[War & Business] Russia's 'Great Northern War' Resumes After 300 Years

On the 23rd of last month, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson (left) and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orb?n (right) shook hands at a meeting held in Budapest, the capital of Hungary.
[Image source=EPA·Yonhap News]

With Sweden completely abandoning its neutrality policy for the first time in 200 years and confirming its accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Russia has become completely isolated in the Baltic Sea. This is because Germany, Poland, and the three Baltic states surrounding the Baltic Sea, followed by Finland and Sweden, have all joined NATO, turning the Baltic Sea into a NATO lake.

As a result, NATO has expanded its membership to the largest number since its founding in 1949, achieving external expansion, but a direct confrontation with Russia has become inevitable. Within Russia, radical claims to reclaim the Baltic Sea are already pouring in. There are even concerns that the ‘Great Northern War’ between Sweden and Russia, which lasted 21 years around the Baltic Sea about 300 years ago in 1700, could resume.

For Russia, the Baltic Sea has been like a leash both in the 18th century and now. Since the Baltic Sea route is the only passage from the Russian mainland to Europe, if this route is blocked, both exports and imports will suffer significant disruptions. Unlike the pipelines built over decades to Europe, the gas pipelines to China and India, which have emerged as major customers after the Ukraine war, are still insufficient.

Many oil tankers still have to pass through the Baltic Sea to reach China and India, but ensuring navigation safety has become difficult. Moreover, the oil tankers currently transporting Russian oil consist of specialized oil smuggling fleets operating to evade sanctions from the United States and the European Union (EU). If NATO blocks the movements of these oil tankers transporting Russian oil in the Baltic Sea on the grounds of cracking down on such smuggling, sanctions against Russia could escalate into an unprecedentedly severe economic embargo.

This is also why the Russian government is reacting more strongly than ever against Sweden’s NATO accession and resorting to dangerous rhetoric. The reason why the Russian ruling party is promoting President Vladimir Putin, who is facing his fifth election this month, by comparing him to ‘Peter the Great,’ the leader during the Great Northern War, is also connected to Sweden’s NATO accession.

NATO, which now holds Russia’s leash, is not entirely comfortable either. As the Ukraine war enters its third year, the stockpiles of shells in major European countries have already been depleted. For at least the next 10 years, peace must be maintained without Russian military provocations to build up the military strength necessary to respond to a direct confrontation with Russia.

However, Russia will not quietly wait for this European rearmament period. Already, the pro-Russian separatist forces in Moldova, a neighboring country of Ukraine, and the Transnistrian autonomous government have requested assistance from Russia. This overlaps with the pro-Russian separatist forces in Donetsk and Luhansk, bordering Russia just before the Ukraine war, raising the possibility of escalation.

If Moldova becomes a second battlefield, the situation will unfold on a completely different level from Ukraine. Moldova itself is not a NATO member, but Romania, a neighboring country sharing the same ethnic identity as Moldova, is a NATO member. If Romania, which considers unification with Moldova a national agenda, does not tolerate a Russian invasion of Moldova, a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia could indeed break out.

Amid these numerous 21st-century scenarios of a Great Northern War by Russia, Northeast Asian countries adjacent to Primorsky Krai are also under threat of Russian provocations. Since the Russo-Japanese War, Russia has alternately pursued expansionist policies on the European and Northeast Asian fronts, shaking the Western global strategy. The Korean Peninsula, standing right in the middle, must not let its guard down.