Denmark Practices Heavily-Guarded Convoy Operations in the Baltic

Denmark's military is practicing merchant-ship convoy operations with heavy escort protection in the Baltic, a demonstration of what it would likely deploy in a conflict with a regional adversary.

Denmark operates an advance base at Camp Valdemar, Latvia, part of the NATO shield protecting the Baltic states from the threat of a Russian invasion - a longstanding war-planning scenario based on stated Kremlin policy, a decadal history of Soviet control over the region, and recent "hybrid attacks" on NATO states, widely attributed to Russia.

To deploy new combat elements to Camp Valdemar, the Danish battalion chartered a commercial freight ferry from DFDS. Last week, the unit's armor and logistics vehicles were loaded out on the ferry. Under heavy guard - protected by a patrol vessel, the Danish Navy frigate Esben, a P-8 antisubmarine warfare aircraft provided by the British military, and fighter jets from Turkey, Denmark and Sweden - the convoy set out for Latvia. It arrived without incident, and the unit's vehicles were offloaded.

While the convoy did not encounter opposition in the current quasi-peacetime environment, the brief voyage illustrates NATO planners' concerns: the risk of submarine attack in the confined, shallow waters of the Baltic, combined with the Russian capabilities staged at the naval base in Kaliningrad.

"With our deployment to Latvia, we show Denmark's willingness to create a strong collective defense of NATO's eastern flank and thus deter potential adversaries from attacking our allies," said Lieutenant Colonel Karina Wøbbe in a statement.