Countering Hostilities in the Cultural Domain 2025

The project supports Nordic-Baltic states and regional organisations in:

a) Assessing current work across the Baltic Sea states on handling defence-related challenges in the cultural domain;
b) Aligning thinking, projects, and initiatives, and sharing identified lessons;
c) Exploring needs and options for capacity development, alignment, and cooperation.

The considered field of action straddles protection, preservation, and mitigation—ranging from military strategic communication to hybrid threats and broader cognitive domain issues.

The project reflects how challenges related to cultural heritage and culture, from a defence and security perspective, have shifted entirely from out-of-area operations (whether led by NATO, the UN, or a coalition) to in-area considerations. Consequently, the focus is now directed inwards—towards nations’ own cultural spaces—and therefore includes a much broader and deeper understanding of what may constitute critical cultural elements, both tangible and intangible.