Fiscal Year	2021
Division	Research & Sponsored Programs
Department	NPS Naval Research Program
Investigator(s)	Abenheim, Donald
Sponsor	Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (Navy)
Summary	The strategic focus on enhanced forward presence of US and NATO forces in the Baltics must include maritime forces as vital to this theater of contemporary and possible future grey zone or high intensity conflict in great power competition with Putin's Russia and its allies. In bi lateral exchange between OPNAV with select Baltic NATO allies' navy staffs, discussion has examined the basing of an LCS Baltic ports with strong host nation support to meet and repel Russian Federation maritime Anti Access and Area denial operations. This study responds to a potential political military requirement to explore the issues listed below of policy, strategy, and operations in the USN, US armed forces in Europe and select allies as host nations.
Keywords	Baltic Deterrence Distributed Lethality Enhanced Forward Presence Fleet Design Fleet Posture Grey Zone Conflict Host Nation Support NATO Naval Bases Naval Operations Russia
Publications	Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal
Data	Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal