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Civilian communication efforts could expand support for resistance, engage external audiences, and build domestic morale

• Civilians could document and disseminate instances of repression to provoke outrage among international audiences.
• Baltic émigré communities could amplify messaging within their own communities, combat disinformation, and enhance support for their home countries' involvement in a Baltic crisis.

Civilians could help lead national continuity during a crisis

• Civilians could protect national institutions, providing clarity regarding the national chain of command, maintaining a focal point for foreign governments to engage, and reinforcing the illegitimacy of external aggression.

Clear separation of civilian and military roles would harness popular potential to inflict costs while protecting vulnerable populations

• Providing opportunities for low-risk activities could increase widespread participation and bolster morale. Providing institutional avenues for high-risk activities would ensure that civilians could engage in armed roles consistently with international law and without endangering civilians.

Economic emergency plans could buffer the impact of a crisis on civilians and increase costs to the adversary

• Economic planning could ensure the supply of vital goods and services, protect critical infrastructure, and deny an occupier access to resources.

Ultimately, allied military and economic interventions remain crucial

• Prompt conventional military intervention, likely through NATO, would represent the most significant factor in imposing military costs upon an aggressor.
• The most important nonmilitary costs, such as sanctions, would similarly require cooperation and sacrifice from international allies.

In the event of an occupation of Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania, a conventional military intervention by allies — including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union, and the United States — would be crucial for the Baltic countries to regain national independence. But Baltic civilians could play a powerful role in their own defense — and, in fact, the Baltic countries' constitutions and national security strategies highlight the importance of the willingness and preparedness of their civilians to meet external aggression with resilience and resistance. Increasingly, Baltic governments consider national military defense to be closely intertwined with nonmilitary capabilities, and each has introduced a whole-of-society approach into high-level strategy and policy documents.

RAND researchers sought to better understand the nature and effectiveness of contributions that Baltic civilians could make to a resistance campaign during a notional occupation. In this report, using an original analytical framework, the authors examine historic episodes of Baltic armed resistance from 1940 to 1955 and unarmed resistance from 1955 to 1991. Drawing from this analysis, the authors examine more-recent plans and policies to prepare Baltic populations for crises and consider the contributions that Baltic civilians could make during an occupation scenario by imposing costs on an adversary, securing external support, denying an occupier's political and economic consolidation, reducing an occupier's capacity for repression, and maintaining and expanding popular support for resistance. Finally, the authors present recommendations for how allies and partners can support the Baltic countries in strengthening civilian capacity for resilience and resistance.

• Chapter One

  Introduction

• Chapter Two

  Proximate Resistance Objectives for Civilians Under Occupation

• Chapter Three

  Armed Resistance in the Baltic States (1940–1955)

• Chapter Four

  Unarmed Resistance in the Baltic States (1955–1991)

• Chapter Five

  Current Preparation and Capabilities for Resistance

• Chapter Six

  Findings and Recommendations