Poland And Sweden Conduct Gotland Sentry Drill To Safeguard NATO Corridors Across The Baltic Sea.

Poland and Sweden launched “Gotland Sentry,” a short-notice drill to stress rapid Baltic defense and protect NATO reinforcement routes via strategic Gotland.

On 22 September, 2025, Poland and Sweden initiated the first-ever bilateral Short Notice Exercise known as GOTLAND SENTRY, a rapid-deployment drill led by Poland’s Operational Command and Sweden’s Joint Forces Command to test combat readiness in the Baltic Sea’s most sensitive corridors. The exercise showcases short-fuse alerting, compressed planning and high-tempo operations that stress real-world decision chains. It matters because control of the Baltic’s air-sea-land approaches underpins allied reinforcement routes and deterrence credibility in Northern Europe, as reported by the Polish Armed Forces.

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GOTLAND SENTRY demonstrates that a political partnership has matured into a credible operational instrument. By proving that Polish and Swedish forces can deploy dedicated components rapidly, integrate command structures and refine collective defense procedures in the Baltic’s demanding environment, the two nations strengthen deterrence where it matters most, at speed, at scale and in the open (Picture source: Swedish Armed Forces)

GOTLAND SENTRY is designed around the SNEX (Short Notice Exercise) concept, which minimizes advance notice to participating units and compels staffs to execute under the time pressure that would accompany a crisis. Polish and Swedish elements are tasked to surge by air, sea and land, synchronize command-and-control across national lines, and validate procedures for collective defense. Beyond the mechanics, the drill functions as an operational message: Warsaw and Stockholm can generate, move and employ combat-credible forces at speed, and their headquarters can shift from routine posture to contingency footing without a long ramp-up. That message is amplified by Sweden’s status as one of NATO’s newest members and by the explicit focus on Baltic Sea security, where shipping lanes, seabed infrastructure and air corridors intersect with the anti-access bubbles emanating from Kaliningrad.

The bilateral format has firm roots in a growing operational history. Polish and Swedish units have long met at sea and in the air during multinational Baltic frameworks such as BALTOPS and Northern Coasts, building familiarity in maritime domain awareness, anti-submarine warfare, air defense coordination and search-and-rescue. The two countries deepened this into a structured track with their recent defense cooperation agreement, which calls for closer work in joint Baltic operations and defense technologies. GOTLAND SENTRY takes that political framework and translates it into a rehearsal of practical tasks: joint task organization on short notice, the rapid protection of key terrain such as Gotland and the Polish littoral, and the establishment of interoperable communications and targeting across allied networks.

The advantages of this approach are operational, technological and psychological. Operationally, a SNEX compresses timelines and exposes friction points, movement permissions, port and airfield throughput, logistics staging, bandwidth constraints, and then forces commanders to solve them at pace. Units prove not just that they can deploy, but that they can integrate sensors and shooters, share tracks, deconflict fires and sustain themselves under tempo. Technologically, the drill refines interoperability in data links, electronic warfare resilience and blue force tracking, while offering a live laboratory for coalition command-and-control. Psychologically, it underlines to allies that reinforcement routes are viable and to adversaries that any vacuum in the central Baltic can be filled quickly by cohesive forces.

Strategically, the implications for Russia are clear. Rapid Polish-Swedish integration narrows Moscow’s window for local advantage, complicates the Baltic Fleet’s operating picture and raises the costs of any coercive move against sea lines of communication or Baltic partners. The ability to surge onto Gotland, a central lookout over maritime and air corridors, helps deny freedom of action to assets based in Kaliningrad and constrains options for hybrid pressure at sea or across the electromagnetic spectrum.

Geopolitically, the exercise knits together NATO’s northern flank, ties the Baltic more tightly into the Alliance’s reinforcement calculus, and signals that regional security architecture is shifting from episodic cooperation to standing readiness. Geostrategically, it protects undersea cables and energy links, secures the approaches to critical ports and airfields, and shores up the land bridge that connects the Baltic region to the rest of Europe. Militarily, it validates the ability to mass air defense, maritime patrol, mine countermeasures and strike assets under a single, agile command framework that can move from peacetime surveillance to crisis response without losing tempo.

GOTLAND SENTRY demonstrates that a political partnership has matured into a credible operational instrument. By proving that Polish and Swedish forces can deploy dedicated components rapidly, integrate command structures and refine collective defense procedures in the Baltic’s demanding environment, the two nations strengthen deterrence where it matters most, at speed, at scale and in the open. The takeaway is straightforward: the Baltic balance is increasingly defined by how quickly capable allies can act, and this SNEX shows that Poland and Sweden intend to act faster than any threat can exploit.

Written by Teoman S. Nicanci – Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group

Teoman S. Nicanci holds degrees in Political Science, Comparative and International Politics, and International Relations and Diplomacy from leading Belgian universities, with research focused on Russian strategic behavior, defense technology, and modern warfare. He is a defense analyst at Army Recognition, specializing in the global defense industry, military armament, and emerging defense technologies.