The World Ahead | Europe in 2024
Ukraine has brought Nordic and Baltic countries together
It turns out the Baltics were right
![Norwegian instructors participate in a blank fire exercise with Ukrainian soldiers.](https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20231118_TWEUP504.jpg)
By Matt Steinglass
By the end of the cold war, the Nordic countries had become symbols of how to transcend geopolitical conflict. Norway brokered peace deals for Guatemala and Palestine, and “getting to Denmark” became slang for perfecting liberal democracy. The Baltic countries, by contrast, emerged from Soviet occupation afraid Russian imperialism would return. Yet their warnings were often seen as post-communist paranoia.
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This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition of The World Ahead 2024 under the headline “Friends in the north”