The Baltic countries are arming themselves massively and everyone is talking about a possible invasion by Moscow’s troops. In Lithuania, a new evacuation plan is already in place.
The Baltic countries are arming themselves massively and everyone is talking about a possible invasion by Moscow’s troops. In Lithuania, a new evacuation plan is already in place.
This is a little overblown.
The plan was never to try to dig in and hold the borders of the Baltics, that’s not feasible. They’re just too small, there isn’t enough depth. In any kind of large war, they would almost certainly be occupied, at least mostly. The question is, for how long, and how painful and resource-intensive would the process be for Russia? Once NATO mobilized, there would be a significant counterattack coming from the west. The Baltics wouldn’t be that much easier to hold for Russia, being in range of naval power and such a ridiculous number of NATO airbases.
That said, this is why a full scale attack is unlikely, at least at first. Putin knows a massive invasion, like what Ukraine faced, would bring almost all of Europe into a war with him in a completely unwinnable situation. Instead, it’s much more likely for him to try incremental escalations, testing Article 5 with small scale incursions and attacks, hoping he can drive wedges between the alliance members while leaning on nuclear saber rattling to deter a large retaliation. Ideally, NATO retains the ability to retaliate in kind to avoid escalation. While they don’t have as many undersea cables as we have, there are multiple other avenues for delivering smaller-scale retributions. Cyber, sabotage, diplomatic/legal, economic, etc.
If the US helps, then I would agree.
But can that really be counted on now?
No, it cannot. I was talking about the strategic importance of the Suwalki Gap though. Russian aggression is not overblown whatsoever.