Would Russia attack NATO by seizing--while denying it is doing so--Estonia's border city of Narva?
If you haven’t heard of Narva, you might very soon. This small, mostly Russian-speaking city lies along Estonia’s boundary with Russia, separated geographically from its larger neighbor only by a partially frozen river. A 13th-century castle towers over passersby, while an intimidating medieval stronghold stares back across the river from the Russian side. A short walk away stands a monument to the late chess grand master Paul Keres, who was born here and lived through decades of Soviet occupation, but always attributed his success to the Estonian school of chess.
This city is also the epicenter of what could be an epic challenge for Western military alliances—what NATO calls the “Narva scenario”—one that would test the foundation underpinning the security partnership.
Yeah, I wrote about that scenario well before those articles did (in early 2015, in this case) and I quoted a late 2014 post of mine on the issue:
Could Russia seek to use their relatively few quality troops on a narrow front rather than try their "little green men" astro-turf revolt tactic again that we will be more attuned to reacting to if applied to Estonia, a member of NATO, with its relatively large (a quarter of the population) ethnic Russian minority?
What if Russia attempts a page out of Pakistan's long territorial struggle against militarily superior India in the 1999 Kargil War?
What if Russia sends in their regular troops--while denying they are their troops--to seize the Estonian ethnic-Russian city of Narva on the northeast border and dares NATO to counter-attack, which would devastate NATO's reputation if we did nothing?
Although at this point, Russia would be making a mistake because post-Crimea NATO is fully digesting the need to resist Russian aggression on its eastern frontier. I don't think there will be any hand wringing about "little green men" as if we don't know exactly who they are the way we pretended to do in Crimea and in the Donbas when Russia took Ukrainian territory.
And a small Russian conquest on a narrow front would allow NATO to deploy forces to retake Narva without worrying about putting the forces needed to oppose a full invasion into a potential kill sack should Russia thrust through Belarus to link up with their Kaliningrad exclave to isolate the NATO troops sent to Estonia.
And seriously, the idea put forth that Trump would not honor America's treaty-based NATO commitments is nonsense. I'm actually grateful that Trump has managed to get Democrats suddenly deeply committed to the alliance.
