Would the U.S. fight a nuclear war to save Estonia? The question would probably strike most Americans as absurd. Certainly, almost no one was thinking about such a prospect when NATO expanded to include the Baltic states back in 2004.
Good question. But would Russia really risk a nuclear war to take and hold those Baltic state countries?
And the author seems to be hazy on the Cold War when plenty of questions were raised about the willingness of America to trade (in a nuclear exchange) New York for West Berlin or even Bonn if the USSR started to overrun West Germany.
I don't think the option of putting a significant number of troops into that kill sack that would be cut off by a Russian thrust through Belarus and the Suwalki Gap is the solution.
I say let the Russians come in while hitting them with air and missile attacks plus special forces and irregular militia harrassment every step, extend their supply lines, and then hit the Russian army hard in a counter-attack. Destroying the Russian army in the theater is the only safe way to enter the Baltic states in force.
Also, the idea floated by the author to defend putting 30,000 NATO troops with up to 8 brigades on Russia's border that the deployment couldn't possibly be considered an offensive threat ignores that the Russians claimed NATO was a threat when we had nothing in the region, no logistics network, and no plans to even defend new NATO states.
I worry more about Russia using nukes in a preemptive strike on NATO brigades in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania than I worry Russia will use nukes if we counter-attack to free those countries.
Counting on limits to Russian paranoia and dishonestly seems like a bad call.
