The NATO Baltic states know they are next if Russia isn't stopped in Ukraine. And Sweden and Finland joined NATO since Russia overtly invaded Ukraine in 2022 on a large-scale war of conquest because they know neutrality won't save them from an emboldened Russia. They smell the gunpowder wafting over their border, knowing what is coming. The rest of NATO needs to concentrate their minds with similar knowledge.
Pucker factors have skyrocketed in the Nordic-Baltic region, and it isn't from the cold climate:
Statements from Nordic-Baltic leaders stressing the need to invest more in preparations for a possible direct confrontation with Moscow undercut Russian reports of weakening Western resolve. Swedish Civil Defense Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin was the first to make this point publicly, arguing that the Russian threat would not be deterred by Sweden’s accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Norwegian Chief of Defense General Eirik Kristoffersen and Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas reinforced Bohlin’s warning with precise assessments of the Russian threat. For its part, Finland firmly supports the consolidated Nordic-Baltic stance. The leading candidates in the Finnish presidential elections, currently underway, agree on the proposition to fortify the shared border with Russia and argue that cross-border ties can only be restored if Moscow renounces its imperial ambitions.The geographically small and low-population former Soviet states sitting on Russia's border are the most vulnerable to Russian imperial restoration ambitions:
I see Russian threats to the NATO Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania as the most serious. American defense and state department personnel last month met with Baltic state officials and "also participated in a tabletop exercise to explore policy options for a unified response in crisis situations."
While the readout didn't have specifics, I think the Russians have three options, not mutually exclusive. These scenarios are a Narva conquest based on the 1999 Kargil War between Pakistan and India (A), "little green men" "Russia world" coups (B), and a conventional invasion (C).
Finland has some remoteness, depth, and military power to make them a next-stage target rather than the first. Sweden is only really vulnerable if Finland falls, with a limited direct Russian naval threat to its Baltic Sea coast.
But a number of European NATO states think the noose is too far east to disturb their August vacations. Although Germany has apparently emerged from their fog.
America, too, is threatened in a sequence of aggression and retreat if Russia conquers Ukraine. Although that threat is apparently too hard for many Americans to see from across the now-secure Atlantic.
Russia will eventually recover from the hammering its military and reputation have suffered in this invasion, regardless of whether it wins this war. It will even recover from internal disorder caused by defeat in Ukraine. Conquering Ukraine will of course enhance the recovery once Ukrainian resistance is subdued. Ukraine has people, industry, and technology--not to mention the territory that opens up NATO's southeast to attack.
I don't have confidence that the Ukrainian people exhausted in a long conventional war will have the endurance to carry out a large-scale resistance campaign. Especially if America has walked away from Ukraine (although I don't think we will). Did our allies in Afghanistan and South Vietnam resolutely fight on after our skedaddle debacles?
And what hope will Belarusians have to throw off Putin's yoke if Ukraine goes down?
Understand that no buffer will make the paranoid Russians feel secure. So we should all agree that we should keep Russia as far east as possible--without actively trying to push them east, of course.
UPDATE: Prudent: “A collection of 600 bunkers are to be built across the borders of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to shore up NATO’s eastern flank and deliver a groundbreaking anti-mobility defensive line aimed at preventing any ‘quick and far-reaching offensive’ launched by Russia.”
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
