Recent Russian aggression against NATO, commonly called "hybrid" war, has been most evident in the Baltic Sea where NATO is reacting to defend critical infrastructure from Russian attacks (that Russia denies carrying out). Will that aggression and denial come ashore at Narva, Estonia?
While NATO is responding to Russian attacks in the Baltic Sea, the threat is broader:
Moscow has long been waging a shadow war against the military alliance, but the war in Ukraine has led to an escalation of hybrid, or gray-zone, attacks on NATO since the conflict began. ...
"It is an inherent part of Russian strategic thinking. The military is only part of it," Appathurai, the NATO secretary general's primary advisor on hybrid threats, told BI. "Their aim is to achieve political victory using the full spectrum of tools."
I worry that Russia could escalate their "little green men" attacks with an invasion of Estonia that captures Narva, posing as separatists pining for the embrace of Mother Russia. I explored in a recent Army article that threat and the necessary Army response within a NATO effort to deter or defeat such an invasion.
Failure to clearly win could break NATO by making the Article V defense guarantee appear hollow.
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NOTE: I made the image with Bing.
