"What Happens Next In The Baltics?" Topic

"Will Russia seize the Baltics? Our friends in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are worried. Simultaneously, the background pincers of America's retrenchment and the uncertain intentions of the incoming U.S. presidential administration press the leaders and peoples of those three countries. The bear is on the move. Georgia, Crimea, and the Ukraine had doubters. Not anymore. The Russians marched. Who's next? The West looks warily eastward and asks: Will the supreme ruler (Putin, in this case) moderate his ambitions? Are they justified? Can he be appeased?

As I write this, NATO troops take part in an exercise with the Lithuanian military and Russia deploys new missiles to the Baltic region. Eyes are on those three tiny states.

Strategists ask few truly new questions. The best ones ask the right old questions. They stand at the modern-day overlook and see familiar landscapes. They scan what's out there knowing only one thing for sure: that knowledge is power only if that knowledge is used. What to do? Good hypotheticals become powerful binoculars. If a nation-state wants an edge over a rival, a better awareness of likely next steps is surely advantageous. In statecraft, there is no better set of binoculars than a great book. History is full of ill-informed rulers…"
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Amicalement
Armand

I doubt anything will happen.

For a start Putin gains nothing by taking them over except a war.. and ultimately that's one he can't win because if the EU and USA get really pissed off they can crash Russia's economy in a matter of days.

Secondly, it's wonderful terrain for guerrilla fighting, and at least one of those states has a programme of training tens of thousands of people to do exactly that.

the game is not worth the candle.

Are you sure…?… last time in the Baltic many people said that anything will happen … and WW2!… (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Putin is many things. Stupid is not one of them.

Egotistical, however, is.

The real question is whether President Trump would honor Article 5 if the Baltics were invaded.

I agree with Bangorstu.

Nothing will happen now.

Yep … nothing will occur anytime soon.

Apparently, concerned Lithuanians are talking about building a fence.

Will they make Russia pay for it?

This "Russian bear" threat has always seemed over-hyped to me. It's not the 1930s. Putin is not Hitler and it isn't Russians who are putting troops around another superpower's direct borders but Americans/NATO.

My impression is that the Baltic states are 1) paranoid (and might should treat their ethnic Russian minorities more carefully in the future) and 2) playing Uncle Sam for a rich patsy in order to demand increased foreign aid to counter this "threat". And this pleases many in the US defense industry who WANT to encircle Russia and put the screws on Putin. (Which is not to me a wise policy to pursue any more than Athens was smart to make the Spartans feel surrounded and threatened 2500 years ago.)

Nato membership of the Baltics states is a fait accompli. Putin may not like it but there's nothing he can do about it. And no, there will be no Russian invasion to satisfy our darkest fantasies, I mean, fears. Putin, for all his faults, is a consummate realist and grandmaster in the game of geopolitical chess.

That being said, it doesn't mean that our newly inaugurated POTUS won't rein in Nato a bit in the saber-rattling department and scale back on joint military exercises in keeping with his "America First" campaign.

My impression is that the Baltic states are 1) paranoid (and might should treat their ethnic Russian minorities more carefully in the future)

Considering that those ethnic minorities were imported while the Baltics were Soviet client states, and are basically a nasty reminder of being occupied…

Will they make Russia pay for it?

I thought Mexico was going to pay for it ? Woops !!! … wrong countries … never mind …

Piper,
That was an impressive load of desinformation, the Baltic states are "paranoid" because Russia has launched repeated invasions, coup attemtps and hybrid warfare attacks on them with the aim of removing them from the map. In 1940 the invasions were successfull and the Russian minorities you think are mistreated became established thanks to mass murder, deporations and ethnic cleansing. During the long years of Soviet occupation the Russians enjoyed their "master race" and thought nothing of inflicting numerous small scale injustices on the Estonians and Latvians who were seen as 2nd rate citizens when they were not outright regarded as sub-human.

Once the Baltic states became independent they would have been fully justified in expelling all of the Russian occupiers and colonists but instead chose to disregard their crimes and illegal presence in the now free countries and even freely offered them citzenship provided they pass a couple of exams, basicly not much diffrent from how a lot of countries test would be citizens. (I.e the US to take one example.) The "mistreatment" of the Russians is basicly that they no longer enjoy their former favoured status.

None of the Baltic countries have demanded foreign aid to counter the Russian threat, rather they pay their own costs and are either surpassing the Nato 2% GDP goal or will soon reach it.

You will find that the Chinese probably have a diffrent view about the notion that Russia has no troops along a superpowers border. And while the Russians may not have troops on the US border they have plenty of troops along the borders of NATO members who have been engaging in large scale saber rattling long before the NATO deployment into the Baltics. Not to mention the Russian troops inside Georgia, Moldava and Ukraine…

And the NATO deployment is 4000 men spread out over a large area, basicly a battalion sized task force in each country, not much of a threat to Russian armed forces even before you consider the nuclear factor. The increased Russian military presence in the area dwarfs the Nato deployment.

The Baltic states aren't paranoid…the Russians have past and current form in attacking them.

The only thing keeping Putin out is probably NATO.

Worth noting the Finns, who have a similar history but no Russian minority, feel.much the same way.

'The only thing keeping Putin out is probably NATO.'

Economics?

Well, economically it would cost him little to take over the Baltics…

Though as I said, if he gets too big for his boots, Western Europe can destroy his economy in a weekend.

The oligarchs who keep him in power have extensive interests in London.

Including their children being expensively educated here. I won';t worry until all of those little darlings get called home.

Even with all this rhetoric … I'm pretty sure the Russians, especially now with the recent US leadership change. Nothing major is going to happen in the Baltics. At least at the hands of the Russians.

For those interested in the "what if Russia invades" scenario for wargaming purposes, the opening chapter of Mark Greaney's novel 'Command Decision' under the late Tom Clancy's name may be of interest.

Basically, the Russians invade Lithuania with T-90's and US Apaches (aided by a Kiowa Warrior scout helo) stop them.

US Gunslingers !

28mm Fanatik,

The OH-58Ds are being retired out of US service without replacement. AH-64D/E now does it's own reconnaissance/scouting.

Also I looked up the book and it's actually Command Authority. Command Decision is a ruleset! :P

That is the old US Air Cav tactic of mixing Gunships and LOACHs. Sometimes called a "Pink Team" from the Vietnam era. The Pink is the "blending" of the traditional Red & White Cav flag/banner.

Red = Gunships
White = Recon

My bad. CA was written in 2014 and actually is mostly about Russian subversion of the Ukraine. Timely as it was released around the time of the Russian Crimea takeover. The Russian president in the novel is a not-so-subtle villain who resembles Putin.

The OH-58 Kiowa Warrior in the book did things that Apaches probably couldn't, like hovering between buildings in narrow alleys mere feet from the ground. It fooled the Russians with its nap-of-the-earth flying into thinking it's a land vehicle. It then relayed targeting data to the Apaches for their Hellfires (designed for killing tanks, not assassinating individual insurgents).

Yes, the OH-58[or OH-6] is much smaller than an AH-64. And as noted it can do some things because of it's small size. That larger birds can't …