…beyond Ukraine
"Russia is consistently testing the boundaries of what it can do against the Baltic states and their allies without provoking a decisive response. The pattern of actions linked to Russia ranges from drone incursions and sabotage of critical infrastructure to arson, assassination plots, cyber operations, and GPS jamming and spoofing.
Moscow is likely to keep pushing until it faces credible costs. While Russia remains materially consumed by its war against Ukraine, that does not necessarily make it less dangerous. It makes Russia more willing to bring the war closer to Ukraine's staunchest supporters in an effort to reduce their backing. If Putin grows desperate about his stalled war effort while perceiving political uncertainty within NATO, he could conclude that escalation offers a way to alter the strategic trajectory of the war in Ukraine.
That is why the Baltic states are preparing across the spectrum of conflict. They are aware that the boundary between a "hybrid" operation and conventional aggression can be extremely thin: sabotage, cyberattacks, electronic warfare, and disinformation can be ends in themselves, but they can also serve as shaping operations for subsequent military action. Whether escalation proceeds largely depends on what Moscow learns from the initial NATO response. Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia are therefore strengthening national defenses and improving interoperability with reinforcing allies. They are also pressing NATO to treat repeated sub-threshold attacks as elements of a coherent Russian strategy to identify and exploit seams in national and allied defenses.
Ultimately, the target of any Russian escalation in the Baltics would be NATO itself. Moscow has long sought to weaken the Alliance and undermine confidence that collective defense will work when tested. Deterrence must therefore leave no ambiguity that even a geographically limited attack would bring the full weight of the Alliance into play. NATO's recent Kaliningrad-focused maneuver was useful signaling in this respect, demonstrating allied readiness close to one of Russia's most militarized outposts. But ad hoc signaling needs to be backed by everyday allied consistency. A strong allied forward presence, underpinned by the return of urgently needed US military deployments, is therefore central to deterring Russia. Stability in the Baltics is a strategic interest for the United States: a successful Russian test of NATO would cripple the credibility of US-led alliances far beyond Europe…"
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Armand
paints up some Israeli mortar vehicles.