Russland & Verbündete gegen Europa & USA

[Quintus Fabius]

Hier zwei Artikel zu einem möglichen Angriff Russlands auf das Baltikum und die rein praktische Unmöglichkeit das Baltikum mit NATO Truppen zu verteidigen:

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Geography makes the Baltic republics vulnerable to Russian aggression. Should Russia choose to attack, no one seriously thinks that their defense forces and the other NATO troops currently in or close enough to Eastern Europe to respond could stop them.

Unclassified RAND war games indicate that Russian forces could overrun local defenders and the light U.S. and NATO units currently able to respond within as few as two days. While the capitals and a small number of key points could be held for some time, Russian forces could seal the border between Lithuania and Poland, prevent reinforcement by sea, and confront NATO with a fait accompli.

Once secured, these territorial gains would be defended by heavy ground forces occupying the conquered states, along with very capable Russian anti-air and anti-ship defenses on Russian territory. Any serious attempt to liberate Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania would entail attacks to suppress these systems.

If a Russian invasion of the Baltic states could not be deterred or defeated, the North Atlantic Council and the U.S. president would be faced with a very unpleasant choice: conduct a costly counteroffensive and risk nuclear escalation, or abandon the Baltics to renewed subservience to Moscow. Such a catastrophic failure to uphold the mutual defense responsibilities of NATO could cripple or even destroy the North Atlantic alliance, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s primary goals. It is therefore of paramount importance to deter Russian aggression before it happens.

Our analysis indicates that a NATO armored brigade combat team in each of the three Baltic states, supported by powerful tactical air forces, a division headquarters to exercise tactical command, and a corps headquarters to plan and oversee the campaign, would provide a reasonable deterrent signal and the capabilities to prevent a short warning coup de main, fundamentally altering Moscow’s deterrent calculus. These should be comprised of both U.S. and other NATO forces. Follow on forces would be required to win should the Russians attack.

Placing heavy brigade equipment sets in the Baltics or elsewhere in Eastern Europe, to be drawn by soldiers flown quickly there from the United States in a crisis, is one option for providing this deterrent. However, if Russia were willing to invade NATO countries it would be tempted to, and likely could, destroy these equipment sets before U.S. forces could arrive to draw them.

Situating this equipment further west in Europe would improve its survivability. However, the challenges of quickly mustering and deploying three heavy brigades of personnel to Western Europe (there will only be nine in the Regular Army after the planned draw down, so one-third would need to be on constant alert), drawing the equipment from warehouses and motor pools, road marching hundreds of kilometers across Europe, and perhaps fighting through Russian positions that could be quickly established along the Lithuanian-Polish border in time to prevent a fait accompli are enormous. The chances of success would not be good.

Und Artikel 2:

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Kelly suggests that the standing peacetime deployment of one armored BCT in each of the Baltic states, supporting (but undefined) tactical air forces, and Division and Corps-level Headquarters to exercise unitary command and control over this combined arms forward defense would be sufficient to prevent Russia from achieving a limited but decisive territorial fait accompli. Based on this force’s size, it would do this presumably through delay and disruption. The U.S. Army arguably does not possess enough armored BCTs to carry the entire weight of this presence, though, while simultaneously meeting its other global contingency readiness commitments.

There is no doubt in my mind that some heavy ground forces contributed by NATO’s principal members would need to be positioned in the Baltic states in order to latently back constabulary forces responding to ‘plausibly-deniable’ offensive operations by Russian special forces or ‘civilian’ proxies. In the event of a conventional Russian ground offensive, these forces would be central to arresting the thrust’s progress while simultaneously incurring the commitment tripwire effect. Beyond that, it is reasonable to investigate options for splitting a standing deterrent’s positions between the Baltics and Poland in ways that increase their maneuver space as well as survivability against a first strike.