Scenario: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States

[DRG]

The Lithuanians have ( I am told ) long felt it was just a matter of time before the Russians returned and a lot of that is because of THIS



I don't think a lot of people know that is Russian territory

[wulfir]

Were Sweden and Finland to stay neutral, and neither are members of NATO, the Western alliance’s access to the air space over the Baltics would be severely limited within the first few hours, if not days, after the start of an invasion.

While not part of NATO Sweden no longer describes itself as neutral and something that was hardly true even during the cold war, or even WWII - it is likely that Moscow now count Sweden as part of the "enemy camp" (and probably did back then as well).

As of 2009 Sweden issued the so called declaration of solidarity where it is stated that Sweden will not remain passive in the event of an attack of an EU or Nordic country - which basically means Russia must factor in the possible basing of NATO air in Sweden if the Baltic states are attacked. Should NATO go "Pourquoi mourir pour Dantzig?" on the Baltic states Russia can pretty much ignore Sweden.

[IronDuke99]

I would strongly urge people to check out the very poor state of most NATO military forces today outside of the US.

Britain is probably, overall, the strongest of them and her military forces have never been weaker. The smaller Western European forces, with all due respect to those serving, are almost not worth having at all.

[DRG]

Originally Posted by IronDuke99

I would strongly urge people to check out the very poor state of most NATO military forces today outside of the US.

Britain is probably, overall, the strongest of them and her military forces have never been weaker. The smaller Western European forces, with all due respect to those serving, are almost not worth having at all.

Happy new year 1937.......goggle "george santayana history quote"

[IronDuke99]

UK military spending is supposedly around 2.5% GDP, but that includes a lot of creative accounting, including intelligence and police type stuff, that, while very important, would not make the single UK Armoured division any stronger in a actual fight.

In terms of numbers; men, tanks, ships, aircraft, helicopters, etc British forces today are roughly 50% as strong as they were in 2000 and more like 25-30% as strong as they were in 1982.

French defence spending is under 2% of GDP and a lot of that, as always, goes on stuff that is very specific to France and French interests rather than NATO.

German defence spending is not a whole lot more than 1.5% of GDP and Germany, because of her size, geographical position and economy, has to be the central pivot of European defence. The smaller Western European nations, as I said, are getting close to being almost worthless. While Canada has very good, but very small and very underfunded forces.

I don't actually see Russia under Putin as much of a threat to Western Europe. Another leader might be another story. As I see it at the moment, Western Europe wants to try to push Putin and Russia while entirely lacking the military means to back that up, short of full US backing. Happily I think Brexit will lead to a stronger US-British alliance, at the expense of EU ambitions.

China, well that is a different story...

[Aeraaa]

Originally Posted by IronDuke99

I would strongly urge people to check out the very poor state of most NATO military forces today outside of the US.

Britain is probably, overall, the strongest of them and her military forces have never been weaker. The smaller Western European forces, with all due respect to those serving, are almost not worth having at all.

Well nobody really believes that there will be a war with Russia, political BS aside. And many do not wish for any confrontation with Russia either, as it interferes with their own defense interests. Thus, NATO is less unified than ever before.

[IronDuke99]

Originally Posted by Aeraaa

Well nobody really believes that there will be a war with Russia, political BS aside. And many do not wish for any confrontation with Russia either, as it interferes with their own defense interests. Thus, NATO is less unified than ever before.

Yes I think nations like Greece, with some justification, are a lot more worried about Nato member Turkey (with a rather Islamist leaning Government) than Russia.

On the other hand UK defence advocates are still using Russia as a bogey man, because she is realtively close to UK. While in actual fact a post Brexit, global trading nation, like UK has much more to worry about in China and maintaining unrestricted maritime free trade and putting a stop to Chinese influence and pressure on nations from the East coast of Africa, through the Indian Ocean, to the Pacific.

UK has vital interests in the Gulf, the Indian Ocean (where the British Indian Ocean Territory remains a very important base) allies like Brunei in Borneo and long term friends like Australia and Singapore and New Zealand in the far east.

One reason I was happy to see that an early QE Carrier deployment is widely expected to be to the Indian Ocean and the Pacific.