Last Tuesday, the official account of the German Ministry of Defense stressed the need for Europe to increase its military spending and prepare for defend your territory.
As an argument, information from the military intelligence according to which Russia would be planning a attack against NATO to 2029 as late.
This information is consistent with what other countries have been publishing, although it clashes with the Vladimir Putin’s repetitive speech that he would never attack NATO because “it would be crazy.”
And everything indicates that it would be, indeed. To begin with, it is not even clear that, by 2029, Russia will have ended the war in Ukraine. Or that, after having finished it with some kind of truce-traphaven’t started it again.
There is nothing on the near horizon that suggests that “the Ukrainian question”as the Kremlin nationalists claim, will be resolved, unless that resolution comes from within in the form of proruso charismatic leader Yanukovych style. Something extremely unlikely.
Why would Russia then want get into a second front If you are not able to control the first one? There are several reasons: of course, the main one is pride. If you can’t admit defeat, double the bet.
Putin has no problem sending hundreds of thousands of his men to die anywhere else if that serves to gain muscle in the face of History. At 73 years old, if he really
wants to see some kind of rebirth of the Russian empire, he doesn’t have much time to waste.
It would also be necessary to define What Western countries mean when they talk about “an attack on NATO”. Would it be a multiple attack on several states? Are we talking about conventional war or hybrid war? Would it be a large-scale conflict or a provocation that could later lead to larger or smaller skirmishes? Would we, in short, be facing a sort of World War III or a high-intensity cold war in which the nuclear threat once again hangs over our heads like the Sword of Damocles?
Attack on the Baltics
Russia knows it cannot attack NATO as an alliance. That said, many in the Kremlin – and not only – sense that this alliance would break as soon as Article V of mutual defense had to be applied.
In other words, neither Spain, nor Portugal, nor Greece, nor even the great military powers of the continent or the United States, would be willing to take that article seriously and initiate a world war for defending every millimeter of Estonian sovereignty.
The first to know are the Estonians, Lithuanians and Latvians themselves. As Baltic and non-Slavic countries, their historical tradition has been more linked to Scandinavia than to Russia itself.
Its inclusion in the Soviet Union after the Stalin’s victory in World War II It was more of a geographical issue than anything else. In fact, their independence came without too many scandals: Moscow didn’t care much about them either.
A Russian nationalist, therefore, will never claim Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania as he does claim Ukraine or Belarus… but it is clear that they are the weakest link when it comes to verifying the real unity of the Alliance. Russia can try to attack any of the three countries directly or use Belarus as a forced actor.
Despite the powerful investment in defense and the deployment of international NATO forces on the border, the Russian army would most likely reach Tallinn, Vilnius or Riga within a few hours. And then, let them get them out of there.
Kaliningrans and thefts
The geographical continuity of NATO territory in Europe It depends exclusively on the sixty-five kilometers that separate Kaliningrad (the former Königsberg, one of the cradles of the Enlightenment in Prussia) from the border between Belarus and Poland. This is a very narrow passage that connects Poland with Lithuania and, in turn, with the Baltic Countries, and which could be closed very quickly, making any aid in one direction or another difficult.
In other words, if Russia – or, again, Belarus – decided to intervene in the Corridor, the NATO forces deployed to the east of it They would be isolated from the rest of the Alliance. The temptation, if Putin decided to launch an attack, would be tremendous. With few resources, a devastating result would be achieved.
In fact, there have been several maneuvers of “hybrid war that have occurred on that border in recent years. For example, when in 2021, thousands of Syrian citizens stood at its doors convinced by Russian propaganda that they would be able to enter the European Union without problems.
Needless to say, that was a maneuver of the Al-Assad regime with the Kremlinwith the collaboration of Lukashenko, to test the “humanity” of Europeans.
If we gave in to the pressure and let those immigrants in, it was clear that NATO’s walls were permeable. For this reason, neither Poland nor the European Union nor the Atlantic Alliance wanted to bend their arm and everything was solved with mass deportations back to Syria.
If that happens with tanks and soldiers, things would be different.
A drone attack
Russia has been playing with fire in its borderwith the sending of drones to Poland and Romania that, always “by mistake”, end up landing on NATO soil.
In itself, this is a full-fledged aggression and this is what the governments of these countries have claimed, appealing to Article IV of the Alliance. However, the message from the Secretary General, Mark Rutte, has been tepid.
In his opinion, the imbalance of forces between NATO and Russia is such that unnecessary demonstrations are not worth it. In other words, Putin is trying to find a way to justify an escalation and Rutte doesn’t want to give him the pleasure.
Part of the message is reasonable: in effect, panicking because drones enter NATO airspace and fall anywhere would be sending a message of concern that Russia could take as a fear sign. On the other hand, the refusal to act can also lead the Kremlin to intensify these types of maneuvers.
And what would happen if the next intrusion is already serious? That is, what if there are not ten drones, but a thousand, and they have specific military objectives? Right now, they would be impossible to stop, as Western air defenses have a lot to learn when it comes to unmanned ships.
F35 fighters cannot be mobilized to stop such a number of drones. It would be a huge expense and there probably aren’t enough planes on that border to even consider taking them off. It is to be hoped that, by 2029, and with the help of Ukraine, things will have changed.
A “false flag”
If the Russian regime has specialized in anything, it is in hybrid warfare and so-called “false flag attacks”, that is, in the infiltration of paramilitary groups to fake an attack on a population and then blame it on the enemy.
It was, basically, what happened in Donbas in 2014. One of the ideal places for such an attack would be Transnitria, the region belonging to Moldova that proclaimed its independence in 1990 and whose leaders depend entirely on Moscow.
Russia could fake an attack against the interests of Transnitria and send its troops there to “defend” its allies, which would provoke a war with Moldova.
How would you react Romania before that interference? Would it be possible to limit such a conflict with Moldova, where the Kremlin recently tried to intervene in the presidential elections? It would, without a doubt, be a trial by fire similar to what can be experienced in the Suwalki corridor.
If the West remains silent, Russia will try to go further and increase provocations. NATO failed to protect Ukraineit would be wrong to neglect Moldova.
Saving the logical distances of the size of each country, these are two countries that are not part of the Alliance, but are key in its defense, since they interfere in the path of possible Russian aggression.
Armageddon
In principle it is the craziest, most improbable option and one that one prefers not to think about… but, precisely for that reason, it is the one that the Kremlin and its propagandists always put on the table.
Terrible nuclear submarines with undetectable torpedoes, hypersonic missiles that would turn entire countries into radioactive flames before anti-aircraft defenses could act, dozens of Hiroshimas and Nagasakis throughout Europe, “a very small continent with an enormous population density,” as Putin himself warned with a half smile.
There’s not much to elaborate here. We talk about end of our civilization as we know it and a scenario with billions of deaths in which the survivors would envy the deceased.
This preemptive attack would be followed by the automated response of France, the United Kingdom and, hopefully, the United States. A response that, due to its magnitude, would probably reach Chinese territory and cause millions of deaths there as well with the consequent retaliation.
The end of times, wow. Russia, of course, would be devastated, as would the rest of Europe. Is that an appealing way out for someone who wants to build an empire? It doesn’t seem like it. But it is a desperate solution for those who see that this empire is impossible and that what remains is in danger. Adolf Hitler in his Berlin bunker.
Louis XV stating in Versailles that “after him, the flood.” The Biden Administration feared for years that if it cornered Putin, he would fight back like a scorpion. Trump himself has used that excuse to favor Russia in the negotiations and make impossible demands of Zelensky.
Es the least desirable option and, at the same time, against which the least can be done. Here, there is no tactics or strategy. No shelter could ensure anyone’s life for long enough, since we are talking about decades without natural resources to feed on.
Curiously, in this scenario, the greatest ally of coherence could be China: when one sets out to conquer the world, it is fatal that the world ends from one minute to the next. And we already know that China is Russia’s number one ally. The hand, sometimes, that rocks the cradle.