The tiny *oblast *of Kaliningrad seems to be in an inconvenient position for the Russians and NATO alike in the event of a war.
I got to thinking about what would happen if Russia decided to conquer the NATO Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and - assuming that the war remained conventional-only (which is quite likely, since NATO wouldn’t want to go nuclear over the three tiny Baltic states) - it seems that Kaliningrad would quite likely be overrun by NATO forces due to the military role it would play in the war, and also the fact that it is “in the way” of NATO forces that would try to move eastward to reinforce and assist the Baltic states. (Sure, NATO could bypass Kaliningrad and just use Poland as the corridor, but Kaliningrad is really a thorn in NATO’s side this way.)
If Kaliningrad were conquered, what would or could Russia do about it, assuming that Russia was the aggressor?
Also, would NATO really defend the Baltic states as seriously as it would, say, Germany?
I’d say it would be an overwhelming issue for Russia to keep fighting rather than surrender a piece of its “homeland”. And I think NATO would keep fighting rather than surrender some of its member nations. So my speculation would be there would be an ongoing war until a settlement was reached where everyone withdrew back to their original borders.
NATO has the same treaty obligations to the Baltic states that it has to Germany. Why wouldn’t it honor them in the breach? If NATO abandoned some countries when the possibility of war arose, the entire alliance would fall apart.
On a related issue, I think you’d have to take the status of Belarus into account in any discussion of this topic. Belarus is not a NATO member so it’s presumably ahead of the Baltic states on any Russian list of countries to conquer. And launching an attack on the Baltic states from bases in Belarus and Russia would be much easier than launching one from just Russia. So the precursor to an invasion of the Baltic states would be an invasion of Belarus.
Yes, but I think this is one of those “true in theory but not in practice” issues. Technically, Estonia’s to be defended by NATO, just like Germany, but this might be like asking a mother if she cares about her adopted child just as much as her natural-born child. In *public *she might say “yes,” but in a real-life emergency she might place much greater priority on her own biological child much more than the adopted child.
One of my last deployments in the Navy was a “Show the Flag” deployment which included port stops in Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland. While we were there, we did joint training operations with Seals, Baltic States’ Special forces Units, the US Army 160th Spec Ops Aviation Regiment, and Baltic Helicopter Units. The purpose of these operations were threefold. 1.)Gain familiarity between the operating forces; 2.) PR to show the citizens of the Baltic States that we were there for them; 3.) To show the Russians where we stand. Kaliningrad is the most heavily defended piece of territory in Europe, and any conventional battles there would turn into a huge slugfest. Personally, I don’t see any fighting between NATO and Russia staying conventional for very long, so the chances of this scenario happening are pretty low.
Ok, but why do you think that? Granted, not every citizen of every NATO nation feels like they should defend every nation equally (or even that they should be in the alliance), but as Little Nemo said, if the other member nations tucked tail it would basically be the end of the alliance. All are equal wrt the mutual defense treaty…and while not every citizen might think it’s worth going to war (for any reason at all in some cases), the governments would realize that cutting one member lose because it was too hard to back up their word could leave THEM vulnerable down the line.
Too many variables in this. I seriously doubt that Putin et al are deluded enough to actually push NATO the to point of war, since it’s a war they couldn’t win. At most what I see is shots fired and troops mobilized and then some sort of settlement, most likely even harsher sanctions against Russia, etc etc. Assuming NATO went on the offensive and captured Russian territory my WAG is that in the cease fire and peace treaty most likely you’d have a status quo ante situation, regardless of whether Russia was aggressor or not…probably the same thing if Russia managed to capture some territories. Unless there was some sort of overwhelming military victory and complete collapse of one side or the other I just don’t see either side actually keeping any captured territory or annexing it into their collective territories, regardless.
Absolutely…otherwise, why even have a NATO? How could any other member trust the others if some backed out when their treaty obligations were called upon??
But the countries in Western Europe might worry that if they treat the Baltic States like third class countries then the United States might turn around and treat Western Europe as second class countries. If NATO won’t defend Estonia, who’s to say it will defend Germany? So the NATO countries would much rather fight for their Baltic allies then abandon the idea of the alliance and have every country on its own.
Even the United States, which is presumably the last member of NATO which would be attacked (although ironically the only time the treaty has been invoked was over an attack against the United States) has a strong interest in maintaining the credibility of NATO.
Yes well this is the extremely dangerous thing about the eastern expansion of NATO. If Russia was to launch a surprise attack on Estonia, occupy Estonia and then stop advancing it would certainly put the western world in a conundrum. Yes the NATO treaty says we would have to do whatever it takes to dislodge Russia but I can’t imagine there would be much support in the west for such a war assuming that Russia dug in and it turned into a drawn out conflict with high casualties.
I get the impression that the inclusion of the Baltic states into NATO was made in a rather casual manner, a “feel-good” moment in international politics, not truly done while evaluating the extreme seriousness of the commitment involved.
Not saying they shouldn’t have been admitted - but saying, it’s a very risky and serious commitment that shouldn’t have been entered into lightly.
In hindsight it would have been better to have a “no touching” rule. NATO could expand eastward but no country directly bordering onto Russia could be invited to join. This would have left Russia with the buffer zone they seem to desire.
Expanding NATO right up to the border with Russia is an aggressive move, there’s really no other way you can see it.
Nonsense. NATO has been in existence since 1949 and it has never attacked Russia. It’s a defensive alliance designed to prevent Russia from attacking other countries. And which countries have the most reason to worry about being attacked by Russia? Those that border Russia.
Russia doesn’t protest against NATO because it threatens Russia. Russia protests against NATO because it prevents Russia from making threats.
I think there would be more support than you anticipate. Historically, a big country attacking a small country has been the kind of thing that people are willing to fight over. It’s an obvious act of naked aggression.
It is hard to maintain that Kaliningrad is part of the Russian “homeland” since it has been Russian only since 1945. I would like to see it go back to being Koenigsburg and returned to Germany. It is, after all the homeland of both Kant and the famous mathematician Hilbert. It is also where topology started (bridges of Koenigsburg problem).
Without Russian control of the Baltic shipping lanes Kaliningrad is hard to reinforce and resupply. The port has to also still be functional to receive sufficient tonnage. That opens up other options to neutralize the threats there without completely seizing it. The oblast is both a thorn in the side and an isolated and exposed outpost. I’d expect actions against it to be, in doctrinal terms, a shaping operation to set favorable conditions for planned decisive operations elsewhere. Without specifying what the decisive operation is it’s hard to do more than consider sets of possibilities.
A big factor is what Finland and Sweden do. Both cooperate significantly with NATO (and Sweden is even official a NATO Partner although that does not come with Article 5 obligations). Both are important for control of the Baltic Sea. as a result they have important roles affecting alliance decisions with regard to Kaliningrad and the Baltic republics. If either sit out completely, or take severely limited roles, it affects what’s feasible and acceptable along with what’s needed with respect to shaping operations in kaliningrad.
The idea that ignoring Article 5 commitments has an impact on other nations that have been counting on them has been brought up. It’s especially an issue for the former Pact nations that are closest. One of them stands out in my mind, Poland. They have they third largest military in NATO at full mobilization (active and organized reserves) and the seventh largest active military out of the 28 members. If I didn’t just fat finger the numbers into the calculator Poland is 12.4% of the non-American NATO fully mobilized force structure. That’s not insignificant and is tough to just write off. Sharing a border with Lithuania and Kaliningrad along with Baltic coastline (where Russia would now be more dominant) would put them in a tough situation if NATO demonstrated an unwillingness to strongly commit to meet Article 5 obligations. The rest of NATO would have to assume they were writing off a big chunk of alliance combat power along with buffer space if they let the Baltics go quietly. . Between fears of it not stopping with the Baltics and the shift in relative strength I’d be surprised if the alliance didn’t commit heavily to the defense of the Baltic republics.
It doesn’t directly. Article 5 actually allows quite a bit of wiggle room. The full text of Article 5with my emphasis added:
There’s still room for NATO members to deem necessary forms of assistance that provides less than complete restoration of all the Baltics. “Hey we assisted. We restored secutiy by concluding a peace treaty. Sucks to be Estonia that got pressured into giving up half it’s country in that treaty.” Of course adhering only to that more limited level of support runs the risk of that obligation being seen as low value or worthless. The practical matter of the treaty requiring more to remain viable is different than what the treaty actually requires, though.
The only country that’s attacked Russia or the Soviet Union since 1949 is the People’s Republic of China, which is not a member of NATO.
So I’m going to stick with my original statement, as it is true: NATO has never attacked the Soviet Union or Russia and no country in NATO has ever attacked the Soviet Union or Russia.
Russia acts like it has some kind of claim to all of the countries that used to be part of the Soviet Union. It does not. If Russia had been willing to respect its neighbours, those neighbours wouldn’t have seen a need to join a defensive alliance against the threat of a Russian invasion.