If Putin decided to “liberate” the Russian inhabitants of the Baltic states by forcibly annexing them to Russia, would it force NATO to go to war against nuclear-armed Russia since the Baltic states are part of NATO now?
Is there any chance that Putin would be dumb enough to risk a nuclear war?
As a hypothetical question, this belongs in Great Debates.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Too many contingencies to make any kind of solid conclusion. Maybe yes…maybe no.
The U.S. and NATO might stand firm…or might cave in. Russia might not invade with tanks and troops, but sponsor a local insurgency and support them covertly. (This is, in fact, what I predict will happen.)
Hard to say. Art 5 would certainly apply. OTH it amazingly does not say what exactly rest of NATO is bound to do in response to this “attack on all”. A Hydrogen Bomb dropped on the Kremlin? A strongly worded letter?
Would W Euro and American leaders risk Armageddon for undefendable territory right next to Russia and with large Russian communities?
If the rest of NATO doesn’t go to war to save the Baltics, it would effectively be the end of NATO.
Just like the violent revolution in Romania was effectively the end of the Warsaw Pact.
No. It would be the end of NATO expansion where membership has been handed out like smarties. It would not necessarily be the end of NATO’s core mission, which was defence of Central and Western Europe.
Once you break the first couple of promises, though, any leftover promise is not going to be worth much. And if the U.S. especially were to fail to act, that inaction would call into question all of the mutual defense treaties and promises the U.S. currently has. It would be the end of the entire post-WWII world order.
Disagree. Poland would wonder what the fuck was going on, and there is no way the alliance would survive.
I cast my vote with WW3. I think this is the main reason Russia hasn’t tried something yet. Just like how people commented after the invasion of Iraq that nobody ever thinks of invading North Korea, proving the value of nuclear weapons; the invasion of Ukraine and Georgia proves the importance of NATO.
Do the Baltics have sovereign nukes that we should know about?
The conventional wisdom before 2008 was that the Russians would not interfere in such a closely aligned to US nation. The wisdom before 2014 was that the Russians would not dare invade a nationstate whose security and borders was guaranteed by the Western powers.
I have been reading lots of Russian literature on the subject, if the Ruskie are anything its deep thinker, and my earlier post is a summery of the general line taken. The Soviets always believed that the US would fight to defend W Europe, the reason was that twice in the previous century, the US had entered a European war to prevent domination of Central and Western Europe.
The Russians do not believe that the US (who lets face it in a Russia showdown IS NATO) will necessarily fight to defend Eastern Europe and the Baltics. The Ukraine crises show that the US will sign anything at anytime and become lawyers when that commitment is suddenly inconvenient. (Like any country basically)
Would an invasion of the Baltics, especially one occurring after massive unrest on the part of and crackdown on Russian speakers necessarily lead to all out war? Not convinced, at least not in the same way as say a landing in the German coast would.
If you have an hour to kill, here’s a morbidly entertaining fictional newscast showing just such a scenario. I found it to be fairly well done and was impressed with the way they stitched in the footage with the developing story.
It’s my opinion that Putin wants to recreate the USSR. Start with Crimea, maybe nibble a bit more on parts of the Ukraine, then maybe test NATO’s mettle with an attack on one of the Baltics. Now that he has a not so secret admirer coming to power in the US, he’ll find the going much easier. “Oh, Estonia got invaded? Are they current with their NATO payments? No? Fuck 'em!”
Yes, it’d start World War III. The snowball would start rolling and would only stop when the nukes went off.
The possibility of this happening has not been this high since, I’d guess, the Cuban Missile Crisis. Abandoning, or even hinting, at abandoning NATO’s collective defense agreement is a sure path to war.
So you’re mostly relaying a Russian belief that NATO doesn’t care about the Baltics. After 70-odd years of the United States and IIRC several other Western countries rejecting the USSR’s claim to the Baltics. After they have been in NATO for a dozen years. And NATO countries rotating their own aircraft into the Baltics for many years to protect its sovereignty since they can’t afford their own modern fighters.
When we talk about wars started by miscalculations, you’re literally defending a massive miscalculation as plausible for apparently the main reason that the Russians believe in the miscalculation a lot.
I have no clue where you get the idea that the US had an obligation to come to Ukraine’s defense that the US “lawyered” itself out of. What is the source of this supposed obligation, exactly? And you want to compare that – whatever it is – to an actual treaty obligation? Hardly.
Depends on your definition of WW3. And how the conflict plays out.
While many western nations do not believe the Baltics is worth a war, pretty much all the smaller NATO members believe NATO is worth a war. And no-one believes NATO would be worth a dead rat if it failed to defend member states from a Russian invasion.
So there would be war. Without nukes, Russia is a Great Power militarily, capable of taking on France and probably winning, or fighting the UK to a standstill. Against the European NATO members or the EU it goes down fast. Assuming some coordination and leadership among the western forces.
If nukes fly, western Europe can end Russia and Russia can end western Europe several times. Which helps it precisely nothing compared to doing it once.
And then there is the US, which is much more powerful militarily than either.
So in short, yes it would mean WW3, Russia is massively overmatched, and the only reason for them to try is if they think it won’t mean war. That is why a lot of NATO countries have forces in the Baltics, so an invader would have to engage in battle with several nations before taking the countries.
The US may have wanted Ukraine to enter the EU and then NATO and it may have spent money over many years to help that happen but it never had an obligation to Ukraine to defend it.
The US is not the only country in NATO capable of a nuclear response- how would the others feel about an invasion into their territory?
Depends on your definition of ‘WW3’ I suppose. It would certainly spark a war between NATO and Russia though. There is no way that the NATO nations would allow Russia to annex several of its members. It would destroy and discredit the alliance and every member who decided to stay their hand and just let Russia do what it wanted to do. Not going to happen.
Yes.
I doubt it. The only way I see Putin et al doing something this stupid is if they make a monumentally bad assessment of the possible NATO response and rely on Trump caving (I have to admit, this is the wild card). Russia knows that if NATO and especially the US fight back they will lose badly, and if it goes nuclear then everyone loses…especially Russia who gets completely destroyed.
I agree it would lead to a general war. Even if Trump hesitated to bring the United States in, the European powers aren’t going to want to abandon their NATO obligations and wait for Putin to pick the off one by one. And while Trump might convince Americans that Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania aren’t worth honoring a treaty obligation, he’s going to have a harder time with that argument when Germany, France, and Britain are involved.
I also think it’s unlikely Putin will try it. He’s already got a “friend” with the White House. Why risk losing that advantage by attacking NATO allies? Putin will get the same effect by attacking other countries in the former Soviet Union that aren’t covered by NATO.
War? not if Trump stays around. He’ll not even issue a statement. His advisors will someday write, “We knew it was coming, and we thought to ourselves…‘selves, we know they used to own this territory. They are just reclaiming it.’”