Baltic Sea

With the Ukraine invasion, NATO is suddenly vulnerable

BRUSSELS – A new line of conflict is emerging in Europe, with heightened risk levels raising questions about whether NATO will, or even can, respond effectively.

After Russia invaded Ukraine and stationed its troops in a compliant Belarus, it suddenly extended its military power to the borders of several NATO countries, including the Baltic states.

If Russia manages to take over Ukraine and hold bases in Belarus, as many experts now expect, its armed forces will stretch from the borders of the Baltics and Poland to Slovakia, Hungary and northern Romania, making it far more difficult for NATO to defend itss to defend the eastern flank.

And only a narrow corridor of about 60 miles between Lithuania and Poland separates Russian forces in Belarus from Kaliningrad, the Russian territory on the Baltic Sea crammed with missiles that can easily hurl conventional or nuclear warheads into the heart of Europe.

“The level of risk to NATO has just and suddenly increased enormously,” said Ian Lesser, a former US official who heads the Brussels office of the German Marshall Fund. “The possibility of a conflict with Russian forces in Europe or elsewhere, such as the Black Sea, the Sahel, Libya or Syria, could be dangerous and will be an issue for years to come.”

“This changes everything for NATO,” said Ian Bond, a former British diplomat who heads foreign policy at the Center for European Reforms. “Russia’s goal is to wipe out Ukraine as a sovereign state in Europe. Now we have to take care of everything and we have to get serious again.”

NATO has already responded to Russia’s buildup to a limited extent, sending some additional troops and aircraft to member states closest to Russia. On Thursday, NATO approved further, unspecified deployments, and there are serious discussions about permanently scrapping the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act, which restricted NATO operations in eastern member states and against which Russia invaded eight years ago Ukraine had violated annexed Crimea.

“Russia’s actions pose a serious threat to Euro-Atlantic security and will have geostrategic consequences,” said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. “We are deploying additional defensive land and air forces in the eastern portion of the alliance, as well as additional naval assets.”

Any discussions with Moscow about reshaping Europe’s security architecture take a different form when Russian troops are stationed on NATO’s eastern flank.

Even if military spending increases significantly in response to the new Russian invasion, as it did modestly after Russia took Crimea, new and permanent deployments of forces, equipment, aircraft and even missiles will be a major blow for the last 30 years of relative peace, prosperity and complacency in the Confederation.

“NATO had been focused on all these important and fashionable things that had little to do with its core responsibilities, like climate and cyber,” Mr Lesser said. “But we have forgotten that there are ruthless people out there, and for them, foreign policy is a blood sport.”

NATO was already rewriting its 12-year-old Strategic Concept and debating a replacement for Mr. Stoltenberg, who is leaving office on October 1st. Now these tasks are becoming more and more urgent. “NATO is already in a position to think more broadly about its purpose,” Mr. Lesser said.

But a serious attempt to deter a newly aggressive Russia will not be so easy, said Benjamin Hodges, the former commander of US forces in Europe, now at the Center for European Policy Analysis. Just transporting troops and equipment in a post-Cold War Europe has become far more cumbersome as some bridges and railroads are no longer able to handle heavy armor.

“Leaders will be surprised at how long it takes to get things moving on the German rail system given EU road rules and no particular priority,” Mr Hodges said.

NATO also lacks significant air and missile defenses for a modern air war that, as in Ukraine, begins by hitting key infrastructure like airports, roads and rails, he said. Just to protect the large American Ramstein air base in southwest Germany would require a full battalion of Patriot missiles, he said, “and we only have one Patriot battalion in Europe that is ours.”

Once a concern of Cold War strategists, the Fulda Gap in Germany was heavily defended by American troops to prevent the Warsaw Pact from sending tanks into the Rhine from East Germany. Concern now turns to the Suwalki Corridor, a narrow gap connecting Poland and Lithuania which, if conquered, would cut the three Baltic states off from the rest of NATO.

The corridor separates Belarus from Kaliningrad, the headquarters of the Russian Baltic Fleet and isolated from Russia when the Soviet Union imploded. An emboldened Mr. Putin might very well demand direct access from Belarus to Kaliningrad, Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institution suggested in a column for the Washington Post.

“But even that would only be part of what will surely be a new Russian strategy to decouple the Baltics from NATO, demonstrating that the Alliance can no longer hope to protect these countries,” he wrote.

“The threat to Poland is now becoming acute,” said Mr. Bond, recommending that the United States quickly deploy two heavy battalions in Poland “to start with.” The operations in the three Baltic States must also be increased.

In 2016, NATO agreed to deploy battalions in Poland and the Baltic States for the first time. Known as the “Extended Forward Presence”, they each consist of about 1,100 troops, battle-ready but small, more like tripwires than anything that could slow a Russian advance for very long.

In 2014, NATO also set up a “Very High Readiness Joint Task Force”, which is currently under Turkish command and is to be deployed in the short term against threats to NATO’s sovereignty. It consists of a land brigade of around 5,000 soldiers, supported by air, sea and special forces, with further reinforcements ready to be deployed within 30 days.

But the smaller force is essentially untried, and the larger response force it is spearheading is only a quarter the size of the Russian invasion force in Ukraine. The larger force was created in 2002 and should be operational quickly, but its 40,000 members are stationed in their home countries and gathering them up can be a slow process.

There are also questions about NATO members’ vows to send arms to Ukraine if it fights the Russians or organize an insurgency. Efforts to deliver arms to Ukraine by air, rail or road could be intercepted or hampered by the Russian military, Hodges said, even if the supplies were delivered by contractors rather than NATO soldiers.

And what country would dare support an insurgency knowing that the Russian military is just across the border?

In general, the possibility of accidental confrontations leading to an escalation cannot be ruled out in such a field of tension The atmosphere. Analysts point to how Turkey shot down a Russian warplane near the Syria-Turkey border in 2015.

At the same time, the arms control agreements that attempted to keep the Cold War cold have almost all been suspended, posing new threats to the use of conventional forces and intermediate-range missiles. Russia has also been extremely active in cyber warfare, hacking the German Bundestag, interfering in the last French election and posting mountains of local language disinformation on social media.

Overall, the new threats should reinforce the logic of greater European Union-NATO cooperation on defense, Mr Lesser said, “and strip much of the politics and theology out of that relationship.” Coordinate with the EU on its areas of strength such as economic sanctions, cyber -Resilience, energy security and information warfare can only help both organizations, he said, given that 21 of the 27 EU members are already in NATO and others, like Sweden and Finland, are closely allied.

“We need the Americans,” said Mr. Bond. “But we shouldn’t drop the idea of ​​European autonomy and more self-reliance.” In Europe, there are doubts as to whether President Biden will run again in 2024 or win, and fears that former President Donald J. Trump or a Republican will be more in line standing with his isolationist creed of “America First” he will take office.

“Europe will be very exposed, so it needs to increase military spending and efficiency to meet real capability needs,” Bond said. “All of this is now becoming vital and not just a bunch of nice ideas.”