Tartu, Estonia. 20
January. Thirty-five kilometres from
Estonia’s border with Russia freedom has a particularly sweet taste like a
good, young wine. It is as yet not
full-bodied and has some noticeable flaws and vulnerabilities but it is clear
that over time if left to rest a distinct flavour will emerge that will make it
a vintage to remember. How do ‘we’
defend Baltic freedom?
Latvia, Lithuania and
Estonia are important to me because they are the conscience of freedom. We in Western Europe have become old, slow
and complacent about the liberties and freedoms which we take for granted. This is somewhat ironic given that today is
the seven hundredth and fiftieth anniversary of Simon de Montfort’s first truly
English parliament which set so much of the world on the long path to democracy. Sadly, whilst the Paris attacks may have
finally awoken us to the very real dangers posed by those who despise liberty
and democracy it is unlikely to have really shaken our ever-so-little, all talk
no action Western European leaders out of the torpor of denial that is helping
to make Europe and the world a more dangerous place.
Contrast
Lithuania. The Baltic States may be
small but their leaders tend not to be, even if the politics of the region is
not for the faint-hearted. Last Thursday
in Vilnius I met the impressive Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaité at the
hugely important annual Snowmeeting at which I had also the honour to
speak. Today, I address the equally
important Baltic Defence College, a model of defence integration and NATO’s
most easterly command. My message to both was direct; all of the complacent assumptions
you hold about the defence of freedom will be destroyed unless ‘we’ as the
community of freedom stop talking and start acting.
In his seminal book “The Great Crusade” H.P. Willmott said of
Hitler’s Blitzkrieg attacks, “German success between 1939 and 1942 owed as much
to the German armed forces’ better understanding of the balance between
offensive and defensive firepower as it then existed as to any material
consideration. Opposed by a number of
enemies of limited military resources and inferior doctrine, the Wehrmacht had
been able to defeat opponents lacking adequate anti-tank and anti-aircraft
defences and – crucially – the space and time in which to absorb the shock of a
Blitzkrieg attack”. That pretty much describes
the correlation of forces between NATO and modernising Russian forces and
doctrine today in and around the Baltic region.
Now as then, NATO would
not be able to defend the Baltic States against a surprise attack by an unstable, despotic and probably desperate Russia regime. Now as then, NATO
would need to trade space for time until the West’s massively better
fundamentals could generate the forces and resources to blunt and then repel a
Russian lunge. Now, unlike then, an
aggressive Russia would make it perfectly clear that it has treaty-breaching
short and intermediate range nuclear weapons to deter such a NATO
counter-attack. Stalemate!
When I rose to speak at
the Snowmeeting I simply tore up my prepared remarks and went for the jugular
of complacency. No, I did not believe Russia
is about to attack NATO allies. Yes, I
am fully aware of Russia’s military shortcomings revealed during “Operation Russian Spring” in
Ukraine. However, “proval blitzkriga” is still at the heart of Russian military
doctrine albeit leavened and reinforced by the use of proxies in conflict and
destabilising disinformation designed to keep potential targets divided and
their potential defenders politically off-balance.
But that is not my
essential point. Russia forces may still
be short of the fully-professional army they are seeking to achieve by 2020. However,
the increasingly militarised Russian state will continue to drive towards such
a force and Moscow will study carefully how to improve their military performance
as well as the paucity of Alliance forces and resources in the Baltic region. The essential strategic truth is that Russian
military weaknesses would likely be less critically decisive at the point and
moment of engagement than NATO military weaknesses.
Therefore, due to
European defence slashing and increasing American military overstretch that
essential correlation between Russia and NATO forces in the Baltic States is
only likely to favour Russia unless Alliance leaders do something about it
rather than simply talk about it. In
other words, current analysis suggests within four to five years the conditions
will be favourable for a desperate Russian regime to act and impose a new/old ‘buffer
zone’ via a military fait accompli.
The Ukraine crisis is
as much a crisis of Russian weakness as Russian strength and that makes it all
the more dangerous. My sincere hope is
that Russia will demonstrate the very real greatness of which it is capable by
stopping the military logic of Moscow’s current strategic and political
nonsense. However, my fear is that a
regime that is lost in the wilderness of romantic Russian nationalism and which
is now undertaking all the necessary analyses and assessments of Alliance
weakness will at some point reach all the wrong conclusions and be tempted to
take all the wrong actions.
How do ‘we’ defend
Baltic freedom? Not like this.
Julian Lindley-French
