Air defence challenges and prospects of the Baltic States

EN[...] The three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are perhaps the Allies most susceptible to a Russian military threat. They border Russia or its ally Belarus, they lack the strategic depth that would allow them to mount a flexible defence, and they are connected to the rest of NATO territory by only the narrowest of land corridors. In addition, Russia's highly militarised Kaliningrad exclave lies between Lithuania to its north-east and Poland to its south. The armed forces of the Baltic states are small and while the presence of NATO forces in the three states (and Poland) in the form of enhanced Forward Presence is a welcome fortification of the Alliance's deterrence posture, the combined Allied force posture in the region is still no match for Russia's. In the worst case, should deterrence fail, Russia could overrun the Baltic states in a short period of time and attempt to negotiate with the rest of the Alliance from a position of strength, perhaps also invoking the threat of nuclear weapons - the so-called "escalate to de-escalate" approach. The Alliance would be faced with the unpalatable choice of either abandoning the Baltic states, or conducting military operations to restore Baltic territory, no doubt at huge human and financial cost and an ever-present risk of nuclear conflict. Prudent defence planning in the present era thus requires that the Alliance should be able to deter a Russian attack on Baltic (and other Allied) territory and, if necessary, defend Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania against such an attack. [...].