Dan De Luce, Foreign Policy: If Russia Started a War in the Baltics, NATO Would Lose — Quickly
War games show NATO’s eastern flank is vulnerable. To deter Moscow, the U.S. will need to deploy heavy armor on a large scale, a new study says.
If Russian tanks and troops rolled into the Baltics tomorrow, outgunned and outnumbered NATO forces would be overrun in under three days. That’s the sobering conclusion of war games carried out by a think tank with American military officers and civilian officials.
“The games’ findings are unambiguous: As currently postured, NATO cannot successfully defend the territory of its most exposed members,” said a report by the RAND Corp., which led the war gaming research.
In numerous tabletop war games played over several months between 2014-2015, Russian forces were knocking on the doors of the Estonian capital of Tallinn or the Latvian capital of Riga within 36 to 60 hours. U.S. and Baltic troops — and American airpower — proved unable to halt the advance of mechanized Russian units and suffered heavy casualties, the report said.
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WNU Editor: To deter such a "Russian invasion", the following NATO military deployment is being proposed ....
.... A force of about seven brigades in the area, including three heavy armored brigades, and backed up by airpower and artillery, would be enough “to prevent the rapid overrun of the Baltic states,” it said. The additional forces would cost an estimated $2.7 billion a year to maintain.
7 brigades .... $2.7 billion .... just to prevent the Baltic states from being overrun in 3 days .... even though they will eventually be overrun. Here is an easy prediction .... this proposed plan is not going to be accepted.