Understanding the conflict two years on.
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In Europe, not a week goes by without another stark warning about the growing potential of a Russian attack on a European Union member, especially if Ukraine loses the war. “We have to take into account that Vladimir Putin might even attack a NATO country one day,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told the Tagesspiegel newspaper in January. Two months earlier, he had warned that Germany needed to become “capable of fighting a war.” Swedish commander-in-chief Gen. Micael Bydén similarly urged Swedes to “prepare for war,” while the head of the British Army told Britons that they are part of a “prewar generation” that may have to fight Russia in the not so distant future. The fear was driven home by prospective Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who told a campaign rally that he would “encourage” the Russians “to do whatever the hell they want” to any European NATO member not spending enough on defense.
In Europe, not a week goes by without another stark warning about the growing potential of a Russian attack on a European Union member, especially if Ukraine loses the war. “We have to take into account that Vladimir Putin might even attack a NATO country one day,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told the Tagesspiegel newspaper in January. Two months earlier, he had warned that Germany needed to become “capable of fighting a war.” Swedish commander-in-chief Gen. Micael Bydén similarly urged Swedes to “prepare for war,” while the head of the British Army told Britons that they are part of a “prewar generation” that may have to fight Russia in the not so distant future. The fear was driven home by prospective Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who told a campaign rally that he would “encourage” the Russians “to do whatever the hell they want” to any European NATO member not spending enough on defense.
These statements have usually been accompanied by a number of estimates how quickly Russia can regenerate forces and equipment lost in Ukraine in order to attack a NATO country. Pistorius thinks this will take “five to eight years,” whereas the outgoing chief of Estonian military intelligence estimated that Russia could be ready for war again within four years. “It cannot be ruled out that within a three- to five-year period, Russia will test Article 5 and NATO’s solidarity,” according to Denmark’s defense minister. Poland’s national security agency believes that Russia could attack NATO as soon as three years from now.
These public statements are meant to spur Europe to action when it comes to the old continent’s ability to defend itself against future military aggression and to prop up deterrence. And they are having an effect. More than 80 percent of Germans, for example, now favor arming up after decades of neglecting their military.
But all these exhortations to get ready for a potential war with Russia beg the question: What, exactly, is Russia preparing for? And what, in turn, does Europe need to do to be ready for various contingencies?
NATO’s top priority in terms of a future conventional war with Russia remains defending the Baltic countries that directly border Russia: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The bloc’s war planners envision various scenarios: Russian forces could overrun the Baltics in a full-scale invasion, or they could occupy smaller chunks of territory in order to test and undermine NATO’s willingness to defend a small frontier state against nuclear-armed Russia—especially if it is no longer clear if the United States is still committed to defending Europe. To make planning more difficult, a Russian campaign could involve any combination of conventional attacks, nuclear threats to deter NATO from coming to the attacked country’s aid, and unconventional measures such as cyberattacks, disinformation, and sabotage in various NATO members in order to weaken the alliance’s resolve.
In the context of an occupation of the Baltics, NATO military planners have also considered how Russia could attack or occupy the Suwalki Gap, a geographic corridor along the Lithuanian-Polish border that stretches about 100 kilometers between Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea. In the event of war, Russian forces could occupy this stretch of land, severing Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania from the rest of NATO. Such a conventional military move could be supported by “active measures” that stir up trouble among ethnic Russians in the Baltics, further weakening NATO’s position in the region.
The default assumption in these scenarios is that Moscow intends to test NATO’s cohesion and resolve by some variation of an “escalate to deescalate” strategy. The idea is that Russia would quickly seize NATO territory in one or more of the Baltic states, present the alliance with a fait accompli, and then force the bloc to back down in the face of nuclear threats. If NATO acquiesces, its credibility would be destroyed for good. This scenario could include early Russian use on the battlefield of low-yield, tactical nuclear weapons in order to coerce NATO into terminating hostilities.
To this variety of conventional, nuclear, and hybrid scenarios, add uncertainty about the outcome of the Russia-Ukraine war, questions about the scale of Moscow’s defense buildup and capacity to rearm, and the ongoing confusion in the West about defense budgets, force size, and Washington’s future U.S. commitment to the alliance—and the result is a veritable Tetris game of alliance planning.
Each of these scenarios would require different military (and non-military) capabilities and force sizes on both the Russian and NATO side. Further complicating NATO planning is that individual member countries assess the Russian threat differently, depending on such factors as geographic proximity and their own military capabilities. For Russia, it would be much easier to rebuild military power sufficient for overwhelming the Baltics with their minuscule military capabilities than for a prolonged land campaign in against Polish forces in Poland—perhaps aided by Germany—to seize and defend the Suwalki Gap.
The requirements to defend against hybrid warfare are very different than those to counter large-scale armed thrusts into NATO territory. Both are a top concern for the Baltic states and Poland, though countries not immediately bordering Russia are more worried about the former than an actual invasion. Berlin’s focus on hybrid threats, in turn, may help explain the sluggish pace at which it is reconstituting Germany’s conventional military forces. Two years into Russia’s war, it still finds it difficult to deploy a single combat-ready brigade to Lithuania by 2027.
With scenarios and threat perceptions so different across NATO, it is difficult for the bloc to come up with a realistic joint timeline for when Russian forces might be ready to pose a threat beyond Ukraine. Most importantly for Western defense planning, it remains unclear when Russia’s major combat operations in Ukraine will cease and what losses in manpower and equipment Russia will have sustained by then. Other questions include what Russia can rebuild and reconstitute, what it can fund given the size of its economy, which technologies it can access, and whether it can generate the necessary human resources in both the defense industry and the military itself. On all these points, there are vigorous debates in Western analyst and intelligence communities.
Based on Moscow’s public announcements, it likely aims for a substantially larger military compared to what it had before 2022. At the same time, it has not yet revealed a new 10-year arms production and procurement program to support this larger force. According to some analysts, funding is unlikely to be a constraint in the near term, but Russia will find it extremely challenging to generate the needed human resources due to a lack of skilled workers and a shrinking workforce overall. Substantially expanding the defense industry may also prove difficult due to a chronic lack of investment, as well as difficulties in obtaining various components in sufficient volumes.
But this says little about Russia’s genuine future intentions and the warfighting methods it might choose to pursue them. Whether the Baltics scenarios discussed by NATO planners are a realistic reflection of Russian intents and capabilities remains an open question.
Despite these uncertainties, it would be a grave mistake to underestimate Russian military power. NATO should not take the Russian military’s poor performance in Ukraine as a reason to be complacent. It is true that Russian forces have not succeeded in decisively outgunning the Ukrainians and have failed at the kind of rapid armored thrusts that would present NATO forces with a fait accompli in the Baltics. So far, Russia has also stayed away from using tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
At the same time, the Russian military has proved its staying power under adverse battlefield conditions in Ukraine, demonstrated a willingness to endure great losses, and retained the ability to attrit Ukrainian forces and go on the offense. Consequently, even if NATO planners determine that a Russian blitzkrieg against the Baltics is only a low-probability scenario, it would be a mistake to underestimate Russia in the coming years. Common sense dictates that the bloc needs to prepare for multiple scenarios and timelines—lest we be surprised once again, like we were in 2022, when Russia does something most Europeans thought was unthinkable.
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