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Notes -
A Tone-Shift in the Ukraine War
Lately, I've noticed that the tone of the discussion regarding Ukraine both on the Motte and on X has changed considerably. Notably, it seems that people are taking a much more pessimistic view of Ukraine's chances. The default assumption now is that Ukraine will lose the war.
I think a stalemate is still quite possible, but the more optimistic assumptions that Ukraine would regain lost territory (or comically, Crimea) are now a dead letter. So what, exactly, are our leaders thinking? Recently, Macron went off-narrative a bit, suggesting that France could send troops into Ukraine. More ominously, Secretary of State Blinken said that Ukraine will join NATO.
Perhaps Western leaders view this sabre-rattling as good for their electoral chances. And, until recently, the war was seen as a relatively cost-effective way to weaken Russia. (Sadly, this seems to have failed as Russia has freely exported oil to India and China and is making armaments in great numbers).
But what of Ukrainians themselves? Will they tire of being NATO's cat's paw? It's impossible to find good numbers on how many Ukrainian men have been killed so far in this war. It's likely in the hundreds of thousands. Towns and villages throughout the country are devoid of men, as the men (hunted by conscription) either flee, hide, or are sent to the fronts.
User @Sloot shared this nuclear-grade propoganda. While Ukrainian men fight and die in some trench, an increasing number of Ukrainian women are finding new homes (and Tinder dates) in Germany. Concern about female fidelity has always been a prominent feature of wartime propaganda. But, this takes it to a new level, since the women are in a different country, making new, better lives for themselves. How many will ever even return to Ukraine?
Ukrainian men are getting a raw deal in an effort to reconquer lost territory, whose residents probably want to be part of Russia anyway. Why should Ukrainians fight and die for some abstract geopolitical goal of NATO?
As others said, this is absurd version of the events at hand. If Ukraine loses this war, they are fucked in the same way Donetsk and Luhansk are fucked now, only worse. It may very well happen that they will end up according to the map that Medvedev shown with Ukraine being what Donetsk/Luhansk was in since 2014 - just a puppet state and source of expendable shock troops for the new Russian Empire. The next move? Putin attacks Moldova with forced conscripts from newly annexed Ukraine thus potentially solving two problems at once by expanding the territory and sending potential rebels into the meatgrinder. He already uses this tactics to some extent by conscripting mostly ethnic minorities and rural population. The same tactics Mao utilized when he sent surrendered Kuomintang soldiers to Korea: win-win scenario for him.
And we are not even talking about a scenario where Putin with his newfound strength may test the article 5 and actually conduct Baltic offensive on Estonia/Latvia/Lithuania. It is not as if NATO will fire nukes in face of conventional assault - so what will they do? Will Spaniards and French and Italians send enough troops to the meatgrinder to save some faraway countries? At worst Putin can always say "my bad, I just want part of Estonia and make peace" and play peacemaker or he can withdraw after testing the waters. It is not as if NATO countries will ever muster courage to actually wage full fledged war with the aim to physically oust Putin from Kremlin when he hides behind nuclear ICBMs and torpedoes. And in the meantime Putin will have enough Ukrainians to send ahead of his barrier troops.
Don't forget, things are never so bad that they cannot get worse.
The Baltic offensive theory isn’t watertight. For example, CIA and MI6 intelligence is clearly good enough inside Russia to have been able to predict the Ukraine invasion several months in advance. We can only assume investment (both in covert sources and hacking/signals intelligence) has been strengthened since then.
At very short notice NATO could send an expeditionary force to the Baltics of at least 150,000 men. Even the European Union + UK, if America decided not to participate, could field at very short notice perhaps 75-80,000 men (UK 10-15k, France 20-25k etc). Given how much elite Russian military experience was killed in the first few months of Ukraine that’s a relatively tough foe for Russia.
The ‘Baltic Blitzkrieg’ scenario therefore only works if either Russia is able to plan, stage and execute the operation without any signs being intercepted by the West, or if NATO countries don’t even care to send forces to the Baltics to scare Putin off, which seems unlikely given it’s already happening.
True enough, if it happened today, or next year. But who knows about 2030, or 2035?
Russo-Georgian war happened in 2008. The war in Donetsk started in 2014. The current war started in 2022. As far as the political climate is concerned, a great many things may change in 6 years.
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I agree that if NATO takes proper steps then invasion will not be a clear success for Russia.
It does not mean at all that Russia will not invade.
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It might depend on what level of salami slicing is attempted. Estonia is a very soft target; there doesn't need to be some massive build-up of force to seize most or all of it. So let's say you have a normal force distribution at standard readiness in the Leningrad Military District. All of a sudden the wire comes in - ethnic Russians have been killed by the government of Estonia, and the rest need immediate protection to prevent the same! It's only a 200 km drive to Tallinn from the border. There are negligible forces in your way. How much preparation is actually needed at this point?
I would like to highlight that one reason the Ukrainians thought the Russians were not actually going to invade was that reports of the Russian "forward" buildup especially in Belarus indicated extremely poor readiness and logistical buildup, past the point of sustainment for a narrow-deep or wide-shallow push, much less the wide-deep required for the Kyiv assault. Any presumption that the LMD has a high force readiness is... well I think the 4 GTD and 2 MRD around Moscow are the only ones actually cited as a fully kitted and prepared units, with everyone else basically being your conscript cadre fillout. I really don't see the balloon rising in your specific scenario without it being telegraphed. Wagners thunder run to Moscow (Prigozhin my beloved) was not telegraphed at all and thats what caught Rostov totally unaware.
edited to rephrase a term
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But then there would be a huge retaliation from NATO that would make NATO's support for Ukraine look rather restrained by comparison (and maybe it kinda was).
Would there be? Does NATO risk nuclear war for the sake of Estonia?
What if it's just a border incursion? The Russians penetrate some 20 or 30 km and then stop. What if it's just shelling or a few bombs dropped on military bases?
I don't think this is something particularly likely, but the Russians might think it valuable to test the waters on how united NATO really is, especially if Trump is elected again.
I think it's probably not a coincidence that Russia waited until after Trump left office to invade Ukraine. I realize that sounds crazy to most MSNBC watchers. At the very least, it seems like they were unaffected by who the US president is.
Russia waited until after the pandemic, then waited a bit longer because the Chinese wouldn't support an invasion that could disrupt the Beijing Winter Olympics. I don't think we can draw any conclusions about their preferred timing via-a-viz US domestic politics. Pre-pandemic conventional wisdom among the "Trump will let the Ruzzians invade NATO because Putin owns him" crowd was that the best time for Putin to start shit was after the 2020 election.
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If NATO turn out to be such pussies that they're afraid of shitkicking a platoon of vatniks salami slicing into an ally then honestly kudos to Russia, they deserve the win. NATO doesn't get to pretend they're the biggest boys on the block if Putin can just say 'I DECLARE NUKE' and the NATO cowards roll over to sacrifice their smaller members.
Of course, this brings us full circle to whether it was a good idea to add a country like Estonia to NATO when they offer almost nothing in return. The reason to add Estonia isn't to improve the alliance, it's to put a thumb in Russia's eye and attempt to create a definitive anti-Russian border rather than keeping the buffer-state model in place. Is that a good idea? I don't know, that's above my pay grade, but it's definitely a stupid idea if you're not actually willing to bleed for Estonians. Any time you lack the resolve to keep a commitment, you should not make that commitment.
Charitably, the acceptance of Estonias request to join NATO is itself a signal that NATO would resolve to make the commitment to defend Estonia or any other invoker of Article 5. Estonia asked to join NATO because Russia has attacked the Baltics and subjugated them, not because the Baltics really just want to stick it to the poor innocent Russians.
Others here have pointed out that if not NATO we would likely see the Baltics aggressively attempt to form a different form of defensive alliance, like a new Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth with Karelia DLC. Again, it really must be pointed out that most of these states were aggressively TRYING to join NATO, not coerced into it by shady DGSE agents. The amount of charity extended to Russian intentions strains the boundaries of good faith presumptions, much less credibility.
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