Foreign Policy Research Institute A Nation Must Think Before it Acts Contextualizing Russia and the Baltic States
Contextualizing Russia and the Baltic States

Contextualizing Russia and the Baltic States

  • Joe Kyle
  • January 16, 2019
  • Eurasia Program

Abstract

According to a Rand wargaming study on a possible Russian invasion of Baltic nations, the longest it took for Russian forces to reach the capitals of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania was 60 hours. Despite the alarm this report caused in the North Atlantic TreatyOrganization and the foreign policy community at large, a deeper look seeks to give a better understanding of how both Russia and the Baltic states view their security situation and whether a Russian invasion is even likely. This article analyzes the threat that Russia poses to Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Although there are many parallels between Georgia, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, Russia poses far less of a military threat to the Baltic states than it did to Georgia prior to 2008 and Ukraine prior to 2014.

Read the article here.

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