Russia, France, and a Fait Accompli for NATO in the Baltic Region

July 9, 2021

In the past few weeks, the RAND Corporation published two interesting reports. The first, “A Strong Ally Stretched Thin: An Overview of France’s Defense Capabilities from a Burden Sharing Perspective”, by Stephanie Pezard, Michael Shurkin, and David Ochmanek, and the second, “Competing with Russia Militarily: Implications of Conventional and Nuclear Conflicts”, by Clint Reach, Edward Geist, Abby Doll, and Joe Cheravitch. While the two topics would appear unrelated, there are important questions that both reports touch on in terms of the potential for Russian aggression in eastern Europe, as well as Western capabilities to respond to such aggression in a meaningful way. Though the authors of both reports contend that the idea of a major conflict between NATO and Russia is not imminently foreseen by either Russia or France, this type of contretemps cannot be ruled out. The levels of Russian troops and equipment positioned near the borders of eastern Europe, combined with an underwhelming French ability to rapidly contribute in a crisis response scenario could undermine a rapid NATO response to a Russian decision to attempt to deliver a fait accompli scenario in the Baltic region. Specifically, the Baltic region presents an especially difficult scenario for the West to respond to, as a number of different factors combine to make the region highly advantageous for Russia to operate in, and insalubrious for French and NATO forces.

There are arguments to be made that many fait accompli scenarios are highly improbable, as they generally presuppose the seizure of huge swathes of territory in multiple countries; something that has not been seen since the outset World War II. Furthermore, Russian efforts to diversify their transit routes for energy exports and other trade away from the Baltics would seem to indicate that they would have little reason to intervene in the region. However, while it is unlikely that Russia would look to seize, for instance, the Suwalki Gap anytime soon, it does not mean that Russian aggression in the region can be completely ruled out. Therefore, it is vital that the United States, and it’s European NATO partners, have a clear understanding of both the current capabilities of Russia, as well as the hardware and personnel that Allied forces can rapidly bring to bear in the event of Russian aggression in the Baltic region. 

Conventional Military Conflict with Russia

The recent RAND report on Russian military capabilities offered an analysis which shows both Russia’s capacity to make quick territorial gains, especially in their near abroad, as well as indications that Russia would struggle to retain any of those territorial gains in the face of NATO counterattack. For example, a conflict that takes place inside Russia’s anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) bubble would be initially difficult for NATO forces to counter, as the Russian Air Force is a peer competitor, equipped with capable fourth-generation fighters.  Furthemore, its integrated air defense systems (IADS), robust precision-fire ballistic missiles, and emphasis on massed indirect fires,  coupled with a lack of long-range standoff munitions for NATO, means that the usually-relied-upon NATO air superiority would hardly be a given. This would mean that Western ground forces would be fighting in contested environments in ways that they have not been asked to do since the early 1950s. 

The RAND authors also state that though it has a rather limited ability to project power globally, Russia has the capacity to swiftly bring to bear forces from its Western and Southern MIlitary districts during a conflict on or near its borders. Furthermore, since its invasion of Crimea and Donbas in 2014, Moscow has decided to reorganize Russian forces, concentrating them in the Western and Southern Military Districts, and organizing them into division-sized units rather than brigades. Such division-sized units would be better suited to a large-scale engagement with NATO forces in eastern Europe, though currently they are concentrated on the borders of Ukraine and Belarus rather than the borders of the Baltic states. 

This restructuring of forces was part of a continuing process of military reorganization taking place in Russia since 2008. Through this process, the Kremlin has attempted to modernize its fighting forces through a transition from a predominantly conscription-based model to the formation of a paid, professional force. These changes in force structure were mainly attributed to poor performance from the Russian army during conflicts in Chechnya and Georgia at the beginning of the century, partly due to overreliance on the conscripted military inherited from the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War. As part of this reorientation, the RAND  analysis shows Russia as currently possessing an approximately 270,000-280,000 strong ground force, with 50-60% of those soldiers as part of a professional, non-conscript force. This professional force is divided into 79 battalion tactical groups of approximately 700-900 personnel for a total of 53,250 professional army troops, with another 25 battalions of professional soldiers in the airborne, as well as others in the Northern Fleet navy. 

The Baltics as a Special Danger

The RAND authors found that in the short term, this reorganization and professionalization of their military has enabled Russia to reach a point where its forces are capable of a quick seizure of territory on their border, which could only be rolled back with huge risk to NATO forces. To that end, the RAND analysis proceeds to take a look at why the Baltic states present such a difficult scenario for NATO security guarantees. 

The first major reason the authors believe that the Baltic region is so dangerous for NATO is that its current force posture in the region is highly insufficient to repel a Russian attack, as NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence only consists of just under 5,000 troops, with little artillery and fewer tanks. Furthermore, wargames performed by the RAND Corporation showed that the longest that it would take Russian forces to reach the outskirts of Riga or Tallinn would be 60 hours, far short of the 30 days it would require NATO to meet it’s “Four Thirties” Readiness Initiative and deliver its own troops to the fight. In addition, the Baltic countries all possess more modest military capabilities, and none of the three have any main battle tanks, which would heavily limit their troops ability to counter Russian armor.

On top of that, the European Deterrence Initiative’s armored brigade combat team is stationed all across Europe, with elements located in Poland as of August 2020. This means that there is little armor available to actively counter an armored Russian invasion in the Baltics in a timely manner. This is due to the long distances involved in transporting troops and equipment across Europe, along with a number of potential military mobility issues that could hinder rapid deployment. These military mobility difficulties range from legal hurdles in obtaining cross-border transit permission to issues relating to the differences between Russian and European railroad gauges necessitating disembarkation and then reloading of troops and equipment onto new trains which would leave those troops and equipment exposed at known bottlenecks, potentially exposing them to Russian air attack. Another military-related issue is the aforementioned NATO inability to achieve its customary air superiority. This inability is due to a dense, local Russian IADS network, coupled with a dearth of NATO standoff munitions needed for the suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD), and to counter their armored units and tanks.  Finally, the RAND analysis shows that combined, the E3 of France, the United Kingdom, and Germany would struggle to field even a single armored brigade, and even then, it would take them 30 days to assemble. At that point, even if they were able to field such a force, the RAND authors argue that the E3 would have trouble meeting its logistical needs. Complicating the lack of air superiority and comparable armored forces, the authors state, is the Russian emphasis on massed indirect fires. The volume of ammunition that can be volleyed by Russian forces outpaces the U.S. by a 9-1 ratio, meaning they are able to deliver decimating fire on their opponents, at further distance than their NATO opponents can reach with their own artillery. This fire advantage is only exacerbated when one contemplates the geographic distance issues that would accompany U.S. logistical efforts to supply its artillery pieces if the United States and its Western European allies were to engage in a fight on the Russian border.

There are also simple issues of geography to be considered. For Russia, an operation in the Baltics, whether it is a quick seizure of land, or a more drawn out conflict against NATO, has the benefit of shorter logistics and communications lines. Therefore, while NATO forces would struggle with a host of military mobility-related issues, the Kremlin would not be hampered by such logistical problems, as most of their professional military forces are already pre-positioned near the area of potential future conflict. 

The last major conventional concern for NATO forces in a Russian contingency in the Baltic states is the range and accuracy of Russian precision-fires like the Kh-101 cruise missile (CM – range between 2,500-4,000km) or the Iskander short-range ballistic missile (SRBM – range up to 500km. Russia’s possession of these weapons means that it could theoretically disrupt both deployments to the front-lines during a potential conflict, as well as target rear-area command, control, communications, computers, intelligency, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR). In addition, such long-range precision-fires would threaten the troops that are awaiting transfer between European- and Russian-gauge rail lines in the rear of the theater. 

In addition to all of these conventional threats, the RAND authors also outline how Russia possesses an extensive arsenal of strategic and non-strategic nuclear weapons (NSNWs). The authors state that the commonly accepted perception is that Russia would only use nuclear weapons to achieve concrete military objectives, such as blunting NATO’s ability to project its forces into the Russian territory. In that case, the authors point to the 2010 Russian military doctrine, “Basic Principles Of State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nuclear Deterrence”,  which states that, “the Russian Federation reserves the right for itself to use nuclear weapons in response to use against it…as well as in the case of aggression against the Russian Federation with conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is threatened.” However, as the authors point out, the phrase “the very existence of the state” is left undefined, leaving a harrowing degree of uncertainty about when they would resort to the use of nuclear weapons. Furthermore, though the authors state there is no reason to believe that they would cross that threshold easily or quickly, the amount of dual-capable delivery systems in their arsenal gives them a diverse set of options at the sub-strategic level, far outpacing NATO and its Allies. For the authors, the key risks to NATO are not the forces on a potential front-line in the Baltic region, but rather the high-value facilities in NATO’s rear like airbases in Germany and Italy. The authors believe that destruction of those sites by long-range precision-strike attacks by Russia would leave NATO with the difficult choice of either responding with a nuclear attack on the Russian homeland, which, according to their Basic Principles on Nuclear Deterrence, would provoke a nuclear response, or finding that its ability to wage a conventional war after such attacks is severely limited. This results in what the authors refer to as a “vulnerability gap” where the Kremlin could theoretically target high-value assets like air bases or aircraft carriers and NATO could not respond similarly without risking escalation to nuclear confrontation. Therefore, this gap cannot be plugged through the acquisition of more low-yield nuclear weapons, as without credible targets, the number of warheads is irrelevant. Therefore, the best NATO can do to counter the Russian ballistic missile and nuclear threat is work to better shield its infrastructure from potential nuclear strikes through hardening, increasing defenses, or increasing redundancy. 

French Contributions to a Crisis Scenario

The other interesting document from the RAND Corporation released recently was the overview of France’s defense capabilities from a burden sharing perspective. While France would not be the sole European NATO member to respond in a crisis, its deficiencies highlight an overall weakness of a potential NATO response to a crisis in the Baltic region. The RAND report highlights the fact that France is rather unconcerned with a conventional Russian attack in Europe, as they feel that NATO nuclear deterrence would prevail in such circumstances. Such analysis of the strategic situation seemingly explains the overall decline in the size and quality of French forces since the end of the Cold War. 

For instance, while the French Air Force possesses 5th-generation fighter technology with plans for 6th-generation planes by 2040, it is lacking as far as strategic airlift capability, and its ability to suppress enemy air defenses (SEAD) is limited by a small number of total munitions available. Further, their Navy is down from 147 ships and 75,000 personnel to 90 and 35,000 respectively, today, with the small fleet size being the major limiter. And, as for the Army, it  has shrunk from 300,000 troops in 15 divisions to just 2 divisions and 119,000 officers and soldiers, with a focus more on multipurpose missions like Operation Barkhane in the Sahel. While it has been investing greater sums in its technological capabilities, previous budget cuts and austerity measures resulting from the financial crisis has made readiness to face a peer-competitor difficult to achieve. Finally, the report’s authors state that with France’s ongoing European and overseas commitments, like Operation Sentinelle and Barkhane, it would be difficult for France to quickly extract its forces and pivot to a conventional threat in the European theater.

Outside of a more general analysis of the current state of the French armed forces, the authors also provide more detailed looks at the individual service arms. For the French Army, though the RAND authors note that several years of growing budgets have enabled the French to modernize and increase its force size, it is still not suited for high-intensity conventional conflict of the type that Russia would present in eastern Europe. For example, France can only bring to bear 220 Main Battle Tanks (MBTs), compared to the 1,300 they had in the 1990s. This stands in stark contrast to the 757 main battle tanks that Russia had available just on the Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania border as of 2017. Additionally, of France’s 358 artillery pieces, only 77 are state of the art CAESAR self-propelled howitzers. Another limitation on French forces is that despite the rise in number of Army personnel in recent years, the budget for equipment procurement and maintenance has remained flat, meaning that its armed forces are being asked to do more with less, proportionally. This has resulted in delegation of maintenance work to manufacturers rather than in-house personnel, and skimping on the purchase of replacement parts. All of this ends up drastically limiting equipment readiness, as demonstrated by a 2018 French Senate report which showed that only 1 in 3 helicopters were available for service. 

Overall, the report also points to some potential concerns when it comes to constraints on French policymakers ability to supply forces for the defense of a NATO ally in the event of a contingency with Russia. While a 2018 Pew poll found that the percentage of French citizens that would support the use of military force to defend a NATO ally if it got into a military conflict with Russia rose from 47% in 2015 to 52% in 2018, this type of bare majority would limit the ability of Macron to radically alter French force deployments from Africa (Barkhane), the Middle East (Operation Chammal), the Mediterranean (Operation Foch), and Western Europe (Sentinelle) to quickly assist in a potential Baltic scenario. 

Overall, the report’s authors feel that NATO Allies could confront a situation where its forces were rapidly outmatched by those that Russia could deploy to the Baltic States within just 1-2 weeks. Furthermore, they believe that NATO air forces would find it difficult to suppress the Russian IADS network, limiting or eliminating Allied air superiority. While the authors do feel that French heavy ground forces, as well as its artillery, aerial refueling aircraft, and satellites would be a valuable addition to NATO forces in such a scenario, there are a number of weaknesses that need to be addressed. These range from: numbers of forward-deployed ground forces; number of available artillery pieces; need for improved ISR and communications tools; need to increase stocks of anti-armor weapons; need for short-range air defense systems for cruise missile and helicopter defense; and a need for enhancements to France’s strategic lift assets and infrastructure.

Potential for a Fait Accompli in the Baltics

All of this analysis raises the question: what are the chances of Russia attempting a fait accompli scenario, similar to what they did in Ukraine in 2014? As the 2016 RAND report, “Reinforcing Deterrence on NATO’s Eastern Flank”, by David A. Shlapak and Michael W. Johnson stated, NATO forces would be, “inadequate to defend the Baltic states from a plausible Russian conventional attack,” and that, “Russian forces knocking on the gates of Riga and Tallinn in two or three days would present NATO leaders with a set of highly unattractive options.” In essence, the authors are discussing a fait accompli scenario in the Baltic states, and that a counteroffensive to such a scenario would be, “fraught with severe escalatory risks”, such as Russia moving to formally annex the occupied lands to extend its nuclear umbrella to encompass them. In addition, a NATO counteroffensive would almost certainly require striking targets in Russian territory, which could trigger a nuclear escalation. 

While some analyses express disdain for the idea that Russia could pursue such a scenario in the Baltic states, a recent analysis by the German Council on Foreign Relations, entitled “Russia’s Strategic Interests and Actions in the Baltic Region”, noted that, “A closer examination of Russia’s recent military exercises reveals that Moscow has long been preparing for a major, high-intensity conflict against NATO”, though such a conflict is not its preferred objective. Furthermore, the same report states that, “as Russia reshapes its position towards almost every region of the world with a view to its global competition with the United States, it can be assumed that strategic planners cannot help but see the Baltic region as a potential theater of operations in a war between the U.S./NATO and Russia…Hence, in strategic terms the Baltic states and Poland can be seen as NATO’s most vulnerable region.” 

While it is hard to argue that a Russian invasion of the Baltic region is inevitable or even entirely foreseeable in the near future, the overall Russian ability to present a fait accompli scenario in the region, coupled with an overall NATO inability to contest such a move requires more investments and planning to combat such a situation. Furthermore, a fait accompli scenario in the Baltics may not necessarily look like what happened in Crimea or Donbas, in that Russia could decide to seize a much smaller swathe of land, concentrating instead on cities with large concentrations of Russophones such as the Estonian cities of Narva, Sillamäe, or Kohtla-Järve, all of which have 70%+ ethnic Russian populations. While some analysts feel that such a scenario is unforeseeable, other analysts, like Matt Cesare of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, in his article, “Russian Encroachment in the Baltics: The Role of Russian Media and Military”, pointed out that, “The Kremlin looks for ways to interact with and support Russian populations in foreign lands as a way to build its own power. Moscow used this tactic in its ongoing involvement in the Donbas conflict and for its illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014.” To that end, research shows that around 75% of Estonia’s Russian speakers, for example, consume Russian media, which is mainly driven by the Kremlin. 

Therefore, while Moscow does not currently seem to be planning anything nefarious in the Baltics, the example of Ukraine in 2014 shows that it does not take long for Russia to exploit divisions between the ethnic-Russian/Russophone populations in a country and their government. Accordingly, an increase in Russian hybrid-, dis-, and mis-information campaigns in the region could act as something of a canary in the proverbial coal mine, alerting the West to a possible change in their posture towards the region, and potentially signaling a future territory seizure. 

Final Thoughts

Overall, while the threat of a Russian invasion into the Baltic states cannot be classified imminent, recent reports by the RAND Corporation show that such a scenario would present a number of serious problems for NATO Allies in blunting it or rolling it back. 

A combination of increased Russian readiness, capabilities, and the specific geography involved all mean a scenario wherein Russia invades part of the Baltic states would be extremely difficult for NATO Allies to rebuff or roll back. NATO is constrained by a number of different factors in a Baltic-incursion scenario against Russia. To begin with, the United States, NATO’s largest contributor, has its own issues when it comes to getting its forces to a Baltic front in a timely manner. In addition, there are all of the aforementioned issues with the state of the French military (4th largest contributor to NATO), not to mention serious concerns about the ability of the German (3rd largest contributor to NATO) Bundeswehr to contribute in such a context. In addition, the latest Integrated Review conducted by the United Kingdom (2nd largest contributor to NATO) called for a restructuring of their forces, away from a focus on conventional ground forces and with greater investment in nuclear, naval, and cyber capabilities. This resulted in a March 2021 Report by the UK Ministry of Defense, “Defence in a competitive age”, which proposes a reduction in Army personnel by approximately 11%.

Taken together, it would appear that NATO is in no way ready to respond to potential Russian aggression in the Baltic region. While some analysts feel that such an incursion by Russia is unlikely, it is precisely this lack of readiness that should give policymakers pause, as Putin has shown himself capable of rapidly exploiting emerging political dynamics in Crimea and Donbas in 2014. For the United States, what is required is a greater commitment to resolving ongoing military mobility issues that would prevent it from delivering a rapid, robust response to the region. For European NATO Allies like France, there needs to be a greater focus on contingency plans to extract their forces from peacekeeping missions in and around continental Europe, the Middle East, and Africa and rapidly deliver them to meet Russian aggression in easetern Europe. For Germany and the UK, a continued focus on increasing defense spending is a must if they are to credibly contribute to a potential NATO response against Russia. Overall, if NATO is to live up to its conception of deterrence through the rapid reinforcement of its Enhanced Forward Presence troops, Allies will have to do more to increase their readiness and ability to rapidly funnel troops and equipment. Otherwise, the West risks Moscow attempting yet another fait accompli scenario, only this time against a NATO member. Such a scenario, though improbable, would be catastrophic for the Alliance in general, and Baltic states in particular, and would carry with it a high risk of nuclear escalation.