The 2015 Pew Global Attitudes Survey’s Findings on NATO Solidarity

Last month the Pew Research Center released the results of a public opinion poll conducted during April and May of this year in the larger NATO member countries, plus Ukraine and Russia, on perceptions of European security issues. The poll highlighted the unsurprising differences across NATO members’ publics regarding the desirability of supporting Ukraine’s ongoing efforts to fend off Russian aggression. It also underscored the Putin regime’s unsurprising depth of popular support at home, notwithstanding the domestic economic difficulties exacerbated by Western sanctions.[i]

The greatest amount of mainstream media attention, though, focused on Pew’s findings on the apparent unwillingness of large NATO member countries’ publics to support the use of military force by their governments to defend a fellow NATO ally from Russian aggression:

“Roughly half or fewer in six of the eight countries surveyed say their country should use military force if Russia attacks a neighboring country that is a NATO ally. And at least half in three of the eight NATO countries say that their government should not use military force in such circumstances. The strongest opposition to responding with armed force is in Germany (58%), followed by France (53%) and Italy (51%). Germans (65%) and French (59%) ages 50 and older are more opposed to the use of military force against Russia than are their younger counterparts ages 18 to 29 (Germans 50%, French 48%). German, British and Spanish women are particularly against a military response.”

This contrasts strongly with the poll’s findings on these publics’ views on Russia as a military threat to its neighbors:

And broad majorities of these publics believe the U.S. would rally to an embattled NATO ally’s aid:

“While some in NATO are reluctant to help aid others attacked by Russia, a median of 68% of the NATO member countries surveyed believe that the U.S. would use military force to defend an ally. The Canadians (72%), Spanish (70%), Germans (68%) and Italians (68%) are the most confident that the U.S. would send military aid. In many countries, young Europeans express the strongest faith in the U.S. to help defend allied countries. The Poles, citizens of the most front-line nation in the survey, have their doubts: 49% think Washington would fulfill its Article 5 obligation, 31% don’t think it would and 20% aren’t sure.”

The German numbers are the most disconcerting. It would be extraordinarily difficult for the U.S. to mount a ground and air defense anywhere in Eastern Europe or eastern Scandinavia if we couldn’t use German bases, air and sea ports, and transportation networks. Even so, the numbers Pew reported for responders in eastern Germany are not surprising given the longstanding and remarkably wide pervasiveness of Ostalgie across multiple demographic groups.

So what gives? And what can policymakers and analysts take away from the results?

For starters, a poll is only as illuminating as its questions are worded. Many of the Pew survey’s questions fall into the popularity contest category of ‘do you have confidence in (fill in the leader’s name) to do the right thing in foreign policy?’ or ‘do you approve of (fill in the leader’s name)’s handling of (fill in the international issue)?’ or ‘do you have a favorable opinion of (fill in name of country or international organization)?’ All this may indicate the probability that a “low-information” individual will follow some leader or embrace some organization based on “likability” alone, but it doesn’t tell us anything about what that individual’s actual policy preferences are (or would be if they had more information about the choices at hand).

And therein lies the weakness of most polls: they’re almost invariably too generally worded to truly help the policymaker and analyst understand what an informed public would or would not support. For example, consider Pew’s ‘rally to a NATO ally’s defense’ question:

“Q52. If Russia got into a serious military conflict with one of its neighboring countries that is our NATO ally, do you think (survey country) should or should not use military force to defend that country?”

People who don’t normally think about how geography or foundational principles of regional security relate to them in their daily lives don’t tend to take those intangibles into account in their gut responses to questions like this. And some might differentiate between an abstract case (e.g., “a neighboring country of Russia”) and an actual named country they can picture relative to themselves. So to further refine the data and better understand what people actually believe or want (as varied across a given country’s regions and demographic groups), a series of follow-on questions might be desirable:

1.      First, two questions to baseline whether responders support the core Helsinki principles at stake, and whether they believe their country’s relationship within NATO should be transactional and self-interested.

a.       “Do you believe your country, all NATO and EU members, and Russia should refrain from threatening or violating each others’ frontiers and territorial integrities?”

b.      “If Russia committed military acts of aggression or coercion against your country, would you want the U.S. and other NATO allies to militarily come to your country’s defense?”

2.      The next three questions would identify the degree to which responders believed NATO’s defensive burden should be shared in a conflict in the responders’ own neighborhoods.

a.       “If Russia committed military acts of aggression or coercion against (name of a fellow NATO ally that bordered responder’s country), would you want the U.S. to militarily come to that country’s defense?”

b.      “Would you support U.S. military use of your country’s territory to defend (name of a fellow NATO ally that bordered responder’s country)?”

c.       “If Russia committed military acts of aggression or coercion against (name of a fellow NATO ally that bordered responder’s country), would you want your country to militarily come to that country’s defense?”

3.      The final three would identify the degree to which responders believed the NATO defensive burden should be shared in a conflict beyond the responders’ own neighborhoods.

a.       “If Russia committed military acts of aggression or coercion against (name of a fellow NATO ally at a distance from responder’s country), would you want the U.S. to militarily come to that country’s defense?”

b.      “Would you support U.S. military use of your country’s territory to defend (name of a fellow NATO ally at a distance from responder’s country)?”

c.       “If Russia committed military acts of aggression or coercion against (name of a fellow NATO ally at a distance from responder’s country), would you want your country to militarily come to that country’s defense?”

We might not like the answers to these questions, but they would tell us a great deal more than what we found in the Pew survey.

Lastly, in digesting the Pew numbers, the slight rebounds in many polled countries regarding Russia’s and Putin’s “favorability” from 2014 to 2015 ought to be examined in terms of the possible effects of Russian propaganda. A good poll question to do this might have been to ask what principal media outlets in a responder's country, including social networks, the responder turned to for trusted news on Russia, NATO, or Ukraine. A pretty good picture of the information war would emerge from that data.

The EU is focusing its efforts to counter Russian propaganda on Russian-speaking populations in former Soviet states, including the Baltics. That’s all fine and good, but it would seem that the domestic information gaps regarding Russian political, informational, economic, and military threats to their own countries are in sore need of being addressed as well. NATO and EU member governments should be reaching out to the independent press within their own borders with hard and verifiable facts that counter the Putin regime’s narratives, highlight the Putin regime’s efforts to influence European politics and policy, and detail the Putin regime’s illiberality at home. National leaders on both sides of the Atlantic owe their citizens a frank and continuous dialogue on how the foundational values of European security enshrined in the Helsinki Final Act are being endangered by the Putin regime’s policies, and what that should mean to them in their daily lives. Those free electorates should then be left to decide whether those values are worth defending.

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not reflect the official positions of Systems Planning and Analysis, and to the author’s knowledge do not reflect the policies or positions of the U.S. Department of Defense, any U.S. armed service, or any other U.S. Government agency.

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[i] Given the Putin regime’s authoritarian nature and the pervasiveness of its security apparatus, though, I don’t have much confidence that all the Russian citizens polled gave their true views without fear of repercussions. There is nevertheless more than enough qualitative evidence elsewhere that a majority of the Russian people support the Putin regime and its foreign policies. The resolute depth of that support is what's open to question. I find that Pew’s number highlights the extreme improbability that there will be any mass popular movements taking to the streets throughout Russia in opposition to the regime anytime soon. More importantly, Pew’s findings on the depth of Russian popular irredentism indicate the improbability of Western-leaning classically liberal politicians coming to power if the Putin regime were to fall.

The Use of the Marines in Europe for Deterrence

Marine COL William Nemeth has an intriguing article in this month’s Proceedings about how the Marines could contribute to deterring Russian aggression in Eastern Europe. Nemeth suggests the existing Black Sea Rotational Force could be expanded to a “full battalion combat team” he dubs “Rotational Force Europe” that could be deployed anywhere in Eastern Europe as needed. This combined arms force would consist of a reinforced infantry battalion with supporting combined arms attachments such as a reconnaissance platoon, light armored vehicle platoon/company, tank platoon, amphibious assault vehicle platoon, artillery battery, aviation combat element, and logistics combat element. I’m not going to do the approximate manpower counts for each of these components, but I’ll wager that their collective size would be more than double the Black Sea Rotational Force’s recent size.

Using Robert Rubel’s hierarchy of presence as a reference, my instinct is that Rotational Force Europe’s inherent capabilities when deployed as a aggregated group would fall somewhere between a tripwire force and a force capable of delaying/disrupting a notional Russian ground offensive (at least for a short time). If it functioned as part of a larger NATO standing forward combined arms conventional deterrent, the likelihood of bogging down a Russian thrust would probably be even greater.

But Nemeth also talks about splitting this Rotational Force Europe up into reinforced companies for deployment in widely-separated locations from the Baltics to Romania to even Georgia. He notes that the additional equipment needed to reinforce these companies could be pulled from the Marines’ prepositioned stockpiles in Norway, with augmentation personnel flown in from the U.S. All this is fine for peacetime engagement, training, and showing the flag. In a crisis, though, it seems to me that these companies would still be nothing more than tripwires. That’s okay as long as we’re honest about how a tripwire gambit must be structured in order to be effective. First, the tripwire must be placed in a location where an aggressor’s conventional forces cannot avoid coming into direct contact with it. Second, it must be latently backed by larger and heavier combat-credible forces positioned further back in the theater that can immediately provide it with combined arms support, begin deploying forward to reinforce it, and begin inflicting countervailing damage on the aggressor. Third, it must be able to latently back the host nation’s constabulary forces responding to an aggressor’s “salami tactic” incursions; the constabularies in turn must be able to provide physical security support for the tripwire’s emplacements and lines of communication/maneuver. Lastly, it must be accepted that losses in the tripwire force will likely be horrendous. That’s the price of being on the frontline at the beginning of a major war.

Nemeth goes into commendable detail regarding the air and naval assets that would be needed to support his Rotational Force Europe. It’s worth noting that he calls for there to be a standing presence in theater of two to three amphibious warships to perform transport, force insertion, or afloat staging base tasks. Given that the amphibious fleet is already overtaxed, something would almost certainly have to give in terms of presence in other theaters in order to restore that kind of presence in 6^th Fleet. The same is true for his call for a standing presence of two to four additional DDGs on top of the four now permanently deployed in Rota, Spain, plus four to five Littoral Combat Ships. He also calls for a Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) to be assigned to 6^th Fleet at all times; it is not clear whether this is the same as the amphibious warships he listed for transport or an additional set of such ships carrying their own Marines. While I don't disagree with him in terms of the need to reestablish a more sizable standing U.S. Navy forward presence in the European theater, note that CS-21R all but declares our existing force structure is insufficient to do so and also achieve all the other prioritized strategic tasks in other theaters assigned by our political leadership. CS-21R makes clear the burden for naval presence in Europe therefore falls on our NATO allies' fleets.

COL Nemeth briefly discusses how a Marine Expeditionary Brigade (MEB) might be used to quickly reinforce Europe in the event of a conflict with Russia. He suggests that a standing MEB headquarters element should be attached to European Command to plan for and command the flying-in of Marines from the U.S. to marry up with the prepositioned equipment stockpiles in Norway, and then deploy where needed in northeastern Europe—including the Baltics. He also implies that equipment could be prepositioned on NATO’s Black Sea members’ territories for contingencies in that portion of the theater. While I strongly agree with the use of a MEB for these purposes, I would point out that any use of the Baltic or Black Seas for transporting the MEB’s units towards frontal areas would be risky as a crisis peaked and nearly impossible if it had to occur after a war had already started. Russian sea denial capabilities in those waters will be too dense, at least during a conventional conflict’s first few weeks. This means gear must be prepositioned closer to where it might actually be needed. Norway is probably fine for Scandinavian operations. Prepositioning in Poland is probably necessary for operations in that country or the Baltics. Prepositioning in Romania and possibly also Bulgaria is unquestionably necessary for operations in those countries. Nemeth suggests that Rotational Force Europe might be used to enable the MEB’s theater entry and then movement to action; this could be a very important role for the former that deserves further analysis.

To make Rotational Force Europe, standing 6^th Fleet presence by a MEU, and the contingency MEB possible, Nemeth asserts that the Corps will have to stop rotationally deploying East Coast Marine units to augment Marine forces in Japan. While this is contrary to the Defense Department’s strategic prioritization of East Asia, it does make sense given the comparatively far higher military tensions with Russia than China at present. It also offers further evidence that our Navy-Marine Corps team is undersized (and budget levels being what they are, underprepared) for the strategic tasks it is assigned.

All in all, Nemeth has laid out an excellent and provocative article. Future analysis ought to look at how his ideas might pair up with Terrence Kelly’s ideas on how army forces (both U.S. and allied) ought to be used for conventional deterrence in Poland and the Baltics. More attention also needs to be paid with respect to how air and naval forces (whether U.S. or allied) ought to be used, especially in support of U.S. and allied ground forces fighting on the continent. And of course, the means for protecting the flow of reinforcements and logistical support into Europe and then onward towards frontal areas still requires much focused thought.

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not reflect the official positions of Systems Planning and Analysis, and to the author’s knowledge do not reflect the policies or positions of the U.S. Department of Defense, any U.S. armed service, or any other U.S. Government agency.

Expanding A2/AD: Is it Time to Start Worrying about the Eastern Mediterranean?

Note from Jon Solomon: My Systems Planning and Analysis colleague Jonathan Altman has long been interested in the Mahanian aspects of Russia’s foreign policy initiatives in the Eastern Mediterranean. Overshadowed by the ongoing Russian ground intervention in Ukraine or the headline-grabbing bomber sorties into the North Atlantic and Arctic, Russia’s cultivation of “places” and potential bases for its forces in that region over the past few years simply has not received much public attention from the security studies community. This needs to change, as the Mediterranean not only remains central to U.S. and European defense strategies, but is also a vital market as well as thoroughfare for Western economies. Jonathan has generously taken the time to outline his thoughts below on this overlooked topic.

Much has been written about the challenges posed by the Chinese adoption of what the U.S. military calls “A2/AD” (anti access area denial) in the Western Pacific. Accordingly, the Pacific remains a key focus area for both the U.S. Navy and Air Force, with the Navy promising to put 60% of its forces in that theater as part of the so-called “Pacific pivot.” Yet as focus remains on PACOM, the rest of the world is not standing still. This is exemplified in the Eastern Mediterranean, as the Russians have already begun laying the seeds to create an A2/AD zone in the region against the U.S. and its allies. If fully realized, an A2/AD envelope could put Western access to the Suez Canal, the Black Sea and the resource-rich Eastern Mediterranean at the mercy of Vladimir Putin.

There are three interrelated elements that make the development of an A2/AD zone in the Eastern Mediterranean possible for the Russians. The first of these is the prospect of a credible military presence, which in this case would most likely be provided by forward deployments from the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Armed with three (six by 2016) new enhanced Kilo-class diesel-electric submarines, 11,000 marines and a surface flotilla of 42 ships[1] as of last year, the Russian Black Sea Fleet is probably the most capable maritime force in the region. By contrast, the U.S. Sixth Fleet has a single command ship and four DDGs that will be permanently assigned to it from 2015 onward (though those DDGs are based on the other end of the Mediterranean in Spain), with only occasional rotational presence from ships passing through its area of regard on the way to or back from the Middle East. Though the U.S. does have allies in the region with credible maritime combat power, the Russians are working to drive wedges into these relationships; which not coincidentally is the second pillar of regional Russian strategy.

The Russian effort to decouple longstanding allies such as Turkey, Greece, and Egypt from political and military alignment with the U.S. is helped by policy choices the U.S. has made, as well as favorable circumstances the Russians can exploit. In the case of Greece, the formation of a coalition government by far-left and right wing parties that are deeply resentful of the European Union (and its American allies), committed to breaking out of the fiscal austerity “straitjacket” imposed as terms for European Union loans, and ideologically aligned with Russian “Eurasianist” geopolitical theory has opened new opportunities for extending Russian influence. The Russians have waded into this fray, supporting the Greek government politically and entertaining the possibility of assisting Greece with its debt issues. Greco-Russian relations have unsurprisingly warmed considerably. In the case of Turkey, Russia has taken advantage of a decade-long trend by the Erdogan government away from democracy toward authoritarianism. As the West has criticized Erdogan for imprisoning journalists, fabricating charges against political opponents, and repressing civil dissent, the Russians have remained supportive to the point that Erdogan is now praising Putin directly. The other Russian charm offensive in the region has been focused on Egypt. Faced with a virulent insurgency in the Sinai, and a U.S. Administration that until recently was withholding military aid as punishment for the suspension of democracy, Egypt's repressive military junta has instead turned towards the Russians for military equipment procurement for the first time since the mid-Cold War. The sum total of these actions is to cultivate Russian goodwill with three countries that control chokepoint access to and freedom of maneuver within the Eastern Mediterranean, not to mention use of the Eastern Mediterranean to access the Black and Red Seas. Neutrality by these countries in the event of a Russian-American crisis or conflict could be devastating to U.S. strategy.

With access for their credible maritime combat power vastly improved, the final aspect of Russian regional strategy is to secure and expand basing agreements. Limited by geography, the Russians have no port on the Mediterranean; anything they want to put in the region would likely come via the Black Sea (though assets could be deployed from there other fleets as well assuming they could pass through Gibraltar or Suez). Even though Turkey may be friendly with Russia now, basing agreements hedge against a risk of change in the political winds that could bottle the Black Sea Fleet up. Additionally, as Admiral Greenert states again and again, forward basing allows a Navy to keep more assets in theater, multiplying the impact of a smaller force. Russia's only base outside of the former Soviet Union is in Tartus, Syria, which of course is in the Eastern Mediterranean. Recently the Cypriots, long prone to Russian sympathies, agreed to an expansion of Russian port calls and even potentially an air base, giving the Russians an additional strategic location to use in the region. Current deployment of land based Russian-supplied Yakhont anti-ship cruise missiles in Syria provides an additional boon to the area denial aspect of their approach, which could be augmented by further sales or deployments of Russian forces equipped with ASCMs to friendly countries.

According to the Defense Intelligence Agency, the presence of Yakhont ASCMs in Syria alone has been enough to create a surface naval A2/AD zone in the northeastern corner of the Mediterranean. Furthermore, rolling the three Russian thrusts together, it becomes clear how an expanded Eastern Mediterranean A2/AD envelope could be enacted in the very near future. As Mahan famously wrote, the land features of a region can play a large role in determining maritime influence and access. For example, consider the military implications of a Russian deployment of advanced long-range SAMs alongside its existing Yakhonts in Syria, or perhaps a deployment of those SAMs in notional locations in Cyprus. Much has been written about the capabilities of Russian “triple digit” SAMs (in service S-300s and S-400s and the developmental S-500). S-500s will have up to a 600 km anti-air range according to some Russian sources - enough to blanket the region from Crete east assuming they are based in Cyprus (the same sources cite S-400 range at 400km and newer S-300 variants at a more modest 200km). The Russians may also seek to adapt these systems to enable integration aboard surface ships beyond the existing S-300F integration in Russian cruisers; further increasing deployment flexibility. A Russian deployment of Kilo-class submarines to the region would insert a further threat into the undersea domain at a time when more advanced but already overtasked U.S. nuclear submarines continue to decline in force structure. The degree to which U.S. and allied surface and air access in the Eastern Mediterranean would be imperiled by any single one of these potentialities, and especially by combinations of them, should be clear.

Fortunately there are options available to mitigate the risks of such an outcome. Beyond political, economic and diplomatic solutions, of which there are a great many possibilities, there are three broad Navy-focused options that could be pursued. The first of these, and the least desirable, would be transferring forces from other theaters to increase our capability in the Eastern Mediterranean. The issues in the Eastern Mediterranean are fundamentally a symptom of a U.S. Navy that is undersized for the global tasks assigned it and a NATO maritime force that no longer provides sufficient deterrent effect. To redeploy existing U.S. forces to the Mediterranean would simply exacerbate these symptoms in another part of the world. The second option, which is from a navalist's perspective the most desirable but simultaneously the most politically challenging, is to grow the size of the U.S. Navy. During the Cold War, carrier and amphibious group deployments to the Eastern Mediterranean were routine and kept the Soviet fleet in check. By contrast, the Navy’s current supply of day to day deterrence through credible combat power and presence is far outstripped by demand the world over.

Acknowledging this issue, and taking the fiscal policy conflict between Congress and the Administration into account, reinvigorating NATO Standing Maritime Groups may be the quickest and most feasible way to push back on the Russian A2/AD threat. Currently NATO operates two Standing Maritime Groups, though between them both only seven ships are combatants (and three of those were recently augmented above normal force structure). Given that no allied submarines and only a handful of helicopters exist within both combined groups, this force is highly vulnerable to Russian submarine attack or coercion. This could be addressed by augmenting the standing group assigned to the Mediterranean with allied undersea forces. Furthermore, with the allocation of dedicated land-based air power and additional surface combatants, NATO maritime forces’ credibility in the region would be greatly increased. To be maximally effective, this Standing Group should field electronic warfare capabilities and be trained to employ counter-surveillance techniques that can together defeat the over-the-horizon targeting systems supporting the Syria-based Yakhonts. Additionally, Standing Groups have the deterrent benefit of tying nations together as an attack on the group would affect at least a half-dozen different countries. To add further effect, NATO leadership should work to ensure Greek and Turkish participation (though perhaps not concurrently for historical reasons) in the Mediterranean Standing Group and cycle it through the Eastern Mediterranean regularly.

Whatever course of action the U.S. and NATO ultimately pursue, it is important for policymakers and strategists alike to recognize the gross implications of a Russian A2/AD envelope in the Eastern Mediterranean. Such an envelope would present grave challenges to U.S. influence in the region, and would imperil the free flow of commerce that is essential to U.S. (and global) prosperity.

Jonathan Altman is a Program Analyst with Systems Planning and Analysis, Inc. who holds a Master’s Degree in International Security from the Korbel School at the University of Denver. The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not reflect the official positions of Systems Planning and Analysis Inc., and to the author’s knowledge do not reflect the policies or positions of the U.S. Department of Defense, any U.S. armed service, or any other U.S. Government agency.

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[1] Though not all of these ships can be assumed to be self-deployable. Counting only principal combatants and amphibious ships, the Black Sea Fleet has 14 self-deployable ships; though it should be assumed that any deployment of these ships would be accompanied by some number of smaller combatants (missile boats or patrol craft), of which the Black Sea Fleet has 19.

Conventional Deterrence by Denial and the Baltics

RAND’s Terrence Kelly published an excellent opinion piece at U.S. News & World Report last month outlining analysis-derived requirements for a NATO conventional deterrent in the Baltics:

Unclassified RAND war games indicate that Russian forces could overrun local defenders and the light U.S. and NATO units currently able to respond within as few as two days. While the capitals and a small number of key points could be held for some time, Russian forces could seal the border between Lithuania and Poland, prevent reinforcement by sea, and confront NATO with a fait accompli.

Once secured, these territorial gains would be defended by heavy ground forces occupying the conquered states, along with very capable Russian anti-air and anti-ship defenses on Russian territory. Any serious attempt to liberate Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania would entail attacks to suppress these systems.

If a Russian invasion of the Baltic states could not be deterred or defeated, the North Atlantic Council and the U.S. president would be faced with a very unpleasant choice: conduct a costly counteroffensive and risk nuclear escalation, or abandon the Baltics to renewed subservience to Moscow. Such a catastrophic failure to uphold the mutual defense responsibilities of NATO could cripple or even destroy the North Atlantic alliance, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s primary goals. It is therefore of paramount importance to deter Russian aggression before it happens.

Unless one is sure that Putin’s Russia would not take these steps - a dangerous gamble, given Moscow’s recent track record - the United States and its NATO allies need to be able to deter, and if need be defeat, Russian aggression in the Baltics.

Kelly suggests that the standing peacetime deployment of one armored BCT in each of the Baltic states, supporting (but undefined) tactical air forces, and Division and Corps-level Headquarters to exercise unitary command and control over this combined arms forward defense would be sufficient to prevent Russia from achieving a limited but decisive territorial fait accompli. Based on this force’s size, it would do this presumably through delay and disruption. The U.S. Army arguably does not possess enough armored BCTs to carry the entire weight of this presence, though, while simultaneously meeting its other global contingency readiness commitments. As a result, the BCTs would likely have to be composed of forces contributed by multiple NATO countries. This underscores the importance of a unitary NATO approach to exercising command and control over this frontline deterrent.

Kelly does not comment on the degree to which existing NATO air forces deployed in Central and Eastern Europe might require permanent peacetime augmentation (presumably using U.S.-based squadrons). He does note that rolling back a Russian onslaught would require surge reinforcements, and given the state of European NATO members’ ground and air forces it’s hard to escape the conclusion those reinforcements would largely need to come from the U.S. This begs the question of how a modern analogue to REFORGER would be conducted. This would hardly be a small endeavor; even more so if debarkation air and sea ports or cross-continent supply lines came under fire from Russian long-range conventional strike weaponry.

He next details the tradeoffs between deterrent force positioning and posturing options. One path would be to warehouse heavy equipment in the Baltics, with crews flown in from the U.S. and other NATO allies to deploy this gear in the field in the event of a crisis. Such an approach might be rationalized as a signal of ‘flag-planting reassurance’ to the Baltic allies that is ‘less provocative’ to Russia than a standing manned heavy deterrent. Kelly correctly points out that the likelihood of dispatching crews to these stockpiles in time to mount an effective defense would depend almost entirely on detecting, correctly interpreting, and rapidly acting upon warnings of war—a sequence of events for which history and human psychology suggest there is little cause to be optimistic. He also correctly observes that these concentrated stockpiles would be highly vulnerable to Russian conventional first strikes, and by implication would be crisis-destabilizing.

Kelly follows by noting that standing ground forces based in (as well as equipment prepositioned in) Central Europe would be comparatively less exposed to the first strike threat, but would face the risk of not being able to deploy eastward fast enough to thwart a fait accompli thrust. This would effectively foreclose NATO options to pursue a defensive strategy of delay/disruption, never mind assured defense. Hence, Kelly concludes that a standing heavy presence in the Baltics—or in Poland at minimum—makes for the only credible ground force positioning and posture for deterrence by denial.

There is no doubt in my mind that some heavy ground forces contributed by NATO’s principal members would need to be positioned in the Baltic states in order to latently back constabulary forces responding to ‘plausibly-deniable’ offensive operations by Russian special forces or ‘civilian’ proxies. In the event of a conventional Russian ground offensive, these forces would be central to arresting the thrust’s progress while simultaneously incurring the commitment tripwire effect. Beyond that, it is reasonable to investigate options for splitting a standing deterrent’s positions between the Baltics and Poland in ways that increase their maneuver space as well as survivability against a first strike.

There is a broader deterrent-designing challenge, however, in that Russia could hypothetically escalate horizontally via offensive operations against other European regions in order to prevent NATO from concentrating combat power in Poland and the Baltics. While any such ground offensives would likely be fairly limited in scope, they would nevertheless hardly be inconsequential from the victims’ standpoint. Recent research published by the Royal United Services Institute’s Igor Sutyagin suggests much of the combat-ready Russian Army is tied down supporting operations in Ukraine, though. If Sutyagin’s analysis is accurate, and assuming Russian forces are not disengaged from the Ukrainian conflict anytime soon, then it seems Russia would be hard-pressed over the near-term to field enough combat-ready ground forces for major protracted anti-NATO offensives. This amplifies the potential credibility of delay/disruption-centric forward deterrents in the Putin regime's eyes, as it would heighten the likelihood of a protracted and risk-laden clash with NATO. These deterrent forces would certainly help backstop the 'first responder' constabulary forces needed to prevent 'non-linear war' fait accomplis.

Russia might have comparatively greater horizontal escalation flexibility in the aerospace and maritime domains. For example, Russia might conduct air and missile strikes or sea denial operations against NATO’s Black Sea members. Or perhaps Russia might conduct air and missile strikes, localized sea denial operations, small-scale amphibious assaults, or small-scale overland incursions against Norway or non-NATO Scandinavia. Some localized use of submarines or missile-carrying aircraft against NATO’s trans-oceanic and intra-theater sea lanes might also be possible. Depending on the strategic circumstances, Russia might even escalate both horizontally and vertically via long-range conventional aerospace strikes against Western European or North American NATO members. And of course, the possibility of Russian brandishing or use of theater nuclear weapons must be considered.

A fuller picture of a European conventional deterrent therefore ought to outline what kinds of tactical air forces are necessary to support ground forces, where those air forces should be positioned, what kinds of specialized aircraft (examples: AEW, JSTARS, electronic warfare aircraft, long-range bombers, tankers, etc.) would be necessary to support tactical air operations, and what the in-theater basing approaches would be to increase tactical air force survivability (examples: hardening, distributed operations using austere satellite fields and flexible command and control, etc.). Bases and ground maneuver forces will also require mobile air and missile defenses as well as electronic warfare support systems in the field in order to degrade Russian attacks. Defense of strategic targets against cruise missile attacks needs to be addressed. A approach for protecting the flow of logistics to forward forces additionally needs to be defined. Lastly, the roles of navies and coastal defense forces need to be outlined. The potential roles of Baltic Sea-bordering NATO members’ navies would be quite different from NATO members who border the Atlantic.

Kelly provides an outstanding foundation for examining NATO conventional deterrence requirements for the Baltics. His thoughts will serve as a starting point for the examinations of the other questions that I hope to write later this year.

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not reflect the official positions of Systems Planning and Analysis, and to the author’s knowledge do not reflect the policies or positions of the U.S. Department of Defense, any U.S. armed service, or any other U.S. Government agency.