Brian M Downing
Russia’s annexation of the Crimea has raised national security concerns in Eastern Europe, especially in Poland and the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Are they next on Vladimir Putin’s agenda of restoring the Great Russian empire? How reliable are the military forces of Eastern Europe? Will NATO come to their aid should Putin send in his special forces, fully uniformed or not? After all, NATO is not a club or a military accouterment of modern economic ties; it is a mutual defense treaty and signatories are required to go to war for each other.
Those questions are being asked in EU and NATO capitals. They are also being asked in Moscow, though from a quite different point of view.
Restoration of empire?
Putin’s actions in the Ukraine are often interpreted as a bid to rebuild the empire enjoyed by the Romanovs and Soviets. Putin certainly has ambitions in Eastern Europe but they are more limited than restoring the domains of his predecessors in the Kremlin.
The incursion into Georgia in 2008 and the rapidly organized referendum on, and annexation of, the Crimea established a principle (or pretext) of defending ethnic Russians in adjacent countries. Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia have sizable Russian populations who, though less-than-welcome, are not oppressed as could plausibly be said in Georgia. Nor are they endangered by neo-fascist forces as was implausibly asserted in the Crimea.
A second source of concern is Kaliningrad, the Russian exclave on the Baltic sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania, four hundred miles from Russia proper. The territory was seized from Germany after the Second World War and is home to a Russian naval base. It is to the Baltic Sea what Sebastopol is to the Black Sea – a vital military base and symbol of national greatness.
Moscow may use either case, the protection ethnic Russians or national security, to make demands upon Poland and the Baltic states. An end point here could include territorial concessions, especially in eastern Latvia where ethnic Russians are numerous.
Moscow has been greatly annoyed by the expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe – a process which George Bush, Sr stated would not take place. His successors nonetheless pursued expansion, largely at the request of Eastern European countries fearful of a resurgent Russia. Moscow may be seeking, if recklessly, to lay the foundations for an exchange of recognizing Eastern European borders and sovereignty for their withdrawal from NATO.
It is difficult, however, to see recent Russian actions as having anything but the opposite effect of strengthening Eastern European resolve to participate in NATO and of underscoring the dubious loyalties of ethnic Russians in Eastern Europe. And of course, a firmer NATO presence to the west and greater hostility to ethnic Russians will shape Moscow’s future perceptions and actions.
Mutual suspicions among NATO allies
The Ukraine is not a NATO member, but the Baltic states, Poland, Rumania, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and others are. Eastern European countries must be wondering about how reliable their NATO partners are. Can the major NATO military powers be relied upon to come to their aid in the event of Russian aggression? Will Britain and France and the US die for Danzig, again?
Martial spirit in Germany, Britain, and France has waned since the mass bloodlettings of the first half of the twentieth century. The call to arms is better heeded in the US which suffered far fewer casualties in those conflicts. However, the US faces worsening budget constraints, it’s shifting from conventional warfare to counterinsurgency, and it’s pivoting toward East Asia – or trying to.
The NATO military powers are not without questions of their own regarding Eastern Europe. The Ukraine, though not a NATO member of course, may have underscored those questions. The Ukrainian military has thus far shown little if any fighting spirit. Its garrisons in the east looked on as Russian special forces surrounded them and effectively took over the Crimea.
Would Eastern European armies put up a credible defense of their homelands or do they expect allies – chiefly the US – to provide the bulk of the forces and resolve? Was NATO expansion into Eastern Europe undertaken at a time when European militarism was thought dead and a defense treaty was deemed a bargaining chip in the larger game of economic integration? As noted earlier, these questions are likely being asked in Moscow.
Irregular warfare
In recent days, Poland announced plans to build a combat brigade comprising Polish, Ukrainian, and Lithuanian troops. The idea has been bandied about for some time. Recent events have given it urgency. Questions remain: how well would the three militaries cooperate and fight? Is a brigade (ca. 5,000 troops) a credible deterrent? Would it be a match for an equivalent number of Russian troops should hostilities break out?
Eastern European countries would do well to restructure a sizable portion of their militaries away from conventional forces (infantry, armor, air power) and toward irregular warfare and civilian militias. Troops would specialize in small-unit tactics, bomb-making, urban fighting, convoy ambush, sabotage, sniping, and even cross-border raids.
Such forces would pose a more formidable deterrence to Russian incursions than regular troops. Moscow would not see Hungary in 1956 or Czechoslovakia in 1968. It would see Afghanistan in 1979. The NATO powers would see a determined and effective ally to help with airpower and irregular operations of their own.
The Ukraine may be realizing the advantages of irregular troops today. It is arming and training citizens to defend against any further Russian incursions, especially in the eastern part of the country. Had the ethnic Ukrainians and Tatars of the Crimean peninsula been well armed, the present situation would be markedly different.
©2014 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a political/military analyst, author of The Paths of Glory: Social Change in America from the Great War to Vietnam, and co-author with Danny Rittman of The Samson Heuristic.