World War Skirmish:

How Modern Deterrence is facing a credibility crisis

by Ian Comings





In the 5 years since the invasion of Crimea and fear of a Russian Blitzkrieg came roaring into the political discourse, articles about a potential invasion of the Baltic States have been done to death. And while these fears are well founded, it seems that the core reasoning behind this has been lost or at least not frequently described for public consumption. Thus it might seem natural for the layman (or even the relatively well informed) to think that even if Russia took the Baltics in the 36-60 hours predicted by RAND that the weight of NATO men and Materiel would win the day eventually. While this would be true if you presume that western leaders will pay any cost to defend these states, the reality is that retaking the Baltics would likely be prohibitively expensive, potentially leading to western capitulation. This simple fact has profound implications on the effectiveness of 21st century deterrence, and we may need to make significant changes to foreign deployments to avoid small scale blitzkriegs from opponents with local supremacy.

While it is well known how poorly NATO forces would do in the face of a surprise offensive across the Suwalki Gap what is less well known is what could very well happen after the offensive. The NATO response could not begin immediately, simply because there aren’t enough forces organized in the region to throw them out, NATO would need to wait for reinforcement from western Europe and America, a process that would likely take weeks at least. If you look at other large scale American engagements like the Persian Gulf War you see that it can take months to prepare for an invasion of hostile territory, time which Russia could use to fortify their positions and prepare for the coming attack. This is bad enough but Western leaders would also have those few weeks to think on the costs of the crusade they would be embarking on, asking themselves “are the Baltic states worth the tens if not hundreds of thousands of lives that would need to be lost to take them back?” We can always tell ourselves that capitulation would be hugely unpopular and that solidarity with our NATO allies would win the day but all the same that question would weigh heavily on any rational actors mind. Is this war worth it? And sadly there is no good answer to that question. On one hand the loss of the men and resources for that crusade (not to mention the risk of mutual annihilation) would be overwhelming, but on the other, the damage to the western alliance that a capitulation would cause could be equally damaging. It is unacceptably likely that the west would capitulate and allow for the annexation of its eastern flank, thereby incentivizing Russia to partake in this World War Skirmish in the first place.

It doesn’t need to be said that deterrence only works if you can impose costs on your enemy significant enough to make the costs of attacking you too great. It seems however that in the last few decades we have decided that we will defer the imposition of those costs under the guise of de-escalation; while this may work in the case of a good faith actor, it breaks down when facing a bad faith one. Worse still this policy encourages bad faith actors in authoritarian states as they can get more out of the west for disproportionately small costs. It is simply not enough to kick russia out of SWIFT and call it a day as the horizontal escalationists would tell you to do. Authoritarian regimes are far more capable of withstanding economic stress than non-authoritarian regimes, while an extreme example, we need only look to the North Korean famine in the 1990s which were caused by western sanctions to see how much stress one of these states can undergo without failure. It seems unlikely that any deterrent will have the requisite effects unless you impose a significant military cost to the operation itself and do so immediately.

This sort of deterrence involves a kind of new forward defense much like from the Cold War, a sizable NATO contingent needs to be deployed in and around the flashpoint with significant infrastructure built in Poland and Germany to support reinforcements from an even larger NATO force stationed there. The goal is that if Russia were to attack, NATO forces could hold their opponents back for the days needed for troops from Central/Eastern Europe and they in turn could either take the offensive or hold the line for the weeks needed for American troops to arrive en-masse. Above all else a rout must be avoided, as that would undermine the whole point of our defensive strategy. Thus with time buying and cost imposition being the primary concern of the European component, force composition should focus on defensive systems: heavy armor, artillery, and A2/AD. The homeland component however must be more readily deployable and easily transportable than current forces or their equipment so that the men and material can be made available to the front as soon as possible. Light tanks and weapons systems that can operate in austere environments need to be developed, with force structures more suited for expeditionary warfare to match. We need to be able to fight tonight and then follow that up with a counter attack in days instead of weeks.

While it can seem that this stance is too hawkish, or too expensive, the reality could hardly be further from the truth, lighter tanks are already in development, we need this sort of quick reaction deployability for our other flashpoints like the South China Sea or the Persian Gulf, and finally we would hardly need a cold war level troop presence in Europe, an additional 20,000 men in Poland and the Baltics might be able to do the job, meanwhile the deterrence it provides could very well save the western alliance. We are not seeking to threaten Russia or make them fear us, we need only to create a regime in which Russia cannot presume we will simply roll over in the face of a conventional attack, we need to ensure that when we say we will defend our allies our enemies will believe us.



