NATO, A2/AD and the Kaliningrad Challenge

Frühling, Stephan; Lasconjarias, Guillaume

doi:10.1080/00396338.2016.1161906

Cited by 32 publications

(10 citation statements)

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“…The primary Other studies have given detailed accounts of Russia's military modernisation and its order of battle in the region. 8 After yearso fn eglect, a mediocrep erformance during the2 008 Russo-Georgian War, and the ensuing shock therapyofthe 'newlook' reforms, theR ussian armedf orcesa re activeo n as cale not seen sincet he 1980s. Of course, claimsofRussia'scomprehensive militaryr esurgences hould be taken with al arge pinch of salt.…”

Section: A Focused Russian Build-upmentioning

confidence: 98%

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Access for Allies?

Zapfe

Haas

2016

The RUSI Journal

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Section: A Focused Russian Build-upmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…32 Whilet his option is compellingw ithin the boundaries of conventionalm ilitary logic and is apossible outcome of many realistic scenarios once groundc ombat starts, it would be highly irresponsible to base NATO planning on this premise. Kaliningrad is undisputedly sovereign Russian territory.…”

Section: Managing Escalatory Dynamicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Access for Allies?

Zapfe

Haas

2016

The RUSI Journal

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“…For another, Russia has militarized the exclave Kaliningrad in order to erect what security experts call an ' anti-access/area denial' (A2AD) bubble in the region. That is, in a hostile and kinetic military environment, Russia can complicate efforts by NATO to move around the theater-of-operations, let alone enter it in order to resupply and to reinforce local forces (Frühling & Lasconjarias 2016;Simón 2014). One RAND report contends that Russia could reach Tallinn and Riga within several days given the alliance's military posture that was in place in 2016 (Shlapak & Johnson 2016).…”

Section: The Contemporary Military Situation In the Baltic Regionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance in the Baltic Region

Lanoszka

2019

Scandinavian Journal of Military Studies

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Questions about the nuclear balance have resurfaced in Europe after a long hiatus. NATO members in the Baltic region especially worry that Russia might use nuclear weapons to gain a strategic advantage at their expense. I draw on the political science literature on nuclear coercion to investigate whether Russia can successfully use nuclear coercion. I argue that NATO defense planners have more cause for optimism than they might realize. First, Russia will continue to suffer an unfavorable nuclear balance at the strategic level and so will never fully be confident that it can escape unacceptable costs meted out by the United States. Second, although their record of behavior suggests that Russian leaders might believe that nuclear weapons are useful for compellence, an alternative explanation is possible. That is, they may simply be compensating for their own relative inferiority with bluster. Third, nuclear coercion is only effective under very stringent circumstances: when the user is facing a large-scale conventional military attack that it cannot handle. Far from being cowed, NATO members located in the Baltic region are responding to Russia's nuclear saber rattling with efforts to bolster their defense and deterrence measures.The nuclear balance of power seems to matter once again in Europe. After two decades of dwindling nuclear weapons stockpiles on the continent and great power arms control agreements, several North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members worry that they now need to reckon with the nuclear dilemmas that used to be salient during the Cold War. Those dilemmas remain intractable even with the benefit of hindsight and access to primary documents from that era. We would never know whether American decision-makers would really sacrifice New York City to save Paris, much less Warsaw in the present day. Nor do we know how to strike the appropriate balance between making extended nuclear deterrence commitments to allies and providing assurances to adversaries who might fear a nuclear attack themselves. After all, improving a commitment to an ally could sometimes make an adversary feel more insecure, thereby leading to a spiral that all would prefer to avoid. Even the value of alliances in the nuclear age remains murkier than we would like to believe. If great powers derive their ultimate security from having a survivable nuclear arsenal capable of issuing a retaliatory strike, then how can allies enhance security when, theoretically at least, the condition of mutually assured destruction (MAD) renders them less important? Put simply, tough times appear to lie ahead for those NATO membersspecifically, Poland and the three Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania -that may be most sensitive to unfavorable developments in the overall nuclear balance (Luik & Jermalavičius 2017;Veebel 2018).Developing reliable answers or solutions to these challenges is probably an impossible undertaking, and so the goal of this essay is much more modest: to understand the extent to which developments in th...

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“…Latvia's membership in NATO presents a similar picture. At present, Latvia benefits from increased physical presence of NATO forces within Latvia (Bruge 2015, Vitkus 2015, Partschefeld 2015, Braw 2015, Kara-Murza 2015, Fruhling and Lasconjarias 2016, Clem 2016. However, some contend that the NATO presence is largely to blame for Latvian tensions with Russia (Pifer et al 2015, Lukin 2015, Charap and Shapiro 2016, Arbatova and Dynkin 2016, and some doubt whether NATO would actually respond if Russia were to launch some form of military activity in the Baltic States (Braw 2015, Kroenig 2015, Clem 2016.…”

Section: Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Does Latvia Matter in Regional Geopolitics?

Lamoreaux

Dyerly

2018

Journal on Baltic Security

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As early as 1994, scholars, analysts and policymakers began to wonder the extent to which the Baltic States mattered in the relationship between Russia and the West. The general consensus for the following 20 years was that the Baltic States matter considerably, especially following their inclusion in both the EU and NATO in 2004. However, in the past few years two trends have emerged which begin to call this accepted knowledge into question. First, the relationship between Russia and the West has turned more hostile following nearly 20 years of detente. The West insists (especially NATO) insists that it is within its right to protect states that were formerly part of the Soviet Union/Russia’s “near abroad”. Russia, on the other hand, insists that NATO incursion into the “shared neighborhood” is a violation of trust and overstepping normal geopolitical bounds.Second, the Baltic States who once presented something of a united front for the West against Russia, no longer appear to have a common approach to foreign policy. While Estonia leans toward Scandinavia, and Lithuania leans toward Poland and Ukraine, Latvia is a bit of an odd man out with nowhere to turn. Furthermore, even other states in the Shared Neighborhood no longer seem to see Latvia as a valuable ally within the West. Considering this state of affairs, this paper considers whether Latvia matters anymore in regional geopolitics, or whether they are losing relevance.

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NATO, A2/AD and the Kaliningrad Challenge

Cited by 32 publications

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Access for Allies?

Access for Allies?

Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance in the Baltic Region

Does Latvia Matter in Regional Geopolitics?

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