A new study suggests that Russian forces could overrun Eastern Europe in less than three days, because NATO has not been bolstering its fleet since Vladimir Putin seized Crimea.
The study, released by the RAND Corporation, a US military think tank, said that if Moscow chose to mount an invasion of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the United States and NATO would not have any good options with which to respond.
RAND came to its “unambiguous" conclusion after testing every possible scenario in a series of wargames it conducted between the middle of 2014 and early 2015.
“As currently postured, NATO cannot successfully defend the territory of its most exposed members," reads the study.
“Across multiple games using a wide range of expert participants in and out of uniform playing both sides, the longest it has taken Russian forces to reach the outskirts of the Estonian and/or Latvian capitals of Tallinn and Riga, respectively, is 60 hours."
The report also said it would take a resurgent Russia between 36 and 60 hours to push its 27 heavily-armored battalions past NATO's lightweight 12 to occupy the Baltic States.
Moreover, the RAND researchers found that NATO allies had no good options against any possible move from the Russian military:
“Such a rapid defeat would leave NATO with a limited number of options, all bad: a bloody counteroffensive, fraught with escalatory risk, to liberate the Baltics; to escalate itself, as it threatened to do to avert defeat during the Cold War; or to concede at least temporary defeat, with uncertain but predictably disastrous consequences for the Alliance and, not incidentally, the people of the Baltics."
Most likely, the study found, Russia would start by launching a two-pronged attack across the Latvian border, sending heavily-armed battalions in from the north and the south.
These battalions would push past the light-weight Latvian and NATO battalions before uniting to take the capital of Riga.
Once secured, the remaining part of Russia's 27 maneuver battalions would cross the Narva reservoir into Estonia to take the ethnic Russian north-east before heading to Tallinn, the capital.
RAND did, however, developed a few recommendations that should make an invasion much more difficult for Moscow—should it be inclined to attack the Baltic states. “Further gaming indicates that a force of about seven brigades, including three heavy armored brigades—adequately supported by airpower, land-based fires, and other enablers on the ground and ready to fight at the onset of hostilities—could suffice to prevent the rapid overrun of the Baltic states," the RAND report reads.
“While not sufficient to mount a sustained defense of the region or to achieve NATO's ultimate end state of restoring its members' territorial integrity, such a posture would fundamentally change the strategic picture as seen from Moscow. Instead of being able to confront NATO with a stunning coup de main that cornered it as described above, an attack on the Baltics would instead trigger a prolonged and serious war between Russia and a materially far wealthier and more powerful coalition, a war Moscow must fear it would be likely to lose," the report continued.
The report warns, NATO's ground forces are no match for Russia's. They do not have any battle tanks; all of Russia's do. NATO would have little room for maneuver, annexed in by Russian forces in Kalingrad Oblast.
In the scenario given by the study, NATO would have one week's notice to defend Eastern Europe.
The US military advisory corporation also warned that even a combination of US and Baltic troops combined with US airstrikes would not be able to prevent Russia advancing.
It explained that seven of NATO's 12 battalions in Eastern Europe are domestic fleets of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. They only have one heavy armored fleet, a single Stryker battalion, and no main battle tanks, the report explains. In contrary, all 27 of Russia's battalions have main battle tanks.
Though NATO's air power could put up a strong defense, it would be futile as its lightweight ground forces would be plowed down by Russia's.
The report said that NATO 'would have to launch a belated nuclear attack' to protect such move from Russia.
'The outcome was, bluntly, a disaster for NATO,' it concludes.
