Will Putin risk World War III?

As the events of March fade away in the Kremlin, Russian President Vladimir Putin remains standing. He is now free from his domestic distractions.

Washington and Brussels should be on guard.

Brutus, who looked like Evgeny Prigozhin, died in August last year when his private jet exploded. Alexei Navalny, Putin’s biggest political rival and most outspoken critic, died last month in a high-security penal colony in Yamal, near the Arctic Circle, where he had been imprisoned. He appears to have died while walking.

After winning his fifth sham presidential election, Putin may soon find himself in the most dangerous situation for the short- and long-term security of Eastern and Central Europe. A recently released classified German intelligence report suggests that Russia could attack a NATO member state, perhaps the Baltic states or Finland, as early as 2026.

Other red team scenarios should be considered as well, given NATO’s delicate situation in Hungary and Slovakia and the United States increasingly distracted by the messy politics of an election year.

Meanwhile, neither French President Emmanuel Macron nor Poland and Estonia have ruled out the presence of Western troops in Ukraine. President Macron has raised the terms, declaring that the Russia-Ukraine war “will continue.” Coupled with Czech President Petr Pavel’s efforts to secure funding for 800,000 cannons, the Kremlin’s window of victory may be closing.

The question is whether Putin can respond by escalating the war. Could he attack the Baltics or Moldova? Or somewhere else?

NATO must expect an attack against any of its members, and President Putin clearly views the Baltic states as NATO’s weakest link.

Putin could launch a limited attack outside Ukraine for several reasons – to hasten victory or maintain control of Donbass and Crimea amid imminent defeat. In any case, he will challenge what he sees as a divided NATO to make important decisions about whether to protect NATO or to protect Ukraine.

Russia’s superiority in artillery and ability to withstand relentless “flesh attacks” was conclusively demonstrated with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s decision to tactically withdraw from Avdiivka in February. As a result, Putin scoffed at his idea of ​​negotiating with Zelensky. [Ukraine] We’re running out of ammunition. ” Nevertheless, with this “superiority” Putin gained only a few kilometers, not the hundreds of kilometers needed to defeat Ukraine.

To break the stalemate, Putin will need to change NATO’s calculus and its willingness to continue supplying Ukraine’s war effort. Putting NATO on the defensive by attacking targets with conventional weapons in the Baltic states could be a way to shift NATO efforts away from Ukraine, even if it jeopardizes a comprehensive alliance response. .

Escalating conflicts and then defusing them is a common Russian diplomatic and military tactic known as the Gerasimov Doctrine. The idea is simply to create chaos and take advantage of it. President Putin may deploy tactics to provoke chaos in Brussels and counter President Macron’s bold declaration that he is prepared to send French troops to Ukraine.

“Everyone can see that this conflict between Russia and NATO is one step away from World War III,” Putin said in his election victory speech on Sunday. President Putin cannot back down. Because this would not only bring humiliation to himself and Russia, but also his own destruction. This speech suggests that he is willing to escalate outside Ukraine in order to win within Ukraine.

NATO needs to prepare for this.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. CQ Brown Jr., attended the 20th meeting of the Ukraine Defense Liaison Group on Tuesday in Ramstein, Germany. Although 50 countries participated in the summit, its scope is no longer sufficient.

“Ukraine’s survival is at stake,” Austin said. But an attack by President Putin could jeopardize the survival of NATO.

NATO allies must aggressively begin planning to defend Europe from a potential Russian invasion, and they must do so in two parallel time frames.

The first will take place in the short term while the war in Ukraine is still ongoing. The second is to resume combat operations 10 to 20 years after the end of hostilities.

NATO has already made urgently needed progress in the long war. Sweden’s full membership strengthens the alliance’s defenses in the Baltic Sea and the Arctic, and Brussels is converting the 57th Air Base in Mihail Kogalniceanu, Romania, into Europe’s largest NATO base.

But this is just the beginning. Poland and the Baltic States will require far more defense capabilities.

Ukraine is just a front for President Putin. He wants more and says so. In 2014, Crimea was not enough to satisfy his desire to control the Black Sea again, and if he wins, Ukraine alone will not be enough.

Regardless of wishful thinking, Putin is not going to disappear. His propaganda media talking heads remind us every day that Moscow is intent on rebuilding the empire. Sergey Mardan was the latest. As Russian media expert Julia Davis pointed out in .

Therefore, if Putin chooses to escalate against NATO to de-escalate tensions, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia are the most likely candidates. Possibly the same goes for Poland. NATO must be vigilant and actively vigilant.

Meanwhile, NATO must contend with its own “Brutus” candidate. Hungarian President Viktor Orbán and Slovakian President Roberto Rico are likely to further increase, or at least prolong, the chaos that Putin is causing. All NATO leaders have been apologists for Putin and have parroted Russian propaganda against Kiev. Rico even claimed in January that “Ukraine is not an independent and sovereign state.”

The Baltics and Poland have no such illusions. Their common memory of Soviet repression is likely the reason why Putin would miscalculate if he attacked them. Warsaw is in almost the same position militarily as Russia, and is likely to take up a military fight against a weakened Russia.

Putin’s calculations may be that Washington and Brussels do not want to risk World War III by fulfilling NATO’s obligation to defend the Baltic states. He may be proven right in that regard, or at least cause considerable turmoil within NATO as the alliance seeks agreement on how to respond.

Washington, London, Paris and Brussels must rid Putin of that idea once and for all. The West must make clear to President Putin that any attempt to escalate the war in Europe will only lead to a swift and decisive escalation by NATO.

mark toth He writes about national security and foreign policy. Colonel (retired) Jonathan Sweet He served as a military intelligence officer for 30 years.