I must admit that I am fascinated by the sudden uptick in talk about a European war with Russia.
Not fascinated in the “I would love to see what happens” way, but rather “I never expected to hear the mostly pacifist European governments openly discuss the possibility of World War III.”
Nobody, I think, is expecting the kind of apocalypse that we imagined during the Cold War. Tanks will not be rolling through the Fulda Gap, and the chance that nuclear weapons will begin flying isn’t exactly high, whatever the idiots at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists blather on about.
But it’s clear that many politicians and most European military leaders are genuinely concerned that some form of armed conflict could erupt between a Western European country and Russia.
I wrote a post on why this prospect is not as absurd as it seems. In a direct, military-on-military confrontation, Russia would get its clock cleaned and Putin knows that, but there are conflicts short of a major war in which bullets and bombs might be exchanged, and that would be a Very Bad Thing.
If a conflict were to break out, Finland is the likeliest place for it to happen. A very recent entrant into NATO, Finland shares a very long border with Russia and a significant history of conflict with the Bear. While everybody’s eyes are fixated on the Baltic states or Poland, Finland is a place where Russia could probe with less risk than other countries. And in doing so it could threaten to fracture NATO.
Estonia says Russia is preparing for a military confrontation with the West within the next decade. The assessment is based on Russia’s plans to double the number of forces stationed along its border with Finland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia https://t.co/LhePrzE4fk pic.twitter.com/B7oxtYBZfk
— Reuters (@Reuters) February 14, 2024
That’s because a vast part of Finland’s border with Russia is comparatively unimportant, raising the question of whether it makes sense to risk World War III to recover empty land. Finland’s territorial integrity would be violated, but its population and economy would remain almost unscathed if Russia took a “security buffer” chunk of territory.
“I dare you,” Putin would be saying. Are you willing to risk tens of thousands of casualties for an empty forest?
Finland likely would, but the rest of NATO? The United States? Probably not, and that makes NATO look weak.
The Finns take the prospect seriously enough not just to join NATO after 75 years of declining to do so, and they are also trying to gear up their citizens to get into a defensive mindset.
FINLAND wants citizens to retain shooting skills in light of concerns about Russia. https://t.co/vrSWPP9aDN
— Tom Gresham (@Guntalk) February 19, 2024
Finland has no hope of taking on Russia in a head-on military confrontation, but the chances that tanks will roll across the border toward Helsinki are near zero. The conflict would be skirmishes, not tank battles in the main. And the Finns know how to fight infantry battles on their terrain.
Russia may want to expand its territory eastward, but in order to do so they first have to break up NATO. As things stand, the Baltics and Poland should be confident that NATO would defend their sovereignty; Finland and Sweden? They actually make nice targets for probing our willingness to go to war over relatively low stakes.
Are the odds significant that this conflict will occur? I have no idea.
But I don’t think all this war talk is just a tactic to increase funding for Ukraine. As it is, Europe isn’t pouring that much money into the conflict to begin with. When generals start discussing instituting a draft, you should sit up and take notice, even if the political leaders scramble in the other direction.
The potential for a conflict in NATO territory is, in my view, not a great argument for pouring more resources into Ukraine. If it is true that we have been depleting our resources in a vain attempt to keep Ukraine in the fight to liberate Crimea and the Donbas region, then husbanding resources may make more sense than throwing good weapons after bad.
Russia’s military strength has always been in its unlimited manpower rather than its brilliant strategy and tactics, and its weaponry is generally overrated. It wins by brute force and causing massive casualties while absorbing their own.
NATO wouldn’t fight like that, and the political will does not exist to pour endless resources into fighting a battle over small stakes.
If Russia wants to split NATO, they just might be able to–assuming they are smart in their strategy. That is what the Nordic states are worried about and why they are boosting their readiness. They aren’t quite sure they can count on Germany to fight alongside them to defend what most Europeans would see as worthless territory.