- EU is basically the third largest economy in the World. Meanwhile, Russia is about similar size economy as Italy. The combined EU military spending and capability/equipment is well above Russia's. So, in terms of economic and military power, the EU certainly has means, but see below.
- Would EU have political might and unity? That is a big question. However, the situation with the Baltic States is not so simple: these countries are well integrated parts of the EU, including the membership in Eurozone, Schengen Area, financial and banking system (banks are mostly Scandinavian in the Baltics), etc. Any threats to them would have significant consequences e.g. to Euro as a currency.
- While some EU countries might be reluctant to do anything, there would be other EU countries which might take unilateral action as they might feel threatened too. In particular, Nordic countries and Poland (which, by the way, recently is getting very heavily armed).
I will also have a very negative posture on the EU military spending/capability unfortunately after working for a Baltic government and being familiar at a high level at capabilities in the region and somewhat familiar of Germany/France. In the EU today now that Britain has left, France is the only real military power who has 1) the forces to deploy and 2) the will to do so. German forces are in a terrible state of disrepair and the new government does not seem like one to invest further (Ulrike Franke has a great writeup and is worth a twitter follow) and even the old gov is under fire for blocking military aid as they have supported nonlethal NATO equipping only to Ukraine, I would guess partially because they are addicted to Russian gas but there are some rumors that Merkel will join some Russia affiliated boards (gotta love a little government graft). Poland I am less clear about but I have never heard anything about them having a really solid air force and anti-air capabilities which is one of the most critical things Ukraine needs (at this point Ukrainian ground forces are actually pretty good and are well versed in how to fight; what they need is to be able to ward off incursions by sea and air).
https://www.airforcemag.com/ukraine-says-it-can-deter-a-russ... https://www.ft.com/content/1336c9be-f1c9-4545-9f85-3b07fcb74...
This however makes the relationship somewhat symbiotic, as Russia also depends on EU money. I remember reading recently (somewhere?) that Russia had transitioned from a failed industrial state to a failed Petrostate sometime in the 90's since that's currently their biggest source of foreign currency.
Another point I'm surprised I don't see anybody making is the impact of drones on armoured assaults. The recent conflict (Tajikistan / Kyrgyzstan ?) showed that they could really devastate attacking armour, and last time Russia 'holidayed' in Ukraine it was their stronger armour that pushed the Ukrainians back. This could really tip the balance back to the defenders. Also, it's hard to deny you've invaded a country if 100 of your tanks are smouldering wrecks on the wrong side of a border.
I totally agree on German forces being deplorable. Regarding Poland:
- MIM-104 Patriot (air defense): https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-43574308
- JASSM-ER (cruise missiles): https://defence24.com/70-jassm-er-missiles-for-the-polish-f-...
- F-35 figher jets: https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2020/01/31/poland-...
- M142 HIMARS rocket launchers: https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2019/02/11/poland-...
- M1A2 Abrams SEPv3 tanks: https://www.defensenews.com/land/2021/07/14/polish-defence-m...
.. and there are plenty of smaller scale projects. Poland is arming to teeth.
I'm pretty well connected to the Baltics and have spent a lot of time in that part of Europe, both in North Eastern Poland, Lithuania and Latvia (less so in Estonia though I've been there a couple of times I never spent a lot of consecutive time there). From what I gather there is some fierce nationalism there, and a pretty strong cultural identity, in spite (possibly because) of years of Russian efforts to destroy those. At the same time, and in spite of financial/cross border integration with the rest of Europe those countries are an island surrounded on their land borders by borderline hostiles with a tiny little bridge to the rest of Europe.
But you have a point about the Nordics and Poland who definitely would have a big stake in this. But for your average person from Madrid, Paris or Rome it likely would not be something they even realize is in play, they might not even know Kaliningrad exists and they might not know much about the Baltics and their history or present day role in Europe.
It is actually the second, but only just, and China will surpass it very soon. This doesn't detract from your point at all.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/26/erdogan-turkey-coul...
With this in mind, the west's strategy of economic pressure makes some more sense. The economic pressure will help this strength window last for less time, and perhaps even cause some internal issues that will distract away from foreign adventures.
Because money spent in an efficient and effective system has more power than money spent in an ineffective and bloated system. One example - Germany doesn't actually have enough helicopters operational to meet their needs, so they used civilian contractor helicopters in Afghanistan.
The structures are just so different that it's hard to make good comparisons. Germany can't keep its troops and equipment equipped or repaired _at home_, while Russian is capable of doing so thousands of miles from beyond its borders.
The German military in particular is "neither structurally capable nor equipped" to meet its defense obligations, according to the German parliamentary commissionor for the armed forces. Their helicopter readiness is something like 15%, they don't have the funding to keep their navy seaworthy, for most of 2018-20 they only had enough operational armaments to keep 4 of their eurofighter jets armed. They don't have enough body armor for all their troops, so they rotate it out to whichever battalion is active. Current bundeswehr projections are that they'll be able to equip all their troops in 2031.
It's gotten so bad that the German 2019 readiness report was kept secret, after the 2018 report was so bad.
Long story short, the German military is fundamentally incapable of meeting its basic defensive goals (defending the home territory of the nation), while Russia is a near peer competitor with the United States, and is capable of offensive force projection thousands of miles from it's home territory
Links for the quotes and numbers.
https://dsm.forecastinternational.com/wordpress/2019/01/31/g...
https://sofrep.com/amp/specialoperations/germanys-military-r...
https://www.strifeblog.org/2020/07/03/the-german-military-mu...
Russia is as unpredictable as they ever were at the moment and there is a fair chance of this leading to some kind of escalation in the near future.
Will try to return post-soviet countries back to «USSR 2.0».
Will capture Belarus somewhat.
Will station army across Ukrainian border.
Will try to circumvent Kyiv, while distracting Ukrainian army at the South.
1. Hostile military block on the borders (expansion of NATO or any moves that may be treated as towards the expansion or challenging the status quo, as in Ukraine with Crimea).
2. Status of Russian population and Russian language (Georgia in 2008, Ukraine - Donbass, Baltics - low intensity information war).
For the neighboring states they are the keys to their own security: addressing those fears of Russia by diplomatic means, those countries can bring more peace than arming themselves against the invasion.
The Russian Empire was known as «Jail of Nations», because they captured so many different nations across a huge area. To consolidate them, they are erasing their identity by forcing all of them to speak a single invented language, called Russian, which is based on Old Slavonic Church language, which is based on South Slavonic dialect as spoken near to Salonika (Greece) a thousand years ago. This is somewhat different from behavior of some other empires (Spanish Empire, Great Britain Empire, etc.), because the language was invented, so it was not native language for anyone, so nobody had an upper leg and nobody can be clearly blamed as invader.
Those, who switched to the new language, invented reasons about why Gorgeous and Mighty Russian language is superior to their laughable and weak native languages, so they have strong beliefs that they need to help those minor nations to escape the hell of speaking them and join the Great Russian Civilization.
Russia(now Ukraine) used Russian (now Ukrainian) language, which was a modernized version of Old Slavonic language, so they refused to accept archaic language. In 1912(?) Folk Assembly of All Russia (now Ukraine) declared rename of Russia (now Ukraine) to Ukraine to avoid confusion with Russian Empire or its language. (It's well hidden fact). Ten years after that, Great Ukrainization started, so millions of Russians (now Ukrainians) switched to Ukrainians, then Great Ukrainization aborted by Russians. 20 millions of Ukrainians were recorded as Russians again, 7 million adults (and 23 million children) were murdered by starvation in Holodomor.
Russian language, Russian culture, etc. are very new. For example, there are 0 (zero) folk songs in Russian language. Russians are studying history of Russia (now Ukraine) instead of history of their own nations. This makes them wonder why Russia now called Ukraine, and why their motherland is captured by Ukrainians. This makes them mad about Ukraine and Ukrainians. Nobody tells them real history, of course.
Based on what we know from the history, yes, USA could do it, as they did in the Bay of Pigs. In fact, USA invaded with military forces in Latin America so many times that by now they should have lost any credibility in democratic world.
I don't think it is possible to keep such secret from Russia for 30 years. Ukrainian president deflected to Russia in 2014, and that means that any secret that he might've known is available to Russia.
They will not. They gave up Crimea almost without fight. Many people at Ukraine are russian speaking and many of them don't mind becoming a part of Russia, just like Criemea people. Just compare with Chechen war in 90's.
Baltic countries are better connected to Russia and Belarus via rail, road, electricity grid, etc than to the rest of the EU.
EU was reluctant to fund infrastructure projects to change that, e.g. the railway from Poland through all the three Baltic capitals
EU grants Baltic grids 720 mln euros to unplug from Russia
And the main point stands. Baltic countries were part of USSR for 46 years from 1945 until 1991. EU had 30 years to fix the problem but it did not.