20K troops or thereabouts. No tanks, no planes, just some artillery.

That's irrelevant, their purpose is to act as a deterrent. By invading Russia would also directly attack American, British, German, Canadian etc. soldiers which not something their governments can just ignore. Anyway it's not the 1930's, considering the current political and economical environment there is absolutely no rational reason for Russia to invade the Baltic states (unlike eastern Ukraine or Crimea). What would they gain by doing that, 5 million people none of whom want to be a part of Russia and a shitload more sanctions (assuming if it does not escalate into a full-scale war with the west which is again something Russia has nothing to gain from).

Last I heard the Americans had left. Is there something I have missed?

True, currently Americans seems to be only stationed in Poland (while Germans are mainly in Lithuania, Canadians in Latvia and the UK in Estonia) but I don't see how that fundamentally changes anything.

I was just in Kaunas and ran into American soldiers -- or what I thought were American soldiers? We chatted and they implied this.

I'm not really sure, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_Enhanced_Forward_Presence they don't have a permanent presence there, but I assume there should still be some fluctuating number of American soldiers in Lithuania due to some temporary reasons of the time.

I know there are some Canadians stationed in that region.

20K troops are people's sons and daughters. Those are real people with personal stories that can credibly threaten to move votes and enlistments.

Being the US politician responsible for using those sons and daughters as human shields is something that could backfire spectacularly. It's not a given that the US can dump soldiers into any conflict and then use their deaths as a tool for support. It's possible, and I suspect quite likely, that the politicians will bear the brunt of the damage from creating the situation where those sons and daughters were killed.

Armored ground vehicles in a frontline role are largely worthless against a modern military; it’s too easy to take them out with drone-fired missiles or kamikaze drones.

NATO doesn’t need to position planes in the Baltics when they’re within range of its air bases in Germany (airbases should be well behind the front lines anyway).

People often have no appreciation of scale. Russia has more armor than NATO has Javelins and loitering munitions.

Most of which are pushing 50 years old. Russia has a lot of military assets, and has developed some advanced capabilities, but has not been able to field them in any meaningful quantity since the fall of the Soviet Union. The same story is true with their air superiority / denial capabilities. They have advanced weapons, but not enough of them to go toe-to-toe with NATO and the bulk of their military is obsolete Soviet-era hardware.

Yes, but they run just fine. Russia can field massive amounts of heavy materials, far more than any other Western European country, and they have plenty of mobile launchers and other annoying hardware that can throw a spanner in the works for a fairly large surface area, and the number of airplanes they can field is quite impressive. It may not be the latest and the greatest, but it's not as if F35s are thick on the ground (or in the skies) in Europe either (less than 100 in total, most for training purposes).

I really would not see this put to the test, not only because of the potential outcome but because such an exchange has the potential to spiral out of control really fast.

Totally agree with the last part, and I think Russia is playing a dangerous game of chicken here that risks nuclear WW3 if it goes wrong.

Most of NATO equipment is not exactly sparkling new either, am not sure what that proves. Does it not count if the battletank that runs you over is from 1980s?

And yet Finns, spectacularily outnumbered, held off Russian invasion anyway with machine guns and German drugs.

FSVO held off. All Finnish territory claimed by USSR at the beginning of the conflict was in the end annexed and remains so to this day.

Certainly kept more than half the country. Here's hoping Ukraine prevails as well.

Amen.