Yeah, it’s fair to question the real commitment to Article 5 that some NATO members have given their entanglement in a number of other economic engagements. I tend to think that there’s kind of a priority list of NATO members in reality that differs from what’s on paper. Germany? Absolutely. France and the UK? Of course. But Lithuania and Turkey? Poland I still think is a red line since, well, it’s been a red line since 1945 I suppose.
I don’t know that I’m as confident as you are in the Russian VDV’s ability to competently conduct an airborne invasion given their, shall we say, clumsy implementation of combined arms war in Ukraine thus war. I’d also love to see a citation that 20% (really?) of the population in the Baltics wouldn’t freakout and instead either actively support or be indifferent to a Russian invasion.
I am not certain they could, but it is not me who makes decisions, and those guys thought they could take Kyiv in 36 hours. It seems doable as paras could be reinforced much faster. The big problem is the none of those countries have depth to absorb initial attack, Ukraine's terrain is not great for the defender but at least it is a large country.
I was incorrect about the 5th column number. Lithuania is actually the best in this category with very few non-citizens. Seems like many left and some naturalized, current total is more like 8% not 33% like it was in the 90s. Latvia has the most but it is still much less than 20%.
Practically how does NATO actually liberate them. Does it have the stomach for the full scale high intensity war as we see in now in the East Ukraine? Not just Putin, I am also not sure of that. Who is going to lead the American armoured division drive to capture Kaliningrad..
Yes detoothing Russia in Ukraine is MUCH safer.