Analysts indicated what can help protect the Baltic countries from the fate of Ukraine

Today, NATO’s naval power is far superior to Russia’s. The problem is that NATO may dominate the oceans, but it may not be very useful if Russian tanks invade the Baltic states or Poland.

So how can NATO exploit its maritime superiority? Two British experts have an idea: to use the NATO fleet for psychological warfare against Russia. Specifically, to use naval forces to intimidate Moscow and force it to devote limited resources to defending its vast coastlines rather than invading neighboring countries.

“Forcing Russia to commit to its maritime defense would divert Russia’s most important resources to tasks that the Alliance sees as less threatening,” wrote Siddharth Kaushal and Rene Balletta, experts at the Royal Joint Services Institute (RUSI) think tank.

For America and Britain, the sea was a friend: a buffer against invasion, a highway to overseas empire, and a way to ensure wars were fought on foreign soil.

But for Russia, with nearly 24,000 miles of coastline in Europe and Asia, the sea has historically been a source of its vulnerability. Although the Russian Navy is one of the largest in the world, it is mainly dedicated to homeland defense, military support, and strategic firepower, such as from nuclear missile submarines.

Many of the cruise missiles that have hit Ukrainian cities over the past two years have been launched by the Black Sea Fleet.

But maritime control, as defined by the famous 19th-century American naval theorist Alfred Thayer Mahan, is not the mission of the Russian Navy.

“It was more of a non-naval fight.” per seand the purpose of the Russian Navy is to ensure that the Russian state can safely and effectively compete and participate in conflicts,” according to the analysts’ essay.

Photo by Alfredo Pliadis/Exercises

in 1854 In the Crimean War, Russia lost to a British and French amphibious assault that captured Sevastopol. It is feared that in 2024 NATO ships can launch long-range guided missiles deep into Russia.

According to Kaushal and Balletta, there are several ways NATO can take advantage of this fear. Western nations can hold exercises, pre-deploy nuclear submarines closer to Russia, invest in drones and hypersonic missiles, and even convert ship-based anti-aircraft missiles – such as the US SM-2 and SM-6 – into land attack weapons.

As Russia rebuilds its military to replace massive losses from the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin may feel compelled to shift resources to naval rather than land forces.

“To the extent that the Alliance can expand the territory in which Russia should try to protect itself from long-range strikes, it can shape the contours of the recovery of Russian forces,” analysts note. “First of all, this can be achieved in two ways: by expanding its long-range land attack capabilities and by operating on new vectors that Russia has not historically had to defend.”

It will not be easy for the Kremlin to strengthen its naval defenses.

“While Russia can achieve maritime denial and some sea control in its coastal seas, challenging freedom of action up to 1,000 km and beyond will be difficult and costly for a country that must also rebuild its forces on land,” the essay reads. .

In particular, while Russia has a large arsenal of sea- and land-based anti-ship missiles, it lacks the ISR (intelligence, surveillance and tracking) capabilities to detect and direct missiles at distant maritime targets.

In addition, ships, especially those designed for off-shore and blue-water operations, are expensive to build, maintain and staff at a time when Russia’s military and aerospace forces are in dire need of skilled personnel. Russian shipyards are already overstretched, and new ships may require imported components blocked by Western sanctions.

SNMCMG1 and Sgt.sp. Photo by Tomas Šeštauskas/NATO exercises

But the West also faces constraints. As the authors of the article acknowledge, some NATO members on Russia’s border, such as Finland and Norway, may feel uncomfortable about provoking Russia.

In addition, of course, there is the fact that Russia has historically feared an attack from the West – and it has the world’s largest nuclear arsenal. The Kremlin’s fear that waves of cruise missiles will arrive from the sea poses the risk of an escalation of a nuclear conflict.

Nevertheless, this approach makes it possible to take advantage of NATO’s maritime superiority. Given the choice, the Kremlin would probably rather spend the money on buying tanks to fight in Ukraine than on warships to protect the Baltic Sea. NATO may make this choice even more difficult.