0:04

But long term, there is a threat from the Russians.

0:07

That is, at some point, they will rebuild this military

0:09

capability. No

0:11

matter what the Baltics do, they

0:15

are not going to be able to defend themselves. They are going to

0:17

have to have help

0:19

from NATO. It's

0:22

important for Europe because

0:24

this is really going to be a

0:27

European problem.

0:30

Hey, welcome back to the Modern War Institute

0:32

podcast. I'm Jon Ambo, editorial director

0:34

at MWI. And on this episode, I'm joined

0:37

by Mark Kantzian, a retired Marine

0:39

colonel and a senior advisor with the International

0:41

Security Program at CSIS, the

0:44

Center for Strategic and International Studies. He

0:46

is also the author of a recent report published

0:48

by CSIS on defense and deterrence

0:51

in the Baltic States, specifically how

0:53

NATO can contribute to both. Estonia,

0:56

Latvia, and Lithuania face a unique threat

0:58

landscape. All three border Russia,

1:01

for example, so last year's Russian invasion

1:03

of Ukraine naturally raises fears of

1:05

future aggression by Russia's military targeting

1:07

one or all of these countries. Moscow

1:10

has also meddled in all three in the past, including

1:12

by seeking to stoke grievances among the sizable

1:15

Russian-speaking population spread across the Baltics.

1:18

Anybody who has watched Russia's approach to Ukraine

1:20

over the past decade will recognize that playbook.

1:23

But how can NATO best contribute to deterring

1:25

Russian military action against these three alliance

1:28

members, and defending against such

1:30

an action if it occurs? That's

1:32

the focus of the discussion you're about to hear. Before

1:34

we get to it, a couple quick notes. First,

1:37

if you're not yet subscribed to the MWI podcast, you

1:39

can find it on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn,

1:41

Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. And

1:44

second, as always, what you hear in this episode are

1:46

the views of the participants, and don't represent those of

1:48

West Point, the Army, or any other agency

1:50

of the U.S. government. Alright, here's my conversation

1:53

with Mark Kantian.

2:05

Mark Kansan, thank you so much for joining me on this episode

2:08

of the MWI podcast. Thanks

2:10

for having me on the show. So I asked

2:12

you to come on to talk about a really, really fascinating

2:14

report that was published last month in

2:17

July by CSIS

2:20

that you co-authored about,

2:23

essentially about Baltic security

2:25

and NATO's contribution to enhancing,

2:28

showing up Baltic security, particularly, you

2:31

know, again, in the context of Russian aggression

2:34

in neighbouring Ukraine. The report,

2:37

I guess to kind of kick us off, the report is called Repel

2:39

Don't Expell. And I wonder if you can

2:41

kind of explain, I mean, you know,

2:43

on a surface level, I think it's kind of intuitive what that

2:45

means, but if you can kind of explain, you

2:48

know, what that means and why that's such

2:50

a central idea that you decided to name the report

2:52

that.

2:53

We named it Repel

2:56

Don't Expell, which came from a quotation

2:58

from one of the Baltic officials, the

3:01

notion that it's better

3:03

to have a strategy

3:05

of denial

3:07

and to hold

3:09

on to territory rather than

3:11

to see territory and then to

3:13

try to expel an aggressor,

3:16

the Russians in this case, from occupied

3:19

territory. You know, we can see in

3:21

the case of Ukraine just how difficult

3:24

that is, particularly after an

3:26

adversary like Russia has had time to

3:28

dig in. But

3:29

what we were pushing back against were some

3:32

theories about what you might call deterrence

3:35

by reinforcement. That

3:38

is that

3:39

NATO in the Baltic areas would

3:42

cede territory, but then would build

3:44

up after mobilization and

3:46

would launch a counteroffensive and retake

3:49

territory. And

3:51

that had a variety of

3:55

weaknesses. One is, of course, it might not work.

3:58

We're seeing that in Ukraine.

3:59

But that's also the problem about the suffering that

4:02

the Baltic peoples would endure.

4:05

And the general problem about

4:08

how do you get at,

4:09

if you're pushed out of the Baltics,

4:11

how do you get back in? You have to go through this

4:14

narrow gap, this walking gap, which

4:17

would be under fire, perhaps even occupied

4:19

by the Russians in Kaliningrad and

4:21

then maybe Russians in Belarus.

4:24

So, but NATO

4:26

had been sort of drifting towards that

4:29

theory, they had battle groups

4:32

that they had stood up, which was a great

4:34

step forward. But the battle groups were only about 1000

4:36

strong and

4:39

there were lots of promises about, oh yeah, in a crisis,

4:42

we'll push

4:43

forces forward.

4:46

The Germans particularly made people nervous

4:48

because of

4:49

the low readiness of their forces.

4:52

So that's a long explanation about why we

4:55

named it repel, don't expel,

4:57

in other words, hold and

5:00

don't cede territory that you have to reconcolate.

5:03

So, when we're talking about

5:05

kind of the threat environment, we're clearly talking about

5:08

Russia. And when you describe

5:10

in the report, the

5:12

threat environment sort of with respect to Russia, you

5:15

describe it as one of short-term opportunity

5:17

and long-term dangers. I think this

5:19

is another kind of important framing question is to

5:22

describe that threat. What do you mean when you

5:24

say that short-term opportunity and long-term dangers?

5:27

Yeah, and the threat is Russia. NATO

5:29

is very clear that Russia

5:31

is

5:32

the near-term security threat

5:34

to NATO. In addition to terrorism, which

5:37

is also serious, but a different kind of threat.

5:41

The notion of near-term opportunity

5:43

and long-term threat is that in the near term,

5:46

there's an opportunity to build up capability

5:50

forces because the Russians are,

5:53

of course, mired in Ukraine. It's

5:55

gonna take them some period of time to

5:57

really build a threatening military capability.

6:01

But long term, there is a threat from the

6:04

Russians. That is, at some point they will rebuild

6:06

this military capability. They made it very clear they

6:08

plan to do that. They've talked about, in fact,

6:10

expanding their armed forces even post-war.

6:14

And although we would like to believe

6:16

that a future Russian regime

6:20

would be liberal and democratic

6:22

and at peace with its neighbors, that

6:25

doesn't look likely. Even if

6:28

Putin were to be

6:30

overthrown as a result of the war,

6:33

the internal politics of Russia, the

6:36

regime that comes after him will still be

6:39

authoritarian, it will be anti-Western,

6:42

it will be

6:43

paranoid, and it will be highly

6:45

militarized. So

6:48

no matter what happens in the war

6:50

in Ukraine, it's going to be

6:52

a long-term threat to the Baltics.

6:55

So there are a

6:57

couple of just

6:59

fundamental realities that I think

7:02

are really important factors to

7:04

consider, obviously, here. One of them is size.

7:07

These are small countries. The other is geography

7:10

and where they're physically located, both

7:13

with respect to Russia and with respect

7:16

to all of the places where we could marshal military

7:18

power and project forward to

7:20

come to their defense. Can you talk a little bit about those

7:23

challenges?

7:24

Exactly. The

7:26

first challenge, as you point out, is size. The

7:29

Baltics have done a lot for their own

7:32

defense. Their spending is

7:34

in the mid 2 percent of GDP.

7:37

For several, it's headed to 3 percent of

7:39

GDP. There are only about 10 other

7:42

NATO countries that have achieved

7:44

that level.

7:46

They have instituted conscription,

7:48

which only about half a dozen NATO

7:51

countries still have.

7:53

The Lithuanians

7:55

have 0.8 to 1 percent

7:57

of their

7:58

population on the ground.

7:59

on active duty. The United States

8:02

is at about half that, almost exactly 0.41. The

8:05

Germans by contrast are at 0.22. So

8:08

they have one quarter as many proportionately

8:11

in uniform. The problem is that

8:13

the German army is eight times the

8:16

size of Lithuania already. And the reason

8:18

is that Germany is just much,

8:19

a much larger country. And that gives a

8:21

sense about

8:23

that no matter what the

8:25

Baltics do, they

8:27

are not gonna be able to defend themselves. They are going to

8:29

have to have help

8:32

from NATO.

8:34

And in terms of geography,

8:36

where that help will come from, I

8:39

found this really interesting. You noted in the report that NATO

8:41

reinforcements must travel in

8:44

order to get to the Baltics, if that

8:46

becomes the frontline as much as 10 times as far

8:49

as during the Cold War. Can

8:51

you describe, A, kind

8:53

of the scale of that challenge, but B, if

8:55

there are things that could be done internally within

8:57

NATO to mitigate some of it?

9:01

Yes, during the Cold War, the

9:04

inter-German border where the clash would

9:07

take place was

9:09

right near where the

9:11

US and NATO had forces stationed. You

9:14

know, the US had many forces in Germany,

9:16

as did the Brits and the French. And

9:18

of course, West Germans had their own forces.

9:21

They didn't have to go very far to get to the war.

9:23

Now, those forces

9:25

are basically in the same spot, but

9:28

now they have to go much further, get to the

9:30

Baltics. That's

9:32

about 10 times as far as, so

9:34

it's gonna take a lot longer. And what

9:36

that means is that you can't

9:38

rely on reinforcement. Reinforcement's gonna

9:41

take

9:42

probably weeks, even

9:45

if the political decisions are made relatively

9:48

rapidly. So there's

9:51

a need to have forces in

9:53

place

9:54

in the Baltic countries. And that's

9:56

been the focus of a lot of the debate.

10:00

After the 2014 Russian

10:02

invasion of both Crimea and

10:04

the Donbass,

10:07

NATO created these battle

10:09

groups.

10:10

They created four. At that time, they've added four

10:12

more. There's basically one

10:15

in each of the Baltic

10:18

countries and this one in Poland. And

10:21

the battle groups are classic NATO

10:24

conglomerations of many different

10:26

nationalities. There's a country

10:29

that's in charge of

10:31

coordinating the battle group for

10:33

Lithuania. It's the Germans for Poland. It's the United

10:35

States. The

10:37

Brits also have one.

10:39

But the battle groups are only about 1,000, maybe 1,500. It's

10:41

not a very powerful group. And of course,

10:48

being made up of many different countries, you've got tremendous

10:50

coordination problems. So there's a push

10:54

by particularly the Baltic

10:57

states to increase the size

10:59

to a brigade. And in fact, NATO

11:01

has made that commitment

11:02

to increase to a brigade. The problem, as we

11:04

point out in the report, is it's one thing

11:07

to say, okay, we're going to increase this to a brigade. And

11:09

it's another to actually have a brigade on the

11:11

ground, particularly

11:13

dealing with NATO countries that either

11:15

don't have very large forces,

11:18

like the Brits, whose army

11:21

continues to get smaller, although it's pretty high quality,

11:24

or the Germans just have very low readiness

11:26

forces. So there's been a lot of focus there.

11:28

The Germans have said all the right things where

11:30

they can get a brigade on the ground

11:32

is another matter. But having

11:34

those forces on the ground is critical

11:37

to doing this forward defense.

11:39

So even if each one

11:41

of these, what are effectively battalion-sized battle

11:43

groups now are in fact expanded

11:47

to brigade size, we're

11:50

talking still numbers that are in

11:53

the vicinity of the numbers

11:55

of US personnel, say in Korea. And there's a lot of talk

11:57

about the US presence in Korea being effectively

12:00

a tripwire force. Is the risk that

12:02

even with that expansion to larger battle

12:04

groups, that it would represent at

12:06

best a tripwire force and perhaps

12:09

not have the deterrent effect, or is that, does that

12:11

reach kind of the threshold where you

12:14

really force, you know, whoever's doing

12:16

the, doing the thinking in the Kremlin at the time to

12:18

think twice about making a move

12:20

against any one of these three countries?

12:23

Yeah, the notion is that the

12:25

combination of these four deployed

12:28

NATO forces beefed up local

12:31

forces plus pre-positioned equipment,

12:33

which is also an element that NATO

12:36

has cited and committed

12:38

to, that all that together will buy enough

12:41

time that

12:42

the rest of NATO can get forces in

12:45

there and hold forward.

12:48

Clearly there's

12:49

this risk and, you know, and the ability to

12:52

hold forward is very dependent on the timelines

12:55

of how the war comes about.

12:57

But as a package, it's

13:00

not unreasonable to think that

13:02

it might be able to buy enough time.

13:05

The way you just grabbed the forces that

13:07

this report highlights are needed, you know,

13:10

their presence is needed in the Baltics is robust,

13:13

in-place, combat-ready forces. We

13:16

know what in place means. We just talked about that. When

13:18

you say robust and combat-ready, what specifically

13:21

are you referring to? Well, the robust

13:23

part is the expansion from

13:26

battle group to brigade and

13:28

including

13:29

pre-positioned equipment, plus

13:33

the other elements that go with rapid reinforcement,

13:35

which

13:36

the Baltic countries in NATO have already done a lot

13:38

of, you know, preparing infrastructure, for

13:40

example, and airfields and the like. But

13:45

the part of our,

13:48

you know,

13:49

combat-ready is really

13:51

looking at many of the

13:53

NATO countries, particularly the Germans, whose

13:56

forces have not been very ready. The

13:59

Germans in particular...

13:59

have built a military that

14:02

is arguably a mobilization force, that

14:04

is that it really doesn't have much combat power

14:07

without six months or so of

14:09

preparation and mobilization. In fact,

14:12

the head of the German army made that same criticism.

14:16

Many of the other countries, the

14:19

Belgians, for example, their

14:21

forces also have readiness

14:24

problems. So

14:26

the combat ready part is

14:29

also important. Again, it's not something

14:32

that I think the United States thinks about quite as

14:34

much because our forces are

14:36

pretty combat ready, particularly the forward deployed

14:38

ones.

14:39

There's always arguments about whether

14:41

they're ready enough. But

14:43

by the stand, by world standards, they're very

14:45

ready. That's not true of many

14:47

of our NATO allies. How

14:50

much of the role of

14:53

NATO forces that are there is training

14:55

local forces, training the host nation forces?

14:58

Well, there's clearly an important

15:01

element there. The United States and NATO

15:03

have been sending forces forward

15:05

for

15:06

over a decade to help

15:08

train the local forces. And

15:11

they're getting to a

15:13

pretty high level of proficiency, it seems.

15:16

There are reports that they've done well in exercises.

15:19

It's always a little hard to tell. But

15:21

that will be an ongoing

15:24

effort to keep their readiness out. The

15:26

other challenge also is that they want to

15:29

develop national divisions

15:32

to take the brigade or

15:34

two that they have now and put a division headquarters

15:37

on it. They don't have any experience at

15:39

that level of command. And it'll take

15:41

a lot of work to get them to a point

15:43

where

15:44

that level of command is viable.

15:46

Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that. Because I found that section

15:48

of the report really fascinating is force structure.

15:51

These are the things that sometimes we

15:53

think of in this kind of abstract sense.

15:55

And sometimes discussions of it are

15:57

a bit dry. But this is a very real and important.

15:59

important factor in

16:02

terms of improving, enhancing

16:06

the security of the Baltic States is

16:09

kind of addressing any force structure issues.

16:11

Can you talk a little bit more about that with the division headquarters,

16:13

for instance? Right.

16:16

Taking a look at the command and control

16:18

elements that we in the United States

16:20

tend to take for granted. You know, you've got the brigade,

16:23

you've got the division, you've got the corps, you know, you've

16:25

got the field army in certain circumstances.

16:28

You've got the combatant command. With

16:30

NATO, it's really a lot more

16:33

ad hoc.

16:35

The challenge with the Baltic countries

16:37

is that

16:38

the local forces,

16:40

the battle group, plus the national forces

16:43

were grouped into two divisions.

16:46

And those divisions came under a provisional

16:49

corps in Poland,

16:52

but the countries involved, you know, they wanted to expand

16:54

their capabilities. They wanted to get

16:56

a division headquarters. So, you know, figuring

16:59

out, okay, how do you get the

17:00

national structure to fit

17:02

with a NATO structure and

17:04

how to get it all sort of

17:07

staffed up and trained so

17:09

that it would operate smoothly in

17:11

conflict.

17:12

That's a tremendous challenge. You're getting

17:14

it to work in peacetime. You have the coordinate exercise

17:17

and all, you know, that's useful,

17:19

but that's the same as operating in

17:22

wartime. And one of

17:24

the things we point out in the report is, NATO

17:27

needs to first settle on

17:29

a command and control structure

17:31

and then get that

17:33

staffed and trained.

17:37

You know, you mentioned that

17:39

you discussed kind of the growth

17:42

of the three Baltic States

17:44

military forces and the efforts

17:46

that are underway. You talked about the fact that they are, I

17:49

think there are three of its six or seven total

17:52

NATO members that actually hit the 2% of GDP

17:54

defense spending threshold.

17:57

You know, but 2% of the GDP

17:59

of these.

17:59

rather small countries is

18:02

pretty small. How important then is

18:04

it that other countries do increase

18:07

their spending to hit that threshold to sort of augment

18:10

and offset the relatively

18:12

small numbers of amounts of money that the Baltics can

18:14

actually feasibly spend?

18:16

Yeah. It's

18:18

first important for the Baltics, of course, to do everything

18:21

they can. I mean, this is their territory.

18:23

They are the ones under threat.

18:26

The first

18:29

responsibility for defense is on them.

18:32

It's also important for them to make the efforts

18:34

so that they show the rest of

18:37

NATO that they are doing everything they can

18:39

and therefore additional help needs

18:41

to come from the outside. I think they have done that between

18:44

the percentage of GDP and

18:47

the size of their armed forces, given the small

18:49

base that they have to work with.

18:52

But it's also important for the rest of NATO.

18:54

Of course, you talked about the 2% GDP

18:57

target that was established back in 2014. There are about,

19:00

depending

19:03

on the month, probably about 11 NATO

19:06

countries that meet that, including the three

19:09

Baltic countries.

19:12

There are plans to expand that to 19. We'll

19:14

see if that actually comes through. The

19:17

Vilnius Summit that just completed

19:19

set 2% as a floor. It set

19:21

at least 2%, given

19:24

the new challenges that the alliance faces.

19:27

We'll see if other countries raise

19:30

their spending to commensurate

19:32

levels. But

19:35

it's important for Europe because

19:38

this is really going to be a European

19:41

problem. It's going to be a European problem

19:43

for two reasons. One

19:45

is that many of the

19:47

forces that are going to be involved,

19:49

most of the forces are going to be European. The United

19:51

States has commitments in

19:53

the Baltics, but also all along Eastern

19:56

Europe and along Southern Europe. Plus,

19:58

the United States is going to be distracted by the United States.

19:59

the Pacific.

20:01

The current National Defense Strategy says

20:03

that

20:04

China is the

20:07

pacing competitor. There

20:09

are many strategists who want to focus

20:11

almost exclusively on China, and

20:15

it's going to be, as a result, a lot of pressure

20:17

to moderate

20:19

what the United States does in Europe to focus

20:22

on China. That again puts more

20:24

pressure on the Europeans, and they're going to have to spend

20:26

the money to make this deterrence

20:29

real.

20:30

Yeah, I think you said it. Bridge

20:32

Colby and maybe a couple of others and

20:34

their arguments said, and look,

20:37

these are rational arguments when you look at

20:40

the potential threat, especially in the years to come,

20:43

posed by China, that, hey, this is where we need to

20:48

focus our strategic attention and we shouldn't be distracted

20:50

by Europe. At the same time, as you

20:52

said, that puts a lot of the

20:56

burden in the event of a crisis on

20:58

some of our European NATO partners. What

21:02

are the biggest challenges? You talked about

21:04

German readiness and the need to really

21:07

go through a full-scale mobilization before

21:09

they're ready. What are some of the other challenges

21:11

to some of the European NATO members

21:13

taking the lead in such a contingency?

21:17

Other than spending the readiness

21:19

that goes with that, there are

21:22

two additional challenges. One is making

21:25

these multinational battle groups

21:27

or brigades

21:29

functional. It's one thing in

21:31

peacetime to run exercises where you

21:33

have a German battalion and a

21:36

Danish company and a Norwegian platoon,

21:39

all little bits and pieces, but

21:41

in wartime getting them to operate

21:44

as a coherent whole

21:46

will be very challenging.

21:48

We've never really done that. And

21:50

doing the

21:53

training, doing the exercising to make that

21:55

real is going to be a challenge.

22:00

challenge is the political

22:02

one. That is

22:04

getting NATO to take action

22:07

in a timely manner. This has been an issue

22:09

from the beginning of the alliance during the Cold

22:12

War. Many, many discussions about whether

22:14

NATO would react promptly

22:17

to a then Soviet threat

22:20

that the Soviets were mobilizing, what

22:22

would

22:23

NATO do in response. And

22:25

the same problem is going to be evident

22:28

here. That is when

22:31

Russia was mobilizing to attack Ukraine,

22:34

it was just hard to believe that they would actually

22:37

do that. Even though the United States was

22:39

jumping up and down saying, hey, our intelligence community

22:41

is saying that, you know, they're gonna attack.

22:44

Many countries,

22:47

the Germans particularly, just found it

22:49

impossible to believe. And you'll see

22:51

the same dynamic if there were going to be

22:54

an attack on the Baltic countries and getting

22:58

mechanisms so that

22:59

at least some troops can get in there before

23:05

countries, before nations make

23:08

irrevocable or hard decisions about mobilization

23:11

is important. That's one of the reasons that having

23:13

troops in place is so valuable

23:15

because it means that the country's NATO

23:18

doesn't need to do anything in

23:20

order to have a credible deterrence. The troops

23:23

are already there. Whereas if you're

23:25

relying on reinforcements,

23:27

NATO has to make a decision that

23:30

many would regard as provocative.

23:32

So there's that political step

23:34

that's going to be very difficult.

23:37

How comprehensive, you

23:39

know, I guess how comprehensive are

23:42

and should be the relationships between the

23:44

NATO forces that are there in the form of these

23:46

battle groups, the host nation forces,

23:49

the Estonians, the Lithuanians and the Latvians, and

23:51

say the other components of each of these countries

23:53

has some form of total defense sort

23:56

of plan in place that

23:59

include the mobilization. of civilians

24:01

and they look a little bit different in each one of these countries, but

24:04

how important is kind of full scale integration

24:06

of the NATO forces with those broader

24:09

kind of approaches?

24:11

And that's clearly very important. And

24:13

the Baltic countries to their credit have

24:15

thought a lot about

24:19

whole of nation, national defense,

24:22

what civilians can do, what territorial

24:26

units can do, as well as regular

24:28

military forces. Their problem of course is that their

24:31

military just aren't very large.

24:35

One of the values of a national like

24:37

division or command center

24:40

is that they can bring all of those pieces

24:42

together,

24:44

but that has to be worked

24:46

out ahead of time. I think getting

24:49

the national

24:50

organizations to work together,

24:52

certainly more straightforward because they're

24:54

all from the same country,

24:57

at least they have the same political establishment,

25:00

but then bring NATO in there. And

25:02

of course you've got the NATO on the ground, the battle

25:05

group, maybe a brigade someday, and

25:07

then you've got reinforcements coming in. And

25:09

again, that gets to this command and control

25:11

question that needs to be thrashed out now,

25:15

rather than when

25:17

the troops go under fire because it's too

25:19

late, it's just chaos. One of the

25:22

examples we point to about

25:24

failure of these kinds of arrangements

25:28

is in the Pacific and the Second World

25:30

War. This is the ABDA multinational

25:34

naval forces that were put together

25:36

in Indonesia.

25:39

It was the US, that was

25:41

the British, it was the Dutch, it was the Australians.

25:45

They put

25:47

multinational naval task

25:49

forces together to fight the Japanese,

25:51

it was a disaster. Getting

25:54

them all to work together when they had never worked together

25:56

in peacetime was worked very poorly,

25:58

and that was the Japanese.

25:59

were very effective in

26:02

their own right. So these

26:04

forces were essentially destroyed. And

26:06

we want to avoid that

26:09

in a future conflict.

26:10

And

26:12

to go back to that 1942 example,

26:14

yes, we

26:16

figured out over time how to get multinational

26:19

naval forces to work together in the Battle of the Atlantic

26:22

that worked really very, very well. But

26:24

you don't wanna go through a year of

26:27

naval disasters to

26:29

get to a command and control arrangement that works.

26:32

In terms of equipment, another

26:35

fact kind of that, that you noted in the report that I found

26:37

really interesting was that as a proportion

26:40

of GDP, each of these three

26:42

countries has delivered more aid

26:44

to Ukraine than any

26:46

other country has delivered. We've

26:49

seen even in the US, with our

26:52

pretty vast resources and stockpiles

26:56

of equipment, a lot of that aid

26:58

has left us pretty

27:00

short-handed of certain

27:02

pieces of key equipment that the

27:04

US military is actively working to kind of reconstitute.

27:08

That's a really big problem when you're starting

27:10

from kind of such a small base like these three

27:13

countries has. How big a deal is that? How

27:17

short of equipment has

27:20

supporting Ukraine left these three countries?

27:24

Yes,

27:27

it's a problem, it's a solvable problem. But

27:30

to start with,

27:32

it's important to recognize that the Baltic countries,

27:35

they don't just talk the talk, they walk

27:37

the walk. Not only do they talk

27:39

about supporting Ukraine and

27:42

countering Russian aggression, but they

27:44

have drawn their own stockpiles down far

27:47

more than any other country. They've

27:50

really accepted

27:52

some risk here.

27:54

It is a problem in the short term. We talked earlier

27:57

about near-term opportunity,

27:59

long-term risk.

29:59

enhanced some of the forces

30:02

in Eastern Europe,

30:04

and adopted a new

30:07

operational concept for

30:10

dealing with potential Russian

30:13

aggression.

30:14

Vilnius was an opportunity

30:17

to further the implementation of

30:19

those changes that had been agreed to

30:21

at Madrid.

30:23

It did some of that in

30:25

the sense that took the 2% and

30:27

made it a floor, which was

30:30

a big deal for

30:33

many NATO countries. It

30:35

reinforced the

30:37

commitments to building up to

30:40

brigade strength in the

30:42

Baltic countries. You read the communique,

30:45

there's a lot of, we recommit

30:47

to do X, we recommit to do Y, we recommit

30:50

to do Z.

30:51

I'm out of detail about how you're gonna do that.

30:53

And one of the disappointments I had is that there

30:56

aren't any details about what these brigades

30:58

are going to be. US

31:01

Parliaments, an

31:03

army

31:04

brigade combat team runs sort of 4,000

31:06

to 5,000 troops. Is

31:08

that what it's going to be? 4,000 to 5,000, we're going

31:10

from 1,000 to 4,000 to 5,000? I

31:13

mean, that would be a big step, but it would also

31:15

provide a really powerful on

31:17

the spot capability.

31:20

Those details are missing, and

31:24

NATO is still working through those. I think

31:26

that part was a disappointment. The

31:28

commitments to

31:31

increasing resources, to

31:34

confronting Russia, to

31:36

bringing in Finland,

31:38

which of course is in now, and Sweden,

31:40

which should come in soon, those

31:43

were all important also.

31:45

Well, Mark, thank you very much. Again, the

31:47

report is fascinating. If listeners are

31:49

interested, that

31:52

goes into a lot of details that we didn't have a chance to cover

31:54

in this discussion, so I'd highly recommend they go

31:57

find it. It's easy to find on the CSIS website.

31:59

Again, it's called...

31:59

repel, don't expel.

32:03

So I want to thank you again for joining me and sharing

32:05

some of the insights that

32:08

you highlighted in the report.

32:10

Well, thanks for having me on the show. Hey,

32:18

thank you so much for listening to the MWI

32:20

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