Äsjane mäng andis jälle ikka väga kehva väljavaate, aga vist oli ka ise vigane.
WSJ: Europe is preparing for war with Russia. A newly released wargame suggests they aren’t ready. A Russian incursion, or outright invasion, into NATO countries has become more likely because of tensions with Trump.
The key question is: How soon? NATO capitals think that Russia wouldn’t be able to threaten NATO until 2029 or so, but there is now a growing consensus that such a crisis could come sooner. Netherlands Defense Minister Ruben Brekelmans said: “we see that they are already increasing their strategic inventories, and are expanding their presence and assets along the NATO borders.”
NATO military planners also worry about other potential Russian designs, on Swedish, Finnish and Danish islands in the Baltic Sea, parts of Poland, and the Norwegian and Finnish far north, as well as a campaign of strikes on European strategic infrastructure.
The exercise simulating a Russian incursion into Lithuania, organized in December by Die Welt newspaper together with the German Wargaming Center of the Helmut-Schmidt University of the German Armed Forces, became an object of heated conversation within Europe’s security establishment even before the newspaper published its results (link siin). The exercise involved 16 former senior NATO officials, lawmakers and prominent security experts role-playing a scenario set in October 2026.
In the exercise, Russia used the pretext of a humanitarian crisis in Kaliningrad to seize the Lithuanian city of Marijampole (pop. ca 35,000), a key crossroads in the narrow gap between Russia and Belarus. Russian portrayals of the invasion as a humanitarian mission were sufficient for the U.S. to decline invoking NATO’s Article 5. Germany proved indecisive, and Poland, while mobilizing, didn’t send troops across the border into Lithuania. The German brigade already deployed to Lithuania failed to intervene, in part because Russia used drones to lay mines on roads leading out of its base.
“Deterrence depends not only on capabilities, but on what the enemy believes about our will, and in the wargame my ‘Russian colleagues’ and I knew: Germany will hesitate. And this was enough to win,” said Franz-Stefan Gady, a Vienna-based military analyst who played the Russian chief of general staff.
In the wargame without Americans, Russia managed within a couple of days to destroy the credibility of NATO and establish domination over the Baltics, by deploying an initial force of only some 15,000 troops.
“The Russians achieved most of their goals without moving many of their own units,” said Bartłomiej Kot, a Polish security analyst who played the Polish prime minister in the exercise. “What this showed to me is that once we are confronted by the escalatory narrative from the Russian side, we have it embedded in our thinking that we are the ones who should be de-escalating.”
In real life, Lithuania and other allies would have had enough intelligence warnings to avoid this scenario, said Rear Adm. Giedrius Premeneckas, Lithuania’s chief of defense staff.
Even without allies, Lithuania’s own armed forces, 17,000 in peacetime and 58,000 after an immediate mobilization, would have been able to deal with a limited threat to Marijampole, he said. Russia itself would have to consider the high stakes involved, he added: “It would be a dilemma for Russia to sustain Kaliningrad, and if Russia starts something, it must be said very clearly by NATO that if you do, you will lose Kaliningrad.”
“Putin has failed in virtually everything he set out to do,” Finnish President Alexander Stubb said in an interview. “He hasn’t even attempted to come to NATO because he is not succeeding in Ukraine. So don’t overestimate Russian capacity.” While Russia recruits some 35,000 fresh troops a month, it loses about 30,000 on Ukrainian battlefields monthly, slowing its capacity for a buildup, said Lithuania’s Premeneckas.