Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, followed by its support of separatists in Eastern Ukraine, reveal a Russian strategy that seeks to leverage influence over its neighbors, via the ethnic Russian populations residing there. The strategy takes hold when the Kremlin encourages a nation’s disgruntled Russian populations to seek independence. Moscow then provides covert support to ensure that the separatists succeed. Russia’s next move is to deploy a large conventional force to the border to intimidate the neighboring country from taking decisive action against the separatists (for fear of triggering a Russian response). The key to success in Moscow’s strategic approach is ambiguity. Should things go awry, Moscow can simply pull its support from the separatists, denying any role in the crisis.
There is real potential for such a scenario to play out in a NATO member state. With a notoriously slow decision-making process, NATO may find itself out-foxed by a Kremlin employing this strategy. A phone conversation between Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko in September 2014 suggests such a change in Russian policy. In the conversation, Putin reportedly said, “If I wanted, Russian troops could not only be in Kiev in two days, but [also] in Riga, Vilnius, Tallinn, Warsaw or Bucharest, too.” Nowhere is Moscow’s threat felt more acutely than in the Baltics.
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, are NATO and EU members and naturally concerned by Russia’s aggressive actions. Latvia typifies the Baltic experience under Soviet control. The country suffered mass executions, imprisonment to anyone perceived as a threat, and the deportation of one-third of its population. The Soviet’s deportation of ethnic Latvians was complemented by a sinister attempt to replace them with ethnic Russians, whose numbers rose from 10 to 30 percent of the population during the Cold War. The goal was to populate the nation with enough Russians to keep it forever under Moscow’s influence. Roughly 13 percent of these Russians are considered “non-citizens” in Latvia today. The question is what portion of this population would be willing to emulate their ethnic cousins in Eastern Ukraine? NATO’s Article 5—that an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all—is fitting as a response to a conventional attack. But how would NATO respond to an ethnic Russian uprising in a member state?
Putin’s Pan-Russian Grand Strategy?
On March 18, 2014, Vladimir Putin gave a lengthy speech in which he outlined a new Russian approach to foreign policy with regard to the specific case of Ukraine:
We expected Ukraine to remain our good neighbor, we hoped that Russian citizens and Russian speakers in Ukraine, especially its southeast and Crimea, would live in a friendly, democratic and civilized state that would protect their rights in line with the norms of international law… Time and time again attempts were made to deprive Russians of their historical memory, even of their language and to subject them to forced assimilation… Millions of Russians and Russian-speaking people live in Ukraine and will continue to do so. Russia will always defend their interests using political, diplomatic and legal means.
Like Adolf Hitler and many European leaders across the centuries, Putin is implementing a foreign policy built around the idea of blood and ethnicity.
Ambiguity, surprise and flexibility: the key components of the Pan-Russian Strategy
The emerging Russian approach includes the following components:
- A sustained information operations (IO) campaign.
- Subversive activity to create instability.
- A large conventional force along the borders to dissuade effective action against the insurgents.
- Russian troops positioned to violate international borders in the name of humanitarian assistance and provide support to the Russian insurgents to maintain their momentum.
- Employ ambiguity to maintain strategic flexibility.
- Seize a region or area in this contested space to achieve a limited strategic end.
One ongoing aspect of this Russian approach is its sustained IO campaign. The campaign takes the form of high-quality Russian television, radio programming and internet pages, and exports Moscow’s strategic messaging across Europe, targeting various Russian populations. Up to 300 million Euros a year is spent by Moscow on this propaganda machine. One of the most fruitful tools developed thus far is the “Kontinental Hockey League (KHL),” which includes professional teams from the Baltics, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Slovakia, and Ukraine. Underwritten extensively by regime supporters, the league isviewed as one of Putin’s “most successful soft power” schemes. With such an IO campaign, the groundwork is laid to manipulate ethnic Russians wherever Putin sets his gaze.
The next step to this strategy involves the application of surprise, deception, and ambiguity. Moscow need not confront NATO directly to get what it wants, and in fact would be unwise to do so. By leveraging deception, the Kremlin can retain strategic agility and gradually reassert influence over its neighbors without actually going to war with them (or NATO). With such an approach, Russia can secure limited strategic objectives with minimal risk. The ultimate goal, however, would be to discredit NATO, thereby threatening the security of all three Baltic States.
Despite Putin’s bombastic claims about being able to take the Baltic capitals in two days, a more likely tactic would be an attempt at a limited land grab, while using this approach of ambiguity. The region around Narva is a prime candidate for this. Located in the northeastern tip of Estonia, and on the Russian border, Narva’s population is 82.1% ethnic Russian. Ironically, Narva’s sister city in the Ukraine, Donetsk, is the epicenter of the ethnic Russian civil war there. One former Putin advisor asked how NATO would respond if “little green men turned up in Narva [Latvia].” The combination of ethnic Russian unrest in Narva and NATO sluggishness could allow Putin to restore order militarily and then feel obliged to stay after the local residents hold a referendum seeking independence. With relative ease, and little strategic risk, Moscow could undermine NATO and discredit Article 5. If NATO responds quickly – a scenario which seems unlikely — Putin can simply withdraw his support from the separatists and deny he had anything to do with it.
What can NATO do to negate the effects of Russia’s strategy of ambiguity?
In a September 2014 speech, President Obama made clear that the United States would defend the Baltics, saying, “The NATO Alliance, including the Armed Forces of the United States of America… we’ll be here for Estonia. We will be here for Latvia. We will be here for Lithuania. You lost your independence once before. With NATO, you will never lose it again.”
NATO leadership is concerned by Moscow’s actions in the Ukraine and announced during the Wales Summit that they would create a force able to respond quickly to a crisis, saying, “we will establish a Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF), a new Allied joint force that will be able to deploy within a few days to respond to challenges that arise, particularly at the periphery of NATO’s territory.”
The VJTF ground force should comprise at least a brigade, and have all relevant air and naval components necessary for a credible joint multinational force. However, when deploying the VJTF in an unstable area, NATO nations may ask that the forces they contribute not deploy until their respective parliaments approve putting their military members in harm’s way. This plays precisely into Putin’s strategic ambiguity. A way to avoid such a scenario is for a portion of the VJTF to be American. The Supreme Allied Commander of Europe is dual-hatted also as the Commander of U.S. European Command (EUCOM). In this capacity, he would be able to quickly deploy his forces to a threatened area. The remainder of the VJTF should be comprised of all NATO nations. They would then integrate into the advance force package as their nations approve forward movement. The VJTF will only be viable if it can deploy rapidly, meaning that the U.S. should spearhead the effort to prevent Moscow from retaining its edge, should other NATO members hesitate. This is not to suggest that the VJTF would be dominated by the Americans. The force should, however, be designed in the context of European political realities.
There are other concrete measures that NATO can take to prevent Moscow from destabilizing the Baltics. The Baltics States should have a ground force large enough to respond to Moscow-induced unrest in its Russian ethnic regions. These forces should be able to bolster domestic police forces in maintaining security, provide border defense, and be able to transition rapidly to conventional operations. They should also be able to work effectively with special forces teams dispatched to the region and play a complementary role in providing humanitarian support to deprive Moscow of an excuse to intervene.
The Baltic states ought also do more to address the economic grievances these enclaves may have and seek EU aid to improve the quality of life and economic opportunity in these areas. This would reduce Moscow‘s ability to manipulate the populations, while helping to also forge a national, non-Russian identity. Additionally, the EU should assist the Baltic States in providing a high-quality Russian language entertainment alternative to these services provided by Moscow.
NATO should also have an enduring ground presence in the Baltics with soldiers from all of the Alliance nations. There is no greater way to demonstrate resolve than with credible strategic land power permanently postured in the region in the form of a battalion task force. This force should train in both conventional tactics as well as low-level counter insurgency operations; the most likely form of fighting they would see in the Baltics. Additionally, forward-deployed equipment sets (known as Prepositioning of Materiel Configured in Unit Sets (POMCUS) should be established in the Baltics for rapid deployment of additional forces in the region. These equipment sets should be exercised several times a year, in concert with the VJTF to demonstrate NATO’s resolve.
Yet perhaps the greatest challenge facing the Alliance is its reliance on Russian energy. Russia supplies 30 percent of Europe’s natural gas and 35 percent of its oil. A disruption of this energy flow would have catastrophic consequences for the European economy. Russia’s monopoly on energy is even higher in the Baltics, where 100 percent of natural gas is supplied by Russia. Europe is overly reliant on Russian energy, which explains the tepid response from Germany and other NATO members to Putin’s actions in the Ukraine even after the tragic shoot down of Malaysian Airlines Flight 317. The EU should establish an alternative energy infrastructure, especially in the Baltics, to move it away from complete reliance on Russia.
Conclusion
Putin’s emerging doctrine – manipulating neighboring Russian populations to stir instability and thereby attain limited strategic objectives – poses a threat to the NATO Alliance. Putin’s actions in Georgia, Crimea, and Eastern Ukraine demonstrate that he is willing to trample international law to advance his strategy. NATO has an opportunity to implement concerted measures to avert future trouble in the Baltics. Its message to Russia must be that any cross-border activity into the Baltics will categorically result in confrontation with all twenty-eight nations of the Alliance, period. Whether in Narva or Riga, the Kremlin must understand that the cost of meddling with the Baltic’s Russian populations is too high.
The Baltics should also reconsider their citizenship policies and address the grievances of their ethnic Russian populations. The region has inherited a complex ethnic dilemma from the Soviet era. Yet disenfranchising people who have lived in these nations their entire lives provides Putin an opportunity to meddle.
There are no easy solutions to the challenge that Moscow poses to European stability. This threat contradicts the drastic reductions in NATO defense spending. The nearly seventy years of peace that most of Europe has enjoyed is unprecedented in its history. The United States provided this stability during the Cold War, but it’s not clear that Europe has forged a similar model in its stead. Clearly, the nations of Europe must do more to maintain this peace and security. The United States should not make its deterrence posture unconvincing by so reducing its presence in Europe. Although maintaining such a credible force is costly, the rewards of such a commitment are well worth it.
COL Douglas Mastriano, a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, began his career in the 1980s, serving along the Iron Curtain with the Second Armored Cavalry Regiment. Since then, he has served at tactical, operation and strategic levels of command ranging from the 3rd Infantry Division (Rock of the Marne), to the Pentagon and with NATO. COL Mastriano is currently teaching strategy at the U.S. Army War College.
Photo credit: ShadowNinja1080
CBCalif 
TheMightyQ 
Mike Jacobson 
Byzantium 
zahid khan 
upen 
Peter D'Amato 
Perhaps the last thing this country needs is to find itself involved in another war in some land thousands of miles from its shores wherein the U.S. has zero strategic national interests at stake. One of the most absurd political moves this country has made has been to add to its NATO alliance countries that were once within the Soviet ?? Russian “Sphere of Influence.”
Soviet and American (and NATO and Warsaw Pact)armed Forces never went to war with each other due solely to the fact the other side realized the West sat safely under an American Cold War Nuclear Umbrella.
That era and the all or none mentality of the leaders has come and gone. Tactical nuclear weapons have been withdrawn from the U.S. Armed Forces for obvious reasons.
If, or perhaps when, the Russians move into their former Soviet Bloc countries, even if they are part of NATO, this country’s President will not order a nuclear response. And, before the U.S. should be so foolish as to decide to enter into a conventional contest in those countries, it would do well to reflect on its rather dismal record on interventions and strategic failures over the past 5+ decades.
Enough of the foreign interventions and accompanying costly strategic failures. The U.S. has no strategic national interest in any former Soviet Bloc country that can [provide this nation material gain worth the costs of an intervention. Further, this country will suffer precisely zero harm should those countries, in their entirety, be taken back into the Russian “Sphere of Influence.” Russia is not NAZI Germany and this is not the 1930’s.
Russian and American Armed Forces have both intervened without sufficient ethical justification in a number of countries over the post-WWII decades, and our moral track record and record of destruction is no less than theirs. It is time to end that cycle of wasteful costs and strategic defeats — at least on the part of the U.S.
This country needs to concentrate on rebuilding its industrial economy and finding decent paying jobs for its ever declining middle class if it is to restore its economic well being and have the “employed” members of its society provide via their earnings the tax base the Nation requires to field an adequate military and more importantly to fund the social programs required of a modern society — and therein this country is currently failing and endangering our Nation’s future and security. It is time to concentrate on our problems at home and cease looking for additional wars to fight abroad.
“Russian and American Armed Forces have both intervened without sufficient ethical justification in a number of countries over the post-WWII decades, and our moral track record and record of destruction is no less than theirs.”
I’ve rarely read such a ridiculous statement. You sir, need to go back and read some history of the peoples and lands Russia had occupied for decades. You can start by reading about the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, or perhaps the Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. I’d suggest visiting the Museum of the Occupation in Riga, Latvia as well. You might change your tune.
Though hardly without fault, U.S. policies and overseas wars do not even come close to the level of misery and destruction Russia visited upon its near abroad.
Separately, sticking our head in the sand and hoping that expansionist powers will just stick to their “sphere of influence” hasn’t worked very well in the past, if you’ve noticed.
Since its late in the process and I doubt it will be read it will be brief.
America’s interventions, and the deaths and destruction unnecessarily caused in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan far exceed that caused by the Russians in Hungary, etc.
Expansionist powers have caused no problems to this country that weren’t brought on by American actions. If the U.S. had not intervened and attempted to economically cripple Japan before WWII they would never have attacked this country, Russian expansion into Eastern Europe never produced a conflict, the U.S. arrogant invasion of North Korea brought the Chinese into that war — and they have since withdrawn their forces from Korea. America’s reaction to the Iraqi invasion in Kuwait was based on a need to protect the WEST’s access to oil, and nothing else.
You are advocating expansion by insisting the U.S. get involved in Russia’s Sphere of Influence. If Czechoslovakia (which does not exist today), Latvia, etc have problems with their neighbor, that is their concern, not ours. We are thousands of miles from that location.
Enough of the failed U.S. interventions and our arrogantly attempting to impose our political will on the world.
Outstanding article. Superb lay-down of the Russian campaign methodology. I don’t agree that a battalion sized task force is sufficient to convince Moscow of our serious intent to prevent a new world order based on “might makes right”. The armor brigades is what the doctor orders here.
As for our national interest, ensuring a world order wherein sovereign states choose their own destiny instead of having it imposed through the use of force by an external power is definitely in our national interest.
Mike –
“As for our national interest, ensuring a world order wherein sovereign states choose their own destiny instead of having it imposed through the use of force by an external power is definitely in our national interest.” What happens when sovereign peoples rise up to take back the sovereignty US-backed institutions like the EU and US and EU backed too big to fail bankers stole from them? What then? Are you willing to see American Marines or German Bundeswehr troops get ordered to put down a Greek Maidan or bomb the Greek Finance Ministry after it gets overrun by furious mobs demanding the return of the drachmae or the yaunization of the Greek economy in lieu of euros? Askng for a friend. What happens when the world’s best propaganda machine is no longer adequate, when the US dollar is not so welcome in Europe anymore? What will be left in that case to keep this Empire of 900 military bases going in 110 countries is naked force, which is the last resort of a crumbling Empire when persuasion and bribery used to work well.
First, I’m anti-dictator and pro-democracy — no matter what propaganda, media, nationalist, or pseudo-reformist disguises and rationales today’s tin-pot Napoleons try to wrap themselves in.
That stipulated, I do try to restrain my bellicosity in regard to how Putin should be countered by the US, for two reasons.
First (as Putin himself recently reminded all of us), there remains the possibility any US-led action against Russian expansionism might get out of control and go atomic. (The ‘do we want to trade New York for Riga’ conundrum.)
Second, the key to the continued independence of Central Eastern Europe (all the countries lying between Germany and Russia), shouldn’t depend on what’s decided in Washington or London or Paris or Berlin, etc. Rather, they need to form what Polish Marshal Josef Pilsudski called the “intermarium (between the seas) alliance,” when he first called for it back in 1919.
Pilsudski was unable to get the various countries (his included) to overcome their own mutual loathing and form the alliance. Given that we’ve since gone through another world war, in which the CEE region was totally wrecked by sequential incursions of outside powers’ armies, I’m hoping they can noe get over the reluctance engendered by those older animosities and do the logical thing.
I make a part of my living through the design of wargames. One project I recently concluded modeled an all-out near-future Russian attack into the intermarium (assuming NATO had been effectively neutered beforehand).
Long story short: the intermarium nations DO have the military power needed to defend themselves conventionally against Russia IF they act in concert. And the atomic option doesn’t make strategic sense for Moscow in regard to such a war, as they’re trying to gain exploitable land and population, not destroy them.
Another thing to keep in mind here is that, even if Putin’s push is entirely successful, that will only mean Russian tanks are back on the Dvina/Dniepr River line — not the Weser. So the larger “West” still has some room to maneuver here, eh?
With all due respect to COL Douglas Mastriano, the Russians are not going to undermine NATO at its most loyal garrison points — the Baltics and Poland.
They are going to hollow NATO out at its core, through ideological resentment of the European Union and NATO as an American occupier/muslce for Wall Street by Germans, Hungarians, Spaniards (Catalans), Greeks, anyone who basically has an axe to grind with Brussels. Or does anyone who works at the Economist think all the Greek Cypriots are ready to forgive and forget making bank accounts over 100,000 euros collateral damage in the EU’s campaign against Cyprus becoming a Russian financial colony? There is more than enough politics of rage across the entire impoverished, Great Depression 2.0 levels of youth unemployment from Portugal in the West to Bulgaria in the East for the Kremlin to exploit if they’re shrewd. And the irony will be that it was precisely the points where the West abandoned its own principals — sanctity of contracts, the rule of law, and democratic processes as opposed to rule by technocratic bureaucrats like Mario Monti — for which NATO and the EU will pay.
If the Russians are patient they can emulate the strategy of the US State Department in spending some $5 billion over twenty years of Ukrainian independence to promote a Svidomite or Galicianized, more Russophobic vision of Ukrainian identity. It’s no accident the most Russophobic elements of the neocons and Atlanticist community are hyper-paranoid about the Hungarian government of Viktor Orban. They are afraid that over time the EU, rather than Russia, will be seen as the new USSR, as the economically stagnant prison house of nations for the benefit of a single ethnicity or core state — Germany. A vision that millions of Germans sworn to ‘never again’ and pacifism will reject, because Germans do not wish to be in the role of the bad guys and austerity screw turners — even the Atlanticist ones like Merkel.
No Colonel, you should be far more worried about a Greek or Catalan ‘Maidan’ in the next three to five years than about poor old Narva. And when their is an insurrection or even worse, a Greek Colonels coup, what exactly are your former colleagues in NATO going to do about it? Send in German and American troops to quell the Greek Maidanists? Arrest the Colonels with suspicious ties to Russian Orthodox NGOs out of fear that the Russians are mirror imaging US subversion of the Yanukovich government? No Colonel, the EU(SSR) is slowly sinking, and there are many people who hope Putin or his successor more likely Dmitry Rogozin who knows NATO and Brussels intimately relishes the role of a Reagan, rolling back the postmodern, postdemocratic banker-run unelected institutions that arrogantly presumed to speak for the ‘West’.
The assertion about Putin’s strategy: ‘manipulating neighboring Russian populations to stir instability and thereby attain limited strategic objectives’ if valid, hold potential lessons for many other countries including China. Will (or can) China follow similar things in the future in her immediate neighborhood (i.e. Singapore, Vietnam, Philippines) where there is a considerable Chinese diaspora? Does this strategy end the triumph of neo-liberal doctrine and reassertion of geopolitics?
A well written article giving the visualized US perspective.
It is high time we need to look at the trend lines of economic strength of EU nations and their political rhetoric or pre-conditions versus commitment on ground when it comes to the other party being Russia. The existing military potential in view of withdrawal from Afghanistan by NATO and nowhere else to deploy needs to be watched closely; justification for existence is immediately required or else go in for sequestration, the US way.
The anti-Russian feeling in some of the EU camp countries has been since long (19th and 20th century), therefore, not giving a chance to a democratically elected Government in Russia to engage EU democratically, economically and politically shows the sense of insecurity of few nations who may feel subjugated with Russian emergence in EU polity. The Communist days have been condemned by one and all. If we want to avoid war, the options of peace must be explored in a democratic manner.
As regards military options, reactive deployment of VJTF is not a strong answer. One can go in for preventive deployment though it will be a costly affair for EU. How many Heads of State have got the deployment ratified from respective parliaments to give NATO a free hand? It is a moot point. Russia has well understood the indecisiveness as also seen the yawning gap between the economic indications and political overtures.
It may be high time that a high level committee of EU must sit together with Russia and draw REDLINES in a pragmatic manner. The Russian diaspora is a reality today and not giving a credence to it will only lead to more bloodshed in East Europe and Baltic countries AND not in West European Countries.
The former Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev on 10 November 2014 suggested that a new era of Cold War has begun and called for “trust to be restored through dialogue with Moscow”, and “the West should lift sanctions imposed against senior Russian officials over the country’s support for separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine”. He also said that the failure to achieve security in Europe would make the continent irrelevant in world affairs. This is what is also visible with increasing ties of Russia – China, emergence of Indo-pacific region as new core interest of USA and mushrooming of new organization like BRICS which do not include any nation from Europe or North America.
Interesting insights on the current situation offered by Col. Mastriano. Unfortunately, real leadership at the highest levels is severely missing both in Europe and America. Indeed, the emperors are fiddling while the world burns.