I'm not at all sold that he will think that. I also don't see any real moves being made towards the Baltics at any point in a significant chunk of time. And what it means to "win" is an open question. I suspect the cost of getting an acceptable outcome will factor heavily into the decision-making. If anything, Putin has to worry more about hanging on to a friendly government in Belarus.
Can you provide a breakdown of this? You also have left out the Coastal Troops which field corps instead of armies, but are functionally identical (see the 11th in Kaliningrad).
The Baltics is an area of great importance and interest for Russia which would like to keep the region within its sphere of influence. Unlike the Ukraine however the Baltics simply does not hold the same level of importance and there is less sentimental or nostalgic attachment to the Baltics compared to the Ukraine.
It is interesting to note that the countries that had direct boarders with RF, and joined NATO did so after Putin came to power.
It's not the actual numbers but the fact that troops are there in area which is in Russia's backyard. NATO no doubt has a small number of troops there but it could easily raise those numbers if required. Ultimately whether it's 4,000 or 10,000 NATO troops; it's a very significant political statement and is viewed by Russia as a threat or as provocative; just like how NATO would view Russian troops who were 'invited' into Belarus; whether it's 1,000 or 5,000.
Do you still consider it a correlation when you consider the geography and the tempo of expansion? It looks to me like a fairly natural east and south-ward creep across the former eastern bloc.
It would also be worth noting when these various nations either first requested to join NATO, or when they started to consult with NATO about joining. The first three ex-Warsaw Pact nations to join NATO, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary all had been subjugated by the Soviet Union either during WWII, or in the post-war period during the 1950's and 1960's.
Thank you, that's a great point. These moves had to do with historic fears, and with a desire to be part of the prosperous west, not with the modern day politics of Russia and their roots far predate Putin's rise.
I don't have a clear breakdown, I don't really track individual RF army units.
So basically former Soviet republics or Warsaw Pact states which joined NATO at different periods did so for slightly different reasons. The first batch; Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary; did so to secure their long term security [at a time when Russia was not seen as the 'threat' it is today] but being able to enjoy the benefits and spin offs of NATO membership, including closer integration to the West; played a large part. The Baltics states however joined largely because it felt threatened by Russia' in a way Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary didn't feel when they joined years
I suspect this isn't even remotely accurate. What exactly counts as BTGs is a separate discussion. For example, in theory every M-R brigade and regiment can form 3 BTGs so an army like the 58th with two M-R divisions and two brigades can theoretically produce (assuming two regiments per division which is the norm these days) 18 BTGs. However they also have tank units, so some armored BTGs (tank btln+MR coy) are to be expected. At maximum it can probably put out more like 20-22 BTGs. Now take the 8th Army which has two M-R divisions, but one of them is the experimental "heavy" division ORBAT with two tank and two M-R rgts and the other with just two M-R rgts. For M-R units we can expect 12 BTGs, but with the armored units, it's more like 16-18. Then again the 49th Army has 3 brigades, so armored and M-R it's at most 12 BTGs. So at maximum we are well above the 130 BTGs divided by 11 armies. On the flip side, Russia prefers to use contract soldiers for actual combat, so how many of those units are completely contract, including junior enlisted? This is unclear. If they're moving contract-only units, they're certainly not moving 9/11 armies. They're moving more like ~1/3rd to 1/2 of that. I'm not sure where the number of 130 BTGs comes from, but the whole thing looks like really fuzzy math. And some of the units arriving in Belarus from East MD appear to include conscripts, so...
No, I approach it differently. I don't actually include conscripts in calculations. Also RF keep most of it contract personel as officers and to fill not fully filled units.I suspect this isn't even remotely accurate. What exactly counts as BTGs is a separate discussion. For example, in theory every M-R brigade and regiment can form 3 BTGs so an army like the 58th with two M-R divisions and two brigades can theoretically produce (assuming two regiments per division which is the norm these days) 18 BTGs. However they also have tank units, so some armored BTGs (tank btln+MR coy) are to be expected. At maximum it can probably put out more like 20-22 BTGs. Now take the 8th Army which has two M-R divisions, but one of them is the experimental "heavy" division ORBAT with two tank and two M-R rgts and the other with just two M-R rgts. For M-R units we can expect 12 BTGs, but with the armored units, it's more like 16-18. Then again the 49th Army has 3 brigades, so armored and M-R it's at most 12 BTGs. So at maximum we are well above the 130 BTGs divided by 11 armies. On the flip side, Russia prefers to use contract soldiers for actual combat, so how many of those units are completely contract, including junior enlisted? This is unclear. If they're moving contract-only units, they're certainly not moving 9/11 armies. They're moving more like ~1/3rd to 1/2 of that. I'm not sure where the number of 130 BTGs comes from, but the whole thing looks like really fuzzy math. And some of the units arriving in Belarus from East MD appear to include conscripts, so...
100 BTGs would equal, in my math, to more like ~4 armies if we include airborne which would form BTGs of their own, and would certainly participate, but don't report directly to Combined Arms Armies.
On a side note, in addition to 12 (not 11) armies (1st and 2nd Tank Armies, 5th, 6th, 8th, 20th, 29th, 35th, 36th, 41st, 49th, 58th Combined Arms Armies) there are also 4 Army Corps (11th,14th, 22nd, 68th,)which are the Navy/Coastal Troops combined commands for ground forces in their area. They're mostly (the 14th only has two Arctic bdes) comparable to a combined arms army, but with fewer support elements (often lacking the artillery bde, or the air defense bde which is often replaced by a much smaller and weaker air defense rgt, often lacking engineers and logistics units). There are also 4 divisions and iirc 3 bdes of VDV which combined are well above any single army, and don't report to any of them. So all in all even if 9 armies were deploying to the border of Ukraine a more accurate picture would be 9/17 or 9/18.
I don't think you're correct. Russia does have about 2/3rds contract 1/3rd conscript, but they're not fully segregated. Russia has most of it's NCOs (almost all these days) as contract soldiers, and a high proportion of technical MOS' as contract soldiers even in units where the riflemen/machinegunners/RPG-men are conscripts. There is also a disproportionate quantity of contract soldiers in the VDV, the Navy and the airforce. So realistically they don't have 11-12 armies. And an army isn't 12 BTGs. An army as a unit has not been used in combat probably since Afghanistan, it's all been composite formations and ad-hoc HQs. An army is something to the tune of combined-arms 0-2 divisions and 0-4 brigades, in any combination. The biggest have two divisions and two brigades, or just 4 brigades. The smallest have two divisions or just 3 brigades. So it's not really accurate to say that because roughly all the contract-only BTGs from X number of armies have deployed to the border, that means that X number of armies have deployed to the border.
I am not so certain that this is correct. I suspect (though cannot confirm my suspicions) that a number of ex-SSR or Warsaw Pact nations which joined NATO at later dates had been interested in joining NATO much earlier than they did, but had to first get their political, economic and defence force conditions to a certain level before NATO was willing to admit some of these nations as members. Both the Ukraine and Georgia are examples of states that would likely be interested in NATO membership, but for a variety of reasons NATO does not wish to admit them yet.
My view is that the numbers are deliberately kept small so as not to cause too much of a threat to RF, but as these states are NATO members the troops simply are there to show support. to increase numbers substantially would take some time and as the total of number of deployable NATO troops is 40000 in all regions, this is not going to happen to enable an aggressive stance. I think the threat stance is just an excuse for other actions. I hope I am wrong.
Since Turkey joined in 1952 there has been 4 coup d'etat by the military, the most recent one in 1997, you can hardly call Turkey a democracy then and even now it's hard to call them a democracy
Since 1952 when Turkey became a NATO member, there have been four successful coup d'etat, the most recent on in 1997, Turkey was not a democracy then and it's highly questionable if Turkey is a democracy now, coup d'etats are not common practice in democracies, the last coup attempt in Turkey was against current sitting president Erdogan in 2016, he manage to survive it. NATO can change the rules pending on how important they see a country to their own spheres of influence