Context

Russia’s war against Ukraine, and the way Moscow has waged it, is rooted in hundreds of years of history and fundamental and persistent misperceptions among Russians and Russian officials about their neighbor. But while these complicated dynamics are critical to understanding the war, in this paper, we focus not on Ukraine specifically, but on the broader European context in which the war takes place, and in which any peace must be grounded. The sources of tension between Russia and NATO member states, too, are multifold, far older than the current crisis, and rooted in fundamentally dissonant views of what security in Europe means.

Moscow has long seen the US-led, NATOcentered European security order as one that excludes it and ignores its interests, weakening it and rendering it susceptible to coercion or worse. Russia’s hopes in the 1990s and early 2000s of a leading role in Euro-Atlantic security, one befitting how Moscow sees its station as a great power and offering protection from such coercion, were dashed. Instead, Moscow watched NATO expand over the course of thirty years to incorporate the Soviet Union’s old allies and even make inroads into former Soviet republics.2 From this perspective, which ignores the interests and agency of the countries in question, Russia’s wars on Georgia in 2008 and on Ukraine since 2014 are not simple neocolonial aggression, but part of an effort to push back against NATO encroachment ever closer to its own borders.

Moscow may also have felt increasing pressure to act sooner rather than later to establish its position, before it lost even more ground in a changing global order.3 Concerned that NATO countries would continue to seek influence in its neighborhood and in Russia itself, Russian officials and analysts also believed that alliance members would not stop short of forcibly changing others’ governments in pursuit of their goals. This perception was based on Russia’s reading of events in the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Afghanistan as well as Ukraine, Georgia, and the countries that experienced the Arab spring.4 To deter NATO, (although not only for that reason), Russia thus not only started and kept war going in Ukraine but built up its own forces and exercise tempo near NATO member states’ borders.5

Moscow may also have felt increasing pressure to act sooner rather than later to establish its position, before it lost even more ground in a changing global order.

For most NATO members, meanwhile, a definition of Moscow’s interests and security that requires continuing sway over its neighbors, even if those neighbors would prefer other arrangements, is disingenuous and destabilizing. Moscow’s actions in support of its worldview thus lead NATO members to view it as a resurgent revisionist power looking to destabilize the current world order.6

Moreover, prior to 2022, many NATO states saw a Russia willing to wage war in Ukraine, Georgia, and Syria and were fearful Moscow would at some point be emboldened to use force against one or more of the alliance’s members. Moscow’s use of a variety of political, information, and economic tools to advance its interests in their own countries added fuel to the fire.7 To prevent Russian aggression against their own territories, NATO countries thus sought to strengthen their deterrent by deploying forces and conducting

exercises to show they would fight back if attacked. In the Black Sea, these forces and activities also played a role in contesting Russia’s claims to sovereignty over Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, at the start of the war in Ukraine.

To prevent Russian aggression against their own territories, NATO countries thus sought to strengthen their deterrent by deploying forces and conducting exercises to show they would fight back if attacked.

Dueling perspectives on security and threat reverberated on the subregional level. In the Baltic Sea region, both NATO and Russia took steps to mitigate their own perceived vulnerabilities, measures that made the other even more nervous. NATO members worried about two things: the Suwalki Gap and the related defensibility of the Baltic member states.8 The Suwalki Gap, also known as the Suwalki Corridor after the nearby Polish town, is the 100-kilometer Poland-Lithuania border. To the east of this line is Belarus, to the west, the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.9 In a scenario in which NATO must supply or militarily support the Baltic states via Poland while in conflict with Russia (with Belarus aligned with or at least supportive of Russia), everything it sends has to either traverse this narrow border, or somehow get past Russian assets in Kaliningrad that cover the Baltic Sea.10 Thus, Western analysts argued that in case of such a conflict, Russia would attain great advantage if it moved quickly to take control of this territory, separating Poland from the Baltic countries. These arguments may be weakened by Russian military performance in Ukraine. However, as Russia’s naval and air presence in Kaliningrad remains forceful, they are not yet negated.11

To respond, since 2016, NATO implemented changes to its force posture in the Baltic Sea.12 Its Enhanced Forward Presence (EFP) rotated four battalion-sized battlegroups, composed of forces from a variety of member states, through locations in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland.13 EFP deployments were accompanied by exercises, all intended to reassure the Baltic states and Poland of NATO’s commitment to their territorial defense and send Russia a message: “don’t mess with us here.”14

Russia, for its part, saw the situation in reverse. For Moscow, it was Kaliningrad, with its military bases and assets of Russia’s Western military district, that was vulnerable to NATO attack, and difficult to defend due to its lack of connection with mainland Russia.15 Some analysts believe that the Suwalki Gap was crucial for this reason as well, arguing that if Russia fails to seize the Suwalki Gap, it will lose Kaliningrad once a conflict began.16

Fearful that NATO’s positioning of rotational forces in the Baltic states make it possible for the alliance to pressure Russia or Belarus, Moscow responded with its own military build-up. Russia expanded the forces placed in Kaliningrad. Notably, Russia permanently deployed its nuclear-capable Iskander missiles in 2018, previous deployments of which had been temporary.17 In 2019, Russia’s Ministry of Defence reported that it had completed construction of a new facility in Kaliningrad Oblast to store missiles, torpedoes, and artillery ammunition.18 The number of main battle tanks, excluding naval infantry, increased from a range of thirty to ninety in Kaliningrad.19 The Russians were also planning a new motor rifle division in Gusev, based upon the 11th tank regiment, the 79th Motor Rifle Brigade, and the 7th Motor Rifle Regiment.20 Furthermore, Russia bolstered its air defense capabilities in Kaliningrad.21 This included rearming regiments and battalions with S400s and other defense systems such as the Bastion

Pre-ministerial press conference by the NATO Secretary General - meeting of minister of defence, Brussels, Belgium, Oct 12-13, 2022. (NATO)

and the Bal system.22

In the Black Sea region, meanwhile, NATO’s Tailored Forward Presence, initiated in 2016, was focused on protecting NATO’s airspace and naval presence through military exercises and further troop and equipment deployments.23 Since then, more NATO troops trained in Romania (Headquarters Multinational Division Southeast) and more exercises were carried out to support Ukraine’s contestation of Russian control of Crimea and Georgia’s of Abkhazia’s independence.24 The exercises mainly focused on interoperability and NATO’s readiness in the Black Sea.25

In part, NATO’s posture was a response to the robust force Russia had built in Crimea since annexing the peninsula. Russia used the Black Sea region as a springboard for its major operations in Syria, Libya, and the Eastern Mediterranean. The peninsula hosts a wide range of sensory systems, surface to air missiles, and air defense systems.26 Russia continued to modernize its Black Sea fleet, based in Crimea since long before the annexation, and planned to bolster it with a few guided missile frigates, six improved kilo submarines armed with Kalibr cruise missiles, and several missile corvettes.27 After the start of the 2014 war in Ukraine, Moscow gave the 8th Combined Arms Army unit, centered in Rostov-on-Don and Novocherkassk, responsibility for deterring any initiative by Ukraine to retake the parts of its Donbas region that were controlled by the selfproclaimed republics that Russia had emplaced and backed.28 The unit could also perform limited offensive operations.29