This Is What Happens if Russia Invades the Baltics - And America Refuses to Help

So, uh, welcome to the podcast officially.

Thank you very much.

Pleasure to be here.

So you wrote this interesting, really interesting paper, as I was just saying before we started recording, um, that's basically an analysis of what it would look like if Europe had to fight against Russia, presumably, but if it had to fight completely without the US, and if it had to fight tonight as it stands right now, not a few years, uh, later down the line.

And I think it's a really interesting analysis.

It's the first proper, um, attempt to do this that I've seen publicly.

So can you maybe explain a bit more what it is, and what made you do this, and what, what is the purpose of this analysis that you made?

Okay.

So it was-- the paper was born out of, uh, the time that I've spent, uh, in this position where I've listened to a large number of, of military officers, primarily NATO officers, uh, who often talk about, you know, how they exercise and prepare for operations, and always heavily relies upon a US backing.

Um, and then sometimes that takes a, a physical sense in terms of they rely on US capabilities.

Uh, it might be that they refer to US doctrine, which is often built on the back of US capabilities.

Uh, it's built on the back of a US command and control network, which, you know, has a lot of expertise over many years in running quite complex operations.

Uh, it's born out of the fact that they rely on a US Supreme Allied Commander Europe, SACEUR, uh, to lead them, uh, through this effort, and multiple US staff officers in various positions, uh, throughout the NATO structure.

And it struck me, uh, particularly when I heard a, a, a NATO or a commander of a unit that would be assigned to NATO during a conflict explaining an exercise and the, the rapidity and the effectiveness and the range of, of the deep strike that they were able to implement.

And someone asked the question, "But what was the intelligence and surveillance assets you were using to identify those targets, and what assets were you using to reach those targets?" And the answer was US.

Uh, and that struck me as being, given the times that we live in, uh, a little bit, uh, imprudent, and maybe a more cautious, uh, and responsible approach, uh, and not just from a theoretical perspective, which, you know, I understand the paper is, but, uh, as a military commander preparing for the most dangerous course of action should be prepared for some of the support not being available.

Um, and I know this is a rather severe test, i.e. no US support whatsoever, but we do plan, for example, in military operations not having communications.

We have backups for that.

Not having access to GPS.

Well, I think a, a prudent approach would be to plan if we had a, you know, none of that US support, so how would we fight then? And of course, that does become a, a theoretical exercise, but there are very real, um, practical and operational implications if you're to follow that through to its end state.

Yeah.

I think that maybe some people who have not maybe interacted with or, or have served in, in militaries, European militaries, are maybe not aware to what extent they are defined by their NATO membership and to what extent NATO is defined by having United States as, as part of it.

So I'm wondering if what you were trying to do here, um, if to an extent do you think that military planners in Europe are pl- planning or preparing for this eventuality as well? Because it would seem obvious on, on one hand that they do that in a similar way as you did.

But in reality, um, even though people are aware of the reality or the, the potential possibility of the US withdrawing from Europe, and the option of having to fight alone being a real possibility, I feel like on paper the, the that's not really an option because on paper all military planning is tied to NATO, no one is questioning US NATO membership.

So I imagine that even if European military planners might think it's a good idea to plan for this eventuality, I'm not sure how much of it is actually getting done.