Why Lithuania is preparing for a Russian invasion

[Blue_Tires]

Last edited Mon Mar 16, 2015, 06:10 PM - Edit history (1)

The three Baltic States are fearful of a possible Russian invasion, although Lithuania may have particular reason for concern.

Wedged between Russian ally Belarus and the Russian Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad, Lithuania is worried that it could be the next target of Russian aggression following invasions in Georgia in 2008 and Crimea and eastern Ukraine last year.

Lithuania's is Moscow's biggest obstacle in developing a a land bridge between Kaliningrad and the rest of Russia.

“They [the Kremlin] need a corridor from Kaliningrad to mainland Russia,” Marius Laurinavicius, a senior Lithuanian analyst at the Eastern Europe studies center in Vilnius, told Reuters. “Just like they need one from Crimea to Donbas [in eastern Ukraine].”

http://www.businessinsider.com/lithuania-preparing-for-feared-russian-invasion-2015-3

[sharp_stick]

1. Lithuania is a NATO member

Russia isn't going to be treating it with quite the same cavalier assholeishness as they did with Ukraine or Georgia.

[BillZBubb]

2. Maybe, but history shows aggressive powers can make some very dumb moves.

Putin may just be willing to gamble that the West is divided and won't support a military response. He's really paid no price for grabbing Crimea.

[uhnope]

3. if Putin makes that mistake, it will be his last

[BillZBubb]

4. Suppose Russia invades Lithuania and conquers it in one day?

What would NATO's response be?

[Igel]

5. No need to invade.

They can "invade" with "little green men."

Unless it's proven beyond a reasonable doubt that they're not only Russians, but directly sent and armed by Moscow, it'll be an internal problem. Otherwise they risk exacerbating the problem.

The situation could easily grow out of control, and by the time NATO needs to intervene the military context would make their intervention difficult. Or they'd fear intense terror at the prospect of going to war with Russia over Lithuania--with the possible claim that it was they who upped the ante and triggered the war.

And, really, who wants to go to war over Lithuania? Would Germans want to die for Lithuanians? Or even have their GDP dinged by more than perhaps 0.75%?

Meanwhile Russians would continue to fight for glory against "fascists" that wanted to have Lithuanian spoken in Lithuania instead of the superior "regional language" Russian.

It was a surprise that Ukraine fought back against armed incursions in the Donbas. (All those nice pictures of senior citizens and others who took over government buildings--once you got wider shots of the scene you'd see men with AKs on the periphery. Sometimes you'd see them in the background. So unarmed resistance by the "authorities" would have--as happened in a number of cases--been met by automatic weapons fire. But nobody wanted to see that, because it would have spoiled the 'peaceful protest' view that we needed to have to avoid the inference that it was really just a peaceful citizen's movement. Just as in Syria, our greatest enemies are those who fail to recognize that sometimes you need to meet a punch in the gut with a defense block and a counterpunch.)

[Sparhawk60]

6. NATO Would have to Act

If the Russians invade a member of NATO, NATO would have no choice but to go to war to defend Lithuania. Other wise the alliance is nothing more than a social club. No one want to go to war over Lithuania any more than the Allies wanted to go to war over Poland in 1939.

Remember, all the Germans wanted in 1939 was a land bridge connecting East Prussia to the rest of Germany. Of course, Hitler never thought the Allies would go to war over Poland, so I can see Putin making the same mistake with Lithuania.