Air power and the baltics

[jeff929]

I think it is well known that a recent study demonstrated that Russian forces would be in the Baltic capitals within 3 days if Putin decided to make that move. My question to the forum is this: What air power can NATO bring to bear against this blitzkrieg style attack? Can NATO's advantage in technology make up for numbers, time etc before the Russians would get there?

Thanks, and thanks for all the great responses to my previous questions!

[gideonic]

I think it is well known that a recent study demonstrated that Russian forces would be in the Baltic capitals within 3 days if Putin decided to make that move. My question to the forum is this: What air power can NATO bring to bear against this blitzkrieg style attack? Can NATO's advantage in technology make up for numbers, time etc before the Russians would get there?

Thanks, and thanks for all the great responses to my previous questions!

The main question is, what will be done with Kaliningrad Oblast:
http://thesentinel.ca/kaliningrad-russi ... f-defence/

Without neutralising that Multi-layered Air-Defence hotspot It's very difficult to use air power in the region (especially if we talk about 3 days). NATO has more than enough capabilities to deal with it, but it's also a question of will of attacking Russian soil.

IMO this report is a bit better at explaining things than the RAND one:
http://samgardiner.net/assets/Strategic_Reach_3.pdf
And here is his analysis on the aforementioned one:
http://samgardiner.net/assets/RAND_Games_Analysis.pdf

[kukemaim]

About the 3 days...(not that I disagree)

I'm assuming that the balts would get an early warning that the russians are massing forces for an invasion. So the forces at their disposal would be much larger (perhaps tenfold if given enough time by the warning) than RAND calculated. Atm they only included the active personnel etc.
but...
Balts themselves have no air force, no tanks and no medium AA. Even IFV are just starting to arrive. Only Estonia, the smallest of the three, with population of less than 1m (not counting the russkies), spends 2%+ of gdp on defense.