Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Evangelical
Our Next War Debate

Our Next War Debate

Last updated on: January 4, 2018 at 9:52 am by Philip Jenkins

Our Next War Debate 2018-01-04T09:52:02-04:00 Philip Jenkins

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

My blogs normally address some kind of religious issue, and this one, strictly speaking, does not. What I do want to discuss, though, unquestionably has massive implications for ethics as much as politics. How exactly are we going to respond to the likely prospect of international crisis within the next couple of years, when that crisis stands an excellent chance of evolving into military conflict? How will we respond to the threat of war? How should we?

Looking around the world, several obvious threats face the US, and the amount of attention they receive does not necessarily reflect their objective seriousness. At the height of the power of the Islamic State, I reckoned it about number five in a league table of likely menaces. More serious was, and is, the danger from North Korea, which has the capacity to use nuclear weapons against the US, and Iran, which is working toward that goal. Even if they don’t deploy nukes, their conventional arsenals could wreak terrible havoc, especially when supplemented by guerrilla warfare and terrorist actions. At the top of the threat table are two nations with nuclear weaponry sufficient not just to harm the United States, but to devastate it utterly, namely China and Russia. (They would be destroyed in their turn, but that is small compensation). It would be difficult to choose which of those situations poses the greater danger, and rivalries in the South China Sea could make the Pacific Ocean a lethally dangerous place within the next two to three years. All these feature in a fun article by Robert Farley in a recent National Interest on “Five Places World War III Could Start in 2018.”

In this post, I am going to discuss a situation that is presently little known or appreciated in the US, but it may nevertheless be the area where US and Russian forces are most likely to come into direct violent confrontations, with a high potential for nuclear escalation. I am thinking of the Baltic Sea region. In describing this situation, I very much hope that what I say will in a few years be looked at as groundless panic-mongering. On the other hand, you might just find it useful to follow next year’s headlines.

Here is the problem. In 1991, the former Soviet Union broke up in to its fifteen constituent republics. The present regime in Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, deeply regrets this fact, and has vowed to reverse it by active measures. The most significant aspect of this policy occurred in 2014 in the newly independent nation of Ukraine, when pro-Russian forces effectively annexed sizable border territories, including the militarily vital Crimea. The fact that the West remained so quiescent in the face of this aggression sent a powerful message to Putin, assuring him that future moves would be treated just as mildly.

Just how the Russians played this situation demands careful study. At no point did a Russian army or navy threaten Ukraine, nor were Russian forces explicitly involved. Rather, activism notionally stemmed from ethnic Russian groups within Ukraine, who demanded to be protected from an oppressive and essentially fascist Ukrainian government. They formed parties, movements and militias, which campaigned for secession. They were supported by mysterious and well armed paramilitary units, the so called Little Green Men, LGMs. In fact, the whole operation was directed and organized by Russia, operating through front groups, and the LGMs were obviously Russian military forces. But that thin subterfuge gave Russia deniability, so that the West could never accuse them of invasion, and thus threaten military retaliation. Actions on the ground were powerfully supported in cyberspace, by devastating cyber attacks on Ukraine, and by the overwhelming deployment of Internet propaganda and fake news.

Combine cyber-warfare, conventional military actions, and paramilitary dirty tricks, and you have what we call hybrid warfare. Get used to the term, you will be hearing it a great deal.

All of which brings us directly to the three Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. From 1919 to 1940, all were independent nations, but in 1940 all were subsumed into the Soviet Union.The Nazis conquered them, but the Soviets took them back and reintegrated them into the USSR. During the process, the Baltic peoples fought a vast and prolonged anti-Communist guerrilla war that lasted into the mid-1950s, a heroic struggle that remains all but unknown in the West. Tens of thousands perished. Wikipedia notes that “Proportionally, the partisan movement in the post-war Baltic states was of a similar size as the Viet Cong movement in South Vietnam.” (I don’t expect Ken Burns to cover this one any time soon).

The Soviets then regained their power, and the Baltic Republics shared the ups and downs of the post-Stalin USSR, During that time, the republics were (by Soviet standards) relatively prosperous and Westernized, and they never lost their national identity. In 1991, all three resumed their independence. Crucially for the present argument, they entered wholesale into Western and European identities. All joined NATO, which means that NATO allies have an obligation to defend them if they are attacked or invaded. They joined the European Union, and accepted the Euro currency, aligning them with the core nations moving towards full European union. To that extent, they are as European as Italy or the Netherlands.

This image is in the public domain

It might be useful here to give a sense of the scale of territory we are talking about. If you look at a map of the Baltic sea, you will see the three nations I have mentioned, and also to their west, a small patch of land to which I shall return shortly, which is the small detached Russian territory of Kaliningrad. Taking the four lands together makes up about 74,000 square miles, roughly the size of Nebraska. About 6.5 million people inhabit these lands.

Assume that Vladimir Putin or a likely successor decides to appropriate some or all of the Baltic states, applying the same methods that worked so swimmingly in Ukraine. (Trust me, they have the contingency plans ready to go). The potential for such action is extremely encouraging, especially in terms of Russian minorities who can be represented as victims in urgent need of protection. During the Soviet years, many ethnic Russians took up residence in the Baltic lands, and their descendants remain – around one million in all. All three nations thus have sizable Russian minorities – Latvia (26 percent), Estonia (25 percent), and Lithuania (6 percent). Some of these populations are heavily concentrated in particular regions close to a Russian frontier, as in the far north east of Estonia, and the eastern portions of Latvia, around the nation’s second city of Daugavpils. (This region also borders on the Russian ally of Belarus).

If I were Vladimir Putin, I would be viewing these regions greedily as the core of a future secessionist and pro-Russian land, whose inhabitants were clamoring for reunion with Mother Russia. The sizable Russian population around the capital of Riga itself poses a special difficulty for Latvia, which would be the obvious target for a Ukraine-style assault.

Presumably, we would see the same 2014-style script, of ethnic Russian movements and groups, supported by Little Green Men. We can also more or less write the propaganda surrounding the campaign, which would likely focus on charges of Nazi sympathies among the leadership of the Baltic states. Given the extraordinary technological orientation of nations like Estonia, the Russians might be harder pressed to launch successful cyber-warfare, but they would certainly attempt it. In the non-electronic world, Estonians and other Baltic peoples have formed militias and private armies ready to resist a Soviet occupation, as they did back in the 1940s.

You may also recall that mysterious bit of ground called Kaliningrad, which was formerly known as Königsberg, best known as the home of Immanuel Kant. When the Baltics seceded in 1991, this area became an oblast, a physical territory belonging to Russia, although separated physically from the nearest Russian soil by some four hundred miles. It thus presently stands between Poland and Lithuania. It matters so enormously because it is the center of Russia’s still potent Baltic Fleet, which has major ice-free ports at Kaliningrad itself, and at Baltiysk. In the event of a secession crisis in the Baltic republics, Russia has excellent means to intervene directly should it so choose, and (more likely) to deny the area to assistance from Western forces. An awful lot has been written in late years of Anti-Access/Area Denial, A2/AD, and the Russians are very good at it.

A Russian move against the Baltic republics would pay multiple dividends. Most essentially, it would reassert Putin’s most heartfelt goal of restoring the Soviet Union, with himself as unquestioned master, the heir to Stalin. But it would also provide a critical strategic test for the two institutions that most conspicuously stand in the way of Russian expansion, namely NATO and the European Union. If the West failed to respond to such a direct attack on a member of both circles, it would effectively leave Europe detached from the United States, and largely dependent on Russian good will.

Always recall the old semi-joke about NATO’s chief functions: it’s there to keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down. The Baltic gambit would defeat two of those goals at a stroke.

No less significant, such a move would pose very limited risks for the Russians. If the Baltic secessionists won, that’s wonderful news for the Kremlin. If they lost and were suppressed, well, we Russians had nothing to do with them, and they were a purely internal Latvian or Estonian matter. We deny everything.

Low risk, high potential gain. Why not try it? It’s a question of when rather than if.

The only slight caveat here is that the Ukraine outcome has been somewhat more time-consuming and difficult than Putin first imagined, which might encourage a degree of caution in the Baltic. Where a Baltic move would be irresistible would be if the US and NATO were totally focused on some other global confrontation, with North Korea or Iran. In that case, the world’s media would have little attention to spare on the Baltics.

For the sake of argument, imagine that a Ukraine-style crisis developed in Latvia, with intensive use of hybrid warfare. What would NATO do? What would Europe do? This situation would be radically different from Ukraine because now we are dealing with a nation bound to Western nations by close formal ties of treaty and law. Ukraine was not. Baltic leaders have said repeatedly that they would regard the appearance of Little Green Men on their territory as demanding the invocation of the NATO Treaty’s Article 5, so that other nations (including the US) would be required to come to their defense. At the same time, one could argue that this was not a genuine Article 5 situation, because Latvia was not facing an actual Russian invasion, but rather an entirely spontaneous and autonomous upsurge by disaffected citizens and minority groups. And who really knows who those Little Green Men might really be? (They are of course Russian soldiers and special forces, but let’s say that very quietly, or we might end up having to go to war).

Adding to the pressure on Western nations would be the unspoken Russian nuclear threat. In recent exercises, Russian forces have made dummy nuclear runs against Warsaw and Stockholm, while threatening nuclear attacks on Copenhagen. Last year, the Russians moved nuclear-capable Iskander missiles into the Kaliningrad enclave, within easy reach of multiple EU capitals. Ultimately, then, any decision to resist an effective Russian re-annexation of Latvia (and then the other two republics) would be a matter for policymakers and political leaders within the United States, the only nation with the possible ability to face down the Russians.

What happens then, I have no idea. I can already hear the two sides of the debate.

Isolationists and Doves: Are you prepared to risk nuclear war for Latvia? For Latvia? Can you find it on a map? It’s not our business. We aren’t the world’s policeman. We have so many problems at home.

Interventionists and Hawks: But if you don’t stand up to the Russians now, NATO will effectively collapse. Who would trust our word on anything tomorrow? We are facing a re-run of 1939, and this is no time for appeasement.

Given current political splits in the US, the debate would very soon get to the issue of whether the administration was cooking up a crisis for its own partisan ends, to distract attention from internal discontents.

And then there is the debate within Europe itself. After Russia reabsorbs the Baltics, would they turn their attention to restoring the old Warsaw Pact? Poland would likely be next for intimidation. What happens to the European Union?

Those debates might rage at an intellectual level. But there is always the possibility that rival ships or aircraft will tangle with each other in the Baltic, with the loss of Russian or American lives. And then the crisis becomes deeply dangerous.

So here is a diplomatic riddle. Where in the world is more frightening than the South China Sea, or Syria, or North Korea? It has to be the Baltic.

What better way to wish everyone a happy and prosperous 2018 ….

Previous Post

December 28, 2017

The Anxious Bench Year in Review: 2017

Next Post

January 1, 2018 On (Dante's) Paradise

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abolitionism Abortion Abraham Joshua Heschel Abraham Kuyper Abraham Lincoln Academia Activism Adam Renberg Advent Adventist africa African American Religion Agnes Howard Albert Camus American History American Religious History American Revolution American West Anabaptists Ancient History Andrea Turpin Andrei Tarkovsky Anglicanism Annales Ansley Lillian Quiros anti-Catholicism Antisemitism Anxious Bench apologetics Apparitions Arash Azizi Archaeology archives art Artificial Intelligence Asia Asian Americans Augustine Authors Bad Bunny Baptism Baptists Barack Obama Battle of Hastings Benjamin Franklin Bernard-Henri Levy Beth Allison Barr Beth Moore Bethany Mannon Bible Bill Cunningham Billy Graham Black Music Bob Dylan Body Boenhoffer Books Breastfeeding Bruce Springsteen C.S. Lewis Calvinism Cancel Culture Capitalism Carmelites Catholicism Cedric Robinson Cesar Chavez Charismaticism charity Charles Dickens Charles Lindbergh Che Guevara Chicago Children Chinese Christianity Chris Gehrz Christ Christian death Christian Higher Education Christian life Christian Nation Christian Nationalism Christianity Today Christmas Church life Church Practice cinema Civil Religion Civil Rights Movement Civil War civility Classics Climate Change Cold War Colonial Mexico colonialism Comer Communism community complementarianism Conference on Faith and History Congregationalism Conspiracies Conspiracy Conversion Narratives Coronavirus Costa Rica Council of Nicaea Covid-19 Creation Critical Race Theory Crusades Culture culture wars Daniel K. Williams David Barton David Swartz Death Ways death with dignity DEI democracy Democratic Party Devotion Digital Age Diplomacy discipleship diversity Donald Trump Drama Dua Lipa Early Church early modern Early modern Catholicism Easter Eastern Christianity economic exploitation Education elections Elie Wiesel Elizabeth II Elizabeth Taylor emotions Empire Engineering England enslavement Entertainment Episcopal Church Erica Ramirez eschatology Eurocentrism Evangelicalism Evangelicals Exegesis Family Feminism Film Flannery O'Connor folk music Food Foreign Policy founding fathers Franciscans Franciscus Junius fundamentalism Funerals G.K. Chesterton Gender Genocide genre geography George W. Bush George Washington George Whitefield Global Christianity Global church Grief Guadalupe guest post Guest Post gun control gun violence Gustavo Gutierrez Hamid Dabashi Harold John Ockenga Harvest Hate Hawaiian Christianity Healing health care Heather Cox Richardson Hell Heresy Hermeneutics Higher Education Hinduism Hippocratic oath Historical Fiction Historical Methodology Historical Profession Historical Profession Historical Theology Historical Thinking historiography Holidays Holocaust horror movies Human rights Humanitarian Work humanities Hummingbirds Hungary hymns Imago Dei Immigration Injustice Interviews Iran Islam Islamophobia Israel Ivan's Childhood Jacob Randolph James Bratt Janine Giordano Drake Japanese history Japanese Literature Jean Paul Sartre Jesse Miranda Jesus Jesus Christ Jimmy Carter Joan Baez Joan Didion Joanne Freeman João B. Chaves Joao Chaves Joey Cochran John Calvin John Fea John Tillotson John Turner Johnny Cash Jonathan Edwards Jonathan Tran Joseph Smith Josh Howerton Journalism Jr. Judaism Jürgen Moltmann Just War Justice Justin Brierley Karl Barth Katelyn Beaty koi ponds Kris Kristofferson Kristin Kobes Du Mez Latin American Religious History Latino Americans Lectio Divina Leisure Lent Leonard Cohen liberal arts liberalism Liberation Theology Linda Ronstadt Lisa Clark Diller Literature Lou Reed Lynchings Lynneth Miller Renberg Mainline Protestantism Malcolm Foley Marilyn Monroe Maritime history Mark Noll Marriage Martin Luther Martin Luther King Martyrdom Marxism Mary Masih Alinejad mass shootings material culture medieval Christianity Medieval Ethiopia Melissa Borja memory Mennonites Mental Health Mental Illness Methodism Mexican Americans Mexicans Mike Madrid Miles Mullin Min Jin Lee Miscarriage Missionaries Mister Rogers Mitt Romney modernity Monasticism Mormonism Motherhood Mothers of the Church Moving Music Musicals Nadya Williams Nahua Christianity Native Americans Natsume Sōseki New Contributor New England New Year New York Nico Non-Violent Protest Orthodoxy pacifism Paleo Evangelicals Palestinians Parenting Patti Smith Paul Kingsnorth Pedro Calderón de la Barca Pentecostalism Philip Jenkins Phillis Wheatley physician-assisted suicide pilgrimage Pilgrims Piracy pluralism Plutocracy Poetry Politics Pope Francis Pope Leo XIV post-modernism prayer preaching Presbyterians prosperity gospel Protest Public Executions Public history Publishing Puritans purity culture Quakers race Race Massacres Racial Capitalism racial reconciliation racialization Racism Raha Bahloulipour Re-Enchantment reading Reformation Refugees religion and the university religion and war Religious Freedom Religious Nones Religious Pluralism Religious Symbols religious violence Republican Party Revival Rita Coolidge Ritual Roger Williams Roman Catholic church Royalty Russell Moore same-sex marriage Sarah Irving-Stonebraker Scandinavia Science Science and Technology Scopes trial Scriptural Interpretation secularism Selena Quintanilla seminary Seventh-Day Adventists sexual morality Sexuality Sikhs Silence slaveholders theology Slavery Slavoj Zizek social justice Social Media Southern Baptist Convention Southern Religion Spain Spiritual Autobiography Spiritual but not religious Spiritual Discipline Sports Stanley Hauerwas Suffering Summer Camps Sunday Night Odds and Ends Supernatural Supreme Court Syriac Christianity Tal Howard Taylor Swift Teaching Technology Television Thanksgiving The Beatles The Mission theater TheoBros Theology Thomas Dixon Thomas Jefferson Thomas Kidd Thomas Merton Tim Gloege Tim Walz Tom Holland Tourism tradition Tragedy Translation Transnationalism Travel Trump Ukraine Uncategorized Unitarians United Methodist Church US History Vanessa Chan Velvet Underground Verónica A. Gutiérrez Veronica Gutierrez Vikings Violence Virgin Mary Virtue Virtue ethics Visions Voting War WCTU Wendell Berry Westminster Assembly White Evangelicalism Wildfires Winnie the Pooh Witches women Women in Ministry Women's and Gender Studies Work Worship writing Yasunari Kawabata Zena Hitz

Select a Month November 2026 October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who wrote the book of Genesis?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Adam Paul Eve Moses