Read the digital document above, download a copy here or continuing reading below.

Speaking at a security conference in Stockholm in January 2023, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Christopher Cavoli, shared a series of personal observations with the audience about the war in Ukraine. Nearly 30 months later, they are each just as valid but one resonates more than most: “Hard Power is a reality. Soft Power is good and useful and even necessary and integrated deterrence of course relies on all elements of national power: economic, diplomatic, informational but the great irreducible feature of warfare is Hard Power. And we have to be good at it… kinetic effects are what produce results on the battlefield. Cyber, information operations and so on, are very important, but if the other guy shows up with the tank… you better have a tank.” Ultimately, promises and reassurances only count for so much, boots and tanks on the ground count most, particularly when fighting with partners.

As the recently published Strategic Defence Review (SDR) has reiterated, “[c]ollective security, underpinned by formal alliances and partnerships, is a force multiplier for the UK’s deterrence and defence”. Central to this is ‘NATO First’: “[f]oremost in how Defence plans”; the “foundation of how Defence thinks”; and, “[e]mbedded in how Defence acts”. Despite subsequent ministerial statements, the strong message is that the 76-year-old collective security alliance takes precedence, but within the SDR’s fifth chapter, Allies and Partners, there is some granularity about the “network of robust relationships that delivers global reach for the UK as part of its wider foreign and security policy”. Within this section, of a 144-page document running to more than 45,000 words, can be found most of the eight brief references to Estonia, the location of the UK’s current largest permanent military overseas deployment.

Despite the brevity, the strategic significance to Britain of the Baltic States should not be doubted. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, diplomatic relations were restored with Estonia in September 1991 and co-operation on defence and security began immediately. With Russia’s expansion of its war with Ukraine in February 2022 and the subsequent entry into NATO of Sweden and Finland – which led to the military geography of the wider Baltic region being redefined – during the last 12-18 months, even a British media often betraying a ‘Little Englander’ mindset has noted the importance of this relationship. The traditional broadsheets, notably The Times, have highlighted the significance of the Baltic States for British security, but repeated reports in more popular tabloids have likely had a greater impact in shaping wider thinking, even if these tend to fixate on the potential for a Third World War and possible escalation to global nuclear destruction.

This has been accompanied by speculation about timelines. A recent example was reporting of NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte’s comments about the danger of not increasing spending on the Alliance. He warned: “For the next three years, we are fine, but we have to start now. Otherwise, three, four, five years from now, we are really under threat. I may be using rhetoric here, but I really mean it that you will have to get your Russian language course or go to New Zealand.” This follows reports by Danish, Estonian and Latvian intelligence agencies which also highlighted the potential for a major war in Europe within five years. This is in addition to discussion about where the next blow could fall. Most recently, speaking at the Policy Exchange think-tank in late May, David Petraeus warned that the Baltics have an attraction for Vladimir Putin both in terms of testing Western resolve but also as a precursor to a possible wider offensive. The threat to the region has been repeatedly raised, most obviously in a 2016 RAND report which concluded it was Russia’s next most likely target and NATO’s nuclear forces did not have enough credibility to protect them. On the basis of multiple game models, this study concluded the longest it could take enemy forces to reach the outskirts of Tallinn and Riga would be 60 hours.

The Baltics had no military forces at independence. According to the most recent IISS Military Balance, the Estonian Defence Forces land component consists of around 4,000 troops – two-thirds conscripts completing eight or 11 months national service – formed into two brigades, one mechanised and the other infantry, and another reserve brigade. A modernisation programme has been ongoing, including the acquisition of new armoured fighting vehicles and artillery, and in late April Estonia’s Prime Minister Kristen Michal confirmed the approval of additional funding of €2.8 billion and a four-year plan which allows an average of 5.4 per cent gross domestic product to be assigned toward military budgeting. This should allow for the formation of a third standing brigade and the purchase of main battle tanks. This reflects national sentiments in which the Estonian Defence League, a rapidly expanding reserve of unpaid volunteers, is amongst the country’s most respected institutions. Data released in May 2024 highlighted that if Estonia were attacked by another country, four fifths of the population would consider armed resistance necessary, with more than 60 per cent willing to participate in defence activities.

The Baltic Defence Line Initiative, announced in January 2024, offers further evidence of local efforts to enhance security. The intention is that a series of fortified strongpoints – ditches, wire and ‘dragon’s teeth’ – linked with natural obstacles along their borders with Russia and Belarus will obstruct and delay any enemy advance. Despite criticism, including from the British government, NATO states throughout the region have announced their withdrawal from the Ottawa Convention and mines will offer a critical advantage to these defences. Of the three Baltic States, Estonia has the smallest land border with Russia and terrain features such as the Narva River and Lakes Peipus and Pihkva reduce the most vulnerable terrain down to approximately 210 kilometres. Even so, as part of the wider ‘anti-mobility’ strategy the plan still calls for the construction of 600 bunkers – each large enough for about ten soldiers and hardened against artillery strikes.

Despite such a move, regional defence still depends on collective defence mechanisms. At the 2016 Warsaw summit NATO members agreed to forward deploy four multinational formations to those areas facing the greatest threat. The Enhanced Forward Presence positioned battlegroups – in official terms ‘defence and deterrence military forces’ – are in the Baltic States and Poland to provide a first echelon hold and delay function and a tripwire ensuring any aggression triggers a collective NATO response under Article 5. Following the 2022 Madrid summit, four more were announced for Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, and plans are now well advanced to establish Forward Land Forces Finland.

Britain’s contribution to Baltic security is Operation Cabrit, which since early 2017 has provided the lead of the Forward Land Forces Battlegroup situated outside of Tapa Camp, to the east of Tallinn, with additional British forces stationed in Poland. Last month’s Exercise Hedgehog – involving more than 3,000 British and French troops and 10,000 Estonian conscripted reserves, who rehearsed how forces would get to theatre and fight from defensive positions to block any Russian attack – was the fourth international exercise in the last six months. It followed Exercise Pikne which tested the deployment of units by air and sea at short notice, February’s Exercise Winter Camp with a focus on the ability of armoured vehicles to operate in forested and frozen terrain (what one of the young officers involved described as “essentially a game of cat and mouse in the Estonian woodland”) and dismounted troops being able to fight in trenches, and April’s Exercise Bold Eagle where troops assaulted prepared defensive positions and the ability of Challenger 2 main battle tanks to operate in the region was demonstrated.

What the immediate future holds for Estonia will likely be determined by one man. Vladimir Putin’s complex psychology is increasingly well documented; according to one study, in the last ten years he has become both more antisocial and more sadistic while at the same time becoming less accommodating and cooperative. Of particular significance when considering Baltic security is how he has distorted and weaponised history – like disrupters and dictators before him – in an attempt to legitimise actions which disregard rules and norms but actively promote his national interests. With a ‘colonial mindset’, he has demonstrated a fascination in factually inaccurate interpretations based around imperialistic rhetoric with repeated reference to ‘historical Russia’ and its loss with the collapse of the Soviet Union – in his words “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the last century. With the concept of “compatriots abroad,” which vaguely includes ethnic Russians and Russian speakers of other ethnicities, this all leads to concerns that other parts of the former Soviet Union, and even the old Czarist empire, could be future targets. The Baltics fall into this category. Attending the opening of a memorial to the Soviet victims of Nazi genocide in Leningrad Oblast in January, Putin specifically accused the Baltic States of adopting ‘Nazism’, declaring thousands of people living there “subhuman” and subjecting them to “persecution”. This, and other similar comments since 2022, have been interpreted as setting the conditions for a future intervention.

Valuing demonstrations of strength above anything else, and by extension a contempt of any perceived displays of weakness, to this can be added evidence of another layer of the Russian leader’s personal animosity. Following negotiations in 1994 to secure a removal of the last remaining military forces, then British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd reported back to London comments he had heard from his Russian counterpart that “the Estonians were out to make trouble… [Russia] could not allow Estonia to tramp all over them… [and] there was a great deal of irritation in Moscow at the way the Estonians were pursuing their objectives”. Other Russian politicians, notably the Mayor of St Petersburg Anatoly Sobchak, who launched the political career of one of his deputies Vladimir Putin, also described Estonia as “the most difficult of the three Baltic states with which to deal”.

Putin’s weaponisation of history and employment of violence as the preferred lever of power has, however, placed him in a vice. As one description earlier this year highlighted: “Putin’s popularity at home has always been boosted by war. And so war has become a political necessity for him – a natural state of affairs rather than an aberration – and for millions of his people.” What passes for independent opinion polls in Russia show a vast majority still support the special operation in Ukraine. But, as Lawrence Freedman has warned, creating an almost constant war footing (there have only been two years since Putin came to power in one form or another when Russia has not been at war) comes with a price: “Having wound his country up for war he will find it difficult to wind it down again. Having told his country that they are engaged in an existential struggle with NATO he will find it difficult to come back down.” This all feeds into the question of what happens next. At a conference in Helsinki last year, one Finnish attendee explained in confidence that events now represent the ‘Stalingrad moment’ for the Russian leader. Hold the line, turn the tide, breakout and march on. From the industrial city on the Volga, the advance only culminated in Berlin. Break through the Dnieper now and how far does this exploitation advance?

A significant unknown in any assessment of what the future holds for the Baltics is the possible role and contribution to be played by the United States in Europe’s security. At the extreme end of any scenario, were their military forces to be withdrawn the consequences would be critical: “Taking the US Army III Corps as a reference point, credible European deterrence – for instance, to prevent a rapid Russian breakthrough in the Baltics – would require a minimum of 1,400 tanks, 2,000 infantry fighting vehicles and 700 artillery pieces (155mm howitzers and multiple rocket launchers). This is more combat power than currently exists in the French, German, Italian and British land forces combined. Providing these forces with sufficient munitions will be essential, beyond the barebones stockpiles currently available. For instance, one million 155mm shells would be the minimum for a large enough stockpile for 90 days of high-intensity combat”.

This is important context when thinking about the British land forces contribution to Estonia’s security. In addition to the 1,000 troops already based in the country, as part of a new defence roadmap signed at last October’s NATO defence ministers meeting, from next month 4th Light Mechanised Brigade Combat Team will be held at high readiness. With 400 troops organised in three squadrons and equipped with variants of the Jackal armoured wheel vehicle (pictured below right), the Light Dragoons are supported by six light-role infantry battalions plus specialist units from the Army Reserve including artillery and engineers. As the lead light brigade in the newly formed Joint Expeditionary Force (Land), it will be on standby to deploy within ten days if called upon. Modelling research published in 2018 noted that in every scenario examined “Russia penetrated a forward-oriented NATO posture” but that “in most cases, a defence deployed in depth, with limited exposure, and with a large force in reserve, managed to contain the offensive”. This, of course, all pre-dated the war in Ukraine and any lessons that Russia might have learned.

At the same time, across the Baltics it is easy to remember what is still a recent past. For example, the idea that British thinking towards the Baltic States in the summer of 1939 was based around them acting as “a cordon sanitaire, not for the containment of Germany, but one erected against the potential danger from the East – the Soviet Union”. As the British defence attaché writing back to London in 1996 put it, in Estonia the memory of what happened at the beginning of the Second World War was “never far beneath the surface” and fears of Russian intentions were “difficult to quantify but very tangible when visiting the country”. Add to this the Yalta discussions and being left at the war’s end under Soviet occupation. In the 2024 Estonian survey, while there was widespread support for NATO and the battlegroup, only a quarter of the population was of the opinion that membership prevents the possibility of a military attack and only approximately half believed that in the event of a conflict NATO would provide direct military assistance. This is despite the then NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s commitment at the 2023 Vilnius summit to “protect every inch of NATO territory”. The local state of mind is perhaps best captured by Valdis Birkavs, a former Latvia prime minister, when he explained nearly 20 years ago: “Given our past history, we are concerned that we shall be left to our fate once again, become hostages of geopolitical events beyond our control.”

Such concerns are not unreasonable. With language not that different from the summer of 1939, an editorial this month in The Times has warned: “The coming weeks and months will bring debate over Britain’s preparedness for serious conflict. We must accept that we have allowed our Armed Forces to become degraded and that the peace dividend that allowed governments to move spending from defence to healthcare and social security over decades is over. A new reality is dawning and, while we must hope that the third nuclear age does not feature a test of NATO or Chinese move on Taiwan, it would be negligent not to be ready for the worst.” Yet, as polling for the London Defence Conference the month before showed, only 35 per cent of the British public are committed to increases in defence spending. It is difficult to ignore the advice of Foreign Office official Eyre Crowe writing more than a century ago about British diplomacy: “The fundamental fact, of course, is that [it] is not an alliance. For purposes of ultimate emergencies, it may be found to have no substance at all. For the Entente [Cordiale] is nothing more than a frame of mind, a view of general policy which is shared by the governments of two countries, but which may be, or become, so vague as to lose all content.” Promises are just that, realpolitik can and often does dictate different outcomes.

With an eye to history and the spiral of insecurity around them, it is easy to understand reported concerns from Estonia about what are viewed locally as falling British troop numbers and more long-term worries about whether a brigade could deploy in the face of an actual Russian attack. There is also understandable importance attached to being able to forcibly resist an invasion from day one and not have to attempt to retake occupied and brutalised territory. As part of the recent defence roadmap, in addition to a brigade at high readiness emphasis was also placed on future deployments of Challenger 3 tanks along with Boxer infantry vehicles: the SDR failed to include any reference to what might be termed ‘the Cavoli Maxim’. Even with some of the recent mixed lessons about armoured warfare, and as the first steps are taken to elucidate a 20:40:40 warfighting concept, tanks continue to have a psychological quality all of their own. It was doubly unfortunate that the Review’s publication followed shortly after Germany activated its newly created 45th Armoured Brigade which, by 2027, will see a 5,000 strong permanent force helping guard Lithuania. At the NATO summit later this month, in addition to polite requests for previous British promises to be reaffirmed, there may well be pressure for all the tripwire battlegroups to be replaced by stronger forces.

In a temporal contest in which one adversary remains committed to rapid manoeuvre – having potentially digested the failings of its last attempt – and the defending force has operated for nearly ten years in the knowledge that it represents a worst case, last stand, tripwire, it is not just the ability to fight that night but also fight the next morning which reassures host nations. The ability to defend Tallinn has likely been extended well beyond 60 hours through a combination of the increasing professionalism of the defending local forces, the provision of detailed pre-prepared positions and the strengthening of NATO commitment and resolve. This will certainly help blunt the assault but it will still come down to how quickly the follow-on force can arrive before the wire breaks. And as local partners fear, if ports and airfields are lost (so obviously priority targets either for capture or destruction), how does the second echelon even deploy? With a battlegroup forward but likely isolated, having the remainder of its parent brigade as close as possible would seem prudent. This perhaps points to an increased presence elsewhere along the frontline and Poland, already one of the continent’s strongest defence actors and where geography would better enable manoeuvre and elasticity.

Reflecting the reality that an aggressor holds the initiative and can determine the when, where and how, it was telling that a recent NATO discussion of possible Russian ‘nibbles’ aimed at the Baltic States included the phrases “go smaller but sooner” and “boil the frog”. Although preparing to delay an armoured thrust, this could mean something imaginative and ambitious, for example airlanding operations. Just because the assaults against The Hague (1940) and Hostomel (2022) failed, and vertical envelopment requires a deft touch, Russia has only to remember December 1979 and Operation Storm-333, its success in Afghanistan and a hammer blow of special and elite forces supported by local infiltrators and enhanced by an array of grey and hybrid multipliers. The future battle of Tallinn looks more similar to Kabul than Kyiv.

As the previous Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Patrick Sanders, described the SDR in recent days, it is an “excellent blueprint for making Britain safer…  but not in time”. CHACR’s Director has also highlighted this concern in his commentary, a failing which undermines the document, perhaps fatally. It does, however, alert the Russian leadership to British resolve. The bi-annual Zapad-2025 exercises will take place in Belarus at some stage in 2025 after its cancellation two years before; when last held in 2021 it involved 200,000 troops and large numbers of aircraft and helicopters, tanks and artillery. This might offer an opportunity to find out what is inside Putin’s mind. With it reported that Russian military engineers are expanding bases close to the Finnish border, and more generally extending transport infrastructure, there is plenty of evidence that current actions do not represent the extent of his ambition. Like the Italians in North Africa in 1940, Russian soldiers entering Ukraine in February 2022 carried with them parade uniforms as opposed to battle gear. This is a mistake they are unlikely to make again.