PNW STAFF
Europe likes to speak the language of resolve. Leaders invoke unity, deterrence, and "never again." Yet a recent wargame conducted in Germany cuts through the rhetoric with uncomfortable clarity: Europe may be preparing for war with Russia--but it is nowhere near ready to fight one on its own.
The exercise, organized by Die Welt in cooperation with the German Wargaming Center at Helmut Schmidt University, simulated a Russian incursion into Lithuania in October 2026. What unfolded was not a massive armored thrust or a dramatic blitzkrieg. Instead, it was something far more unsettling: a limited, plausibly deniable operation that exploited hesitation, political division, and the absence of decisive American leadership. Within days, NATO's credibility collapsed in the game, and Russia achieved strategic dominance in the Baltics with a surprisingly small force.
That outcome should alarm every European capital.
What the Wargame Actually Revealed
The scenario hinged on Kaliningrad, Russia's heavily militarized exclave wedged between Poland and Lithuania. Using the pretext of a fabricated humanitarian crisis, Moscow launched a "limited" intervention to seize Marijampole, a Lithuanian city of just 35,000 people--but one that sits astride a critical highway junction connecting the Baltic states to the rest of NATO.
The brilliance, from Russia's perspective, was not military might but narrative control. The incursion was framed as humanitarian, muddying the waters just enough for Washington--under a disengaged or skeptical U.S. administration--to decline invoking NATO's Article 5. Germany hesitated. Poland mobilized but stopped short of crossing the border. Even German troops already deployed in Lithuania were neutralized without a firefight, their movement blocked by drone-laid mines.
The lesson was brutal: deterrence failed not because NATO lacked soldiers or tanks, but because Russia correctly judged that Europe would argue while territory was taken.
As one participant who role-played Russia's top general put it, the outcome hinged on belief. Moscow believed Germany would hesitate--and that belief proved enough to win.
The wargame exposed a geographic truth Europe has long known but preferred not to dwell on. Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia are connected to the rest of NATO by a narrow and vulnerable land corridor. A single strategic highway--the Via Baltica--carries not only military reinforcements but the economic lifeblood of the region.
Control that chokepoint, even temporarily, and the Baltics are isolated.
In the exercise, Russia achieved this with roughly 15,000 troops--hardly an overwhelming force. The rest was accomplished through hybrid tactics: information warfare, humanitarian pretexts, cyber pressure, and the calculated exploitation of NATO's internal decision-making process. The alliance, designed to deter clear-cut aggression, struggled when faced with something deliberately ambiguous.
That ambiguity is not accidental. It is doctrine.
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