Defense Secretary Ash Carter is traveling to Estonia on Tuesday to meet with defense ministers of the three Baltic states, all of whom are eager for an expanded U.S. presence to offset the uncomfortable shadow of renewed Russian aggression.
In Tallinn, Carter also plans to tour a NATO cyberdefense center and visit a U.S. warship that recently completed two weeks of exercises in the Baltic Sea as a show of force for Moscow, after a visit to Germany in which he made new commitments to an expanded U.S. role in Europe. He stopped short, however, of announcing a permanent U.S. presence that Baltic leaders have sought.
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NATO officials have admitted that Russia’s sudden aggression in Ukraine, combined with its “hybrid” method of warfare that uses proxies, propaganda and intimidation tactics along with traditional military force, took them by surprise and gave Moscow the strategic initiative in spite of the crippling effects international sanctions have had on Russia’s economy.
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania all have significant Russian minorities and are vulnerable to the same approach.
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“To be prepared for the threats of the future we must review our plans and approaches and be ready to change the way we think about these new challenges,” Carter said Monday in a speech in Berlin. “The Cold War playbook doesn’t apply to this future.
“Our new playbook takes the lessons of history and leverages our alliance’s strengths in new ways for these new threats. We will use small footprint, high impact rotational presence; build partner capacity; integrate planning between cyber, space and conventional forces; ensure combined military and civilian responses together; use smart sanctions; and launch new media information efforts.”
Later, in Munster, Carter announced that the United States would contribute surveillance and transport aircraft, special operations forces and advanced weapons to NATO’s new rapid response force. The force, announced at the alliance’s summit last year in Wales, is one of several steps intended to reassure Eastern European members that it’s serious about confronting any threat to them from Russia.
