Hal Brands, Columnist

How Russia Could Force a Nuclear War in the Baltics

The Kremlin's "escalate to de-escalate" nuclear strategy could easily get out of hand.

November 7, 2019 at 7:30 AM UTC

Hal Brands is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and the Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

A strongman and his toys.
Photographer: Vladimir Rodionov/AFP/Getty Images

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Would the U.S. fight a nuclear war to save Estonia? The question would probably strike most Americans as absurd. Certainly, almost no one was thinking about such a prospect when NATO expanded to include the Baltic states back in 2004.

Yet a series of reports by the nonpartisan RAND Corporation shows that the possibility of nuclear escalation in a conflict between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Russia over the Baltic region is higher than one might imagine. The best way of averting it? Invest more in the alliance’s conventional defense.