Russia Claims NATO Threatens WW3, but Who's Being an Aggressor in Europe?

Russia is talking big again. This time, they're making noise about Kaliningrad.

Kaliningrad is a Baltic Sea port city, a detached enclave of Russia surrounded by Poland and Lithuania, both of which are members of NATO. Formerly known as Königsberg until after World War 2, Kaliningrad is seen by Russia as a vulnerable spot, as they have no uncontested land corridor to defend the port.

Now, with the NATO nations ramping up defense spending, Russia is playing up any attack on Kaliningrad as provoking World War 3.

Russian officials on Friday clapped back at a recently announced NATO deterrence plan that looks to unite the alliance’s ground response capabilities, and has Moscow particularly worried about the vulnerabilities posed by its highly militarized exclave – Kaliningrad.
Warnings rang out from the halls of the Kremlin as one official warned that a deterrence strategy announced this week by U.S. Army Europe and Africa commander, Gen. Christopher Donahue, amounted to "a plan to unleash World War III with a subsequent global standoff [and] no winners."
"An attack on the Kaliningrad region will mean an attack on Russia, with all due retaliatory measures stipulated, among other things, by its nuclear doctrine," chairman of the Russian Parliamentary Committee on International Affairs, Leonid Slutsky told the East 2 West media outlet.

Here's the thing: NATO isn't about to attack Kaliningrad, even as exposed as it is. But it's a near-certainty that the various NATO nations have a plan to do so. They should have a plan for any contingency, after all. But the notion that NATO is poised to spring on that Baltic port is not rational. And NATO is now developing a new defensive strategy, in no small part because of Russia's aggression in Ukraine, to preclude any Russian moves in the Baltic region.

The strategy, dubbed the "Eastern Flank Deterrence Line" and announced by the U.S. general on Wednesday at the Association of the U.S. Army’s inaugural LandEuro conference in Wiesbaden, Germany, illustrates how NATO is rethinking its defensive strategy against the region’s chief threat – Russia.
The plan looks to enhance ground-based capabilities and utilize military-industrial interoperability, specifically in the Baltic region, to effectively counter and eliminate the threat posed by Russia based on lessons learned from the war in Ukraine.

Here's the part that got Russia spun up:

While Donahue was not directly threatening Kaliningrad, his comments highlight the vulnerability that the territory – which is situated between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea and completely cut off from mainland Russia – poses to Moscow.
"There’s absolutely no reason why that A2AD bubble, to deter Russia, we cannot take that down from the ground," Donahue said in an appearance on Fox News Channel's "Special Report" Friday night, adding that it could be done "in a timeframe that is unheard of and faster then we’ve been able to do."

This is just stating the obvious. Kaliningrad is exposed, and NATO has not one but several land corridors they could use to move in and defenestrate the Russian leadership in the area.

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Russia's primary export these days seems to be hot air. NATO is not about to launch a surprise attack on Kaliningrad; there is no reason to do so. NATO does have the capability to do so, as Russia cannot easily support this enclave that is surrounded by NATO nations. It's a vulnerable spot, and NATO is right to have plans for dealing with it, if need be, but all of NATO's recent actions have been aimed at countering, not initiating, any attacks.

Once again, Russia's making a lot of noise for no real reason. One suspects this is mostly for internal consumption, aimed not at NATO, but to present an image of strength to the Russian people, who doubtless are growing restive with so many sons, husbands, and fathers having been swallowed up in Ukraine.

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