As someone living in the Baltics, most people here are fully aware that when Putin chooses to attack we would have trouble holding the mythical 72 hours for full NATO help to arrive.
If NATO help is not coming it is over quite quickly.
You have to remember that Ukraine has/had 40 million population, Baltics has about 7 million.
We also do not have the miles of mined out defenses that Ukraine has had since 2014.
We do have 2000 strong NATO brigades on rotation, a few rotating F-35 from western Europe, some Himars I think.
If unthinkable happens and NATO chooses not to defend the Baltics it is over.
Look at your situation from a different perspective: the Baltics have ~3 times the population of Gaza, and at the very least something resembling air defenses. Gaza was bombed into rubble but the governing body still exists. Or you have roughly the same population as Lebanon, where Hezbollah completely stymied the IDF ground offensive (they wanted to force Hezbollah north of the Litani) even after paralyzing Hezbollah C2 with the pager attack.
Why are the Baltics not fortified as well as Gaza? Why haven't you spent the past 3 years mining the ever-living fuck out of your border with Russia? Why can't 7 million Baltic citizens hold your territory for 72 hours, when 7 million Lebanese are able to bog down the heavily-mechanized IDF for weeks? Now I will admit that terrain is a HUGE factor, but the seeming total unpreparedness of Europeans to invest in the defense of their own homeland communicates a ton to me....none of it positive.
If it's any consolation, the buildup of the invasion preceding the war in Ukraine was visible well before the actual invasion, so probably EU would have time to act.
And, Russia would give you a breather of 1-2 years after the fall of Ukraine in order to build up their stocks.
> We also do not have the miles of mined out defenses that Ukraine has had since 2014.
I'd say you guys should have started building yesterday. Like what the heck to wait for? This isn't some temporary blip but permanent course of direction.
Want to avoid having thousands of sleeper agents with double citizenship causing mayhem before invasion? Revoke it all for dual citizens that won't revoke their russian one, its time to pick side.
If NATO help is not coming it is over quite quickly.
You have to remember that Ukraine has/had 40 million population, Baltics has about 7 million.
We also do not have the miles of mined out defenses that Ukraine has had since 2014.
We do have 2000 strong NATO brigades on rotation, a few rotating F-35 from western Europe, some Himars I think.
If unthinkable happens and NATO chooses not to defend the Baltics it is over.