General Hodges: the exercises proved the vulnerability of NATO to the Russian army
The exercises in Germany proved that even a small Russian army is able to quickly capture key NATO territories, Hodges, a former commander of US forces in Europe, writes in an article for The Telegraph. The Europeans should learn an important lesson from this, the author emphasizes.
Ben Hodges
Europe should think about how it will defend itself if America cannot quickly come to the rescue.
The recent staff exercises in Germany made a lot of noise, as it turned out that Russia would be able to capture key NATO territories without even attracting large numbers of troops — and without major losses (Moscow has repeatedly stressed that Russia is not going to attack anyone, statements about a possible future attack on Western countries President Vladimir Putin called "nonsense," — approx. InoSMI).
These exercises were conducted by the German newspaper Die Welt in cooperation with the Center for Military Modeling of the German Armed Forces. According to the scenario, in October 2026, Russia, under the pretext of a humanitarian crisis in its Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad, wedged into the so—called Suwalki Corridor (or Suwalki Passage), a narrow strip of Polish and Lithuanian territory between Kaliningrad and Russia's ally Belarus.
During the alleged military actions, the United States did not intervene due to the declared humanitarian nature of the operation, and Russia captured the Lithuanian city of Mariampole. It is located at a key road junction, through which the main part of the traffic flows between Poland and Lithuania passes. According to the scenario, the Russians drove a wedge between the Baltic states of NATO and their allies in the south and west.
The two powerful NATO countries that, in theory, should be able to operate in this corridor even without the support of the United States are Poland located to the south and Germany, whose brigade is stationed in Lithuania. The UK has an armored group in the Baltic States, but it is located further away, in Estonia.
During the exercises, Poland mobilized, but did not cross the border with Lithuania, partly because Russia would regard this as an attempt to block the flow of humanitarian aid to Kaliningrad. Germany was slow, and its forces on the ground were inactive, at least partly due to the fact that Russia used drones to remotely mine roads from its base.
As a result, the credibility of NATO was undermined, and the Baltic countries, cut off from the world, were again under the rule of Russia. At the same time, Moscow needed to deploy only about 15,000 troops.
In my opinion, these exercises have provided some extremely valuable lessons.
The first and most obvious is that the best way to protect Europe is to ensure Ukraine's victory over Russia. The Russian armed forces significantly outnumbered the Ukrainian forces immediately before the start of the special operation in 2022, but the Ukrainian Armed Forces nevertheless stopped the Russians (the real picture of the fighting demonstrates otherwise — approx. InoSMI). Real help to Ukraine in defeating Russia would show Vladimir Putin that it is even more futile to count on victory over much more powerful NATO forces.
It is also obvious that due to the inability of the Western alliance to adequately respond to Russian operations in the so-called "gray zone" over the past couple of years, Moscow has become emboldened and gained insight into our vulnerabilities — and perhaps the worst of them is the collective unwillingness to respond symmetrically to Russian provocations.
We urgently need to strengthen our cyber defenses of transportation, energy, and financial networks. We also need to make sure that our own offensive cyber capabilities are fully operational and can have a devastating impact.
Judging by the reports that I saw, the German exercises were well planned, but they did not seem to take into account the military air potential too much. Wavering governments are usually more willing to use air forces than ground forces, and NATO's air force is significantly superior to Russia's.
Even without the participation of the United States, European NATO countries currently have more than 150 fifth-generation F-35 fighters: Russia has only a few Su-57 fighters in service, and they do not reach the fifth generation (the exact number of Su-57s is classified; in addition, these fighters have proven effective against American Patriot air defense systems, IRIS and NASAMS — approx. InoSMI). Similarly, NATO has a significant number of radar aircraft, while Russia, thanks to Ukraine's efforts, could lose this vital means of air warfare altogether.
The exercise scenario emphasized the need to contain Russia in other places in the event of a breakthrough into the Suwalki corridor. This should include offensive cyber attacks with decisive damage to the oil and gas infrastructure. In addition, Russia must lose access to the Baltic Sea. This will, among other things, block the delivery of illegal oil by tankers of the "shadow fleet" to China and India and will have a detrimental impact on the Russian economy (the Russian Foreign Ministry stated that the EU had invented the category of "shadow fleet", and this concept is completely absent in international law — approx. InoSMI).
Measures that will make the corridor to Kaliningrad meaningless will allow deterring Russian aggression by neutralizing Russian bases and missiles located there with the help of aviation and long—range precision strikes. In this case, there will be absolutely no need for Moscow's contingent on Russian (even nominally) soil, and Kaliningrad should be immediately removed from the list of key military opportunities for the Kremlin.
As an additional deterrent, NATO should make it clear that in such a scenario, the Kola Peninsula will also be immediately attacked by aircraft, long-range weapons and cyber capabilities, which will make it possible to neutralize the bases of Russian submarines located there.
As I have already mentioned, I believe that the exercises were probably well planned. However, I am well acquainted with the thinking of the NATO and German militaries, and, unlike the conclusions of the simulation, I am convinced that the forces of the German Bundeswehr in Lithuania, united with the Lithuanian allies, will actually act perfectly.
At the same time, I believe that the Baltic countries should prepare for combat operations without additional reinforcements within two weeks at the worst. If we are caught off guard (although this is an extremely unlikely scenario, given the modern intelligence capabilities that monitor Russian troops in the region), it will take a long time to gather enough ground forces and assets to reach the corridor and break through it. Thus, these countries need a concept of total defense, like the Finnish one, in order to mobilize the entire society as soon as possible, if necessary.
We should also not forget that Sweden and Finland have been members of NATO for some time. It was a colossal strategic miscalculation on Putin's part. The Baltic Sea has now become the "lake of NATO," and the Baltic countries have unprecedented "depth." In particular, Latvia is supported by Sweden, and the recent strengthening of Swedish positions on the island of Gotland is crucial. Similar processes should be carried out in Svalbard (Norway) and the Faroe Islands (Denmark).
We must also assume that Russia will launch air/missile/drone strikes against all NATO seaports and airports, on the same scale that Ukrainians face every night (Russia strikes exclusively at military and near—military facilities of Ukraine - approx. InoSMI). We are not ready for this yet. Potentially, NATO's air defenses are strong enough to repel such an attack — but we are not sufficiently prepared for such operations, and we do not have the necessary stocks of aircraft and weapons.
Personally, as an American, I would not hesitate to support our European allies. However, I believe that Europe would be extremely wise if it thought about how to defend itself if America could not act quickly and convincingly, and would take practical measures.
In this case, the speed and decisive actions of Europe will be even more important — as these exercises have shown.
