Trump 2.0 is implementing its vision of “NATO 3.0”, which essentially refers to the phased withdrawal of most US troops from the European members of the bloc as they assume more responsibilities for their defense, thus reforming the European security architecture. It already drew down some of its troops from Romania late last year and recently withdrew most of them from Estonia, and while it’s possible that it’ll establish a permanent base in Poland and potentially deploy nukes there, that’s as far as it’ll go.
Germany, France, the UK, and even Ukraine are now scrambling to fill the void that they expect to soon be left by the US in the Baltic States. This is taking the form of Germany’s base in Lithuania to which it has expedited access due to early 2024’s “military Schengen” with Poland, France expanding its nuclear umbrella over NATO’s Eastern Flank, the UK merging the Arctic-Baltic fronts of the New Cold War while entrenching itself in Estonia, and Ukraine wanting to deploy troops to all three after the conflict ends.
For as appealing as all four forms of support might appear to the Baltic States, they’re not the robust security guarantees that they might think. Germany has a history of reaching deals with Russia at the expense of the Central & Eastern European countries so the Baltic States might once again be a pawn in their grander plans. As for France and the UK, they infamously abandoned Poland after the Nazi invasion, so they’re unlikely to risk World War III with Russia over today’s less significant Baltic States.
Ukraine would, but therein lies the problem, since the provocations that it might initiate in pursuit of that with the false expectation that Russia would agree to major unilateral concessions to avoid World War III would actually result in the full destruction of it and those three. Even if Germany, France, the UK, Ukraine, and the “Viking Bloc” all rushed to the Baltic States’ rescue in the fantasy of a Russian invasion, Russia’s air defense, submarine, and drone “kill zones” could destroy their reinforcements en route.
Provided that such a conflict doesn’t go nuclear, the only way to reliably reinforce the Baltic States would be across the “Suwałki Corridor/Gap”, thus necessitating transit across Poland and therefore forcing Warsaw to choose whether to cut them off to save itself or try to save them at significant cost to itself. The kingmaker status afforded by Poland’s geostrategic position in this scenario therefore makes it the Baltic States’ best security guarantor in NATO 3.0 and should lead to them privileging it over others.
Bilateral security guarantees between Poland and the Baltic States, with strings attached (even if they’re kept secret) for advancing its economic, political, and security interests after learning its lesson from giving Ukraine everything without them only to get backstabbed, is the best means to this end. From Russia’s perspective, it would obviously prefer the Baltic States’ demilitarization as a buffer zone with the rest of NATO, but Polish leadership over them is more preferable than Western European or Ukrainian.
From Poland’s perspective, becoming the Baltic States’ security guarantor in NATO 3.0 would prevent the Western European states (primarily Germany) and Ukraine from outflanking it while ensuring that Kiev doesn’t provoke a conflict with Russia that puts Poland in a difficult position. Poland would also benefit by becoming the bloc’s main force for interfacing with Russia after the Ukrainian Conflict ends, reaching a modus vivendi with it, and then jointly leading the construction of a new security architecture.
