🇷🇺 The Russian military could conduct air, missile, or drone strikes or a limited ground incursion against one or more Baltic states to test and seek to break NATO’s resolve to invoke Article 5 and respond effectively on its basis.A limited Russian attack would aim to create a situation in which NATO is unable to agree how, or if at all, to respond to a Russian attack. Any near-term Russian conventional attack would be tailored to maximize the possibility that NATO states would fail to unify and provide military assistance as an alliance to an attacked member state.
A scenario in which NATO does not unanimously vote to honor an invocation of the Article 5 mutual defense clause, or in which a state under Russian attack declines to invoke Article 5 at all out of concern that it would not receive unified support, would significantly damage NATO’s credibility and unity — an outcome that would achieve a longstanding Russian objective and immensely expand Putin’s space to maneuver and plan future attacks against a divided alliance.
https://understandingwar.org/research/defense-of-europe/the-russian-military-campaign-against-europe-defining-the-threat/
