The EU thread

[Duque de Bragança]

Poland not intervening (mobilisation only), as per the scenario, does not seem likely.

[Legbiter]

That reads more like a lack of faith by the designer/writer of the wargame scenario, or a simple canned pretext to make sure to rule out the Germans a factor in how it would play out.

In the exercise NATO did mount a defense but was surprised, splintered (US refuses to act, Berlin chickens out, German soldiers refuse to leave their base, etc). Result is russia takes Marijampolė in a few days.

[Tonitrus]

I did a little more digging...what that X post listed were the preconditions for the scenario that the actors had to work under.

So, they're fairly pessimistic (though not unrealistic) preconditions, and I'd be more curious on the details that follow out of the actual wargaming.

[grumbler]

Which exercise was this?  Run by whom? The linked description says that "Europe played out a scenario..." which is suspiciously vague terminology.  "Europe" does not play out scenarios.

[Legbiter]

I did a little more digging...what that X post listed were the preconditions for the scenario that the actors had to work under.

So, they're fairly pessimistic (though not unrealistic) preconditions, and I'd be more curious on the details that follow out of the actual wargaming.

Bit more context here. The guy who played the russian side chimes in as well.

https://x.com/shashj/status/2019329780102148152

The scenario was a bit more complex and nuanced than that. Remote mining only happened after hostilities had already begun. I was also trying to achievr military objectives with the minimum force available and I did my best to keep assembly areas hidden. And it was also not a huge force. I did ask a few times during the game when the NATO counter-attack was supposed to happen.

[Tonitrus]

Which exercise was this?  Run by whom? The linked description says that "Europe played out a scenario..." which is suspiciously vague terminology.  "Europe" does not play out scenarios.

Found a better article...

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/europe/russia-incursion-lithuania-nato-wargame-ukraine-b2915111.html

The wargame exercise was carried out in December jointly by German newspaper Die Welt and the German Wargaming Centre of the Helmut Schmidt University of the German Armed Forces.

[Tonitrus]

Since they were part of it...here is Die Welt's article:

https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article6984a7189d88d6e920be111f/ernstfall-podcast-wargame-exposes-gaps-in-germanys-response-to-a-hypothetical-russian-attack-on-lithuania.html

If you German, it seems there is also an accompanying podcast series.

[Tonitrus]

I may be too cynical, but with it involving a media parter, and given the scenario preconditions...it feels like it was biased towards generating the exact kind of media response/headlines that it is currently doing.

[Sheilbh]

FYI Sky News did an interesting wargame podcast ("The Wargame") with lots of former ministers like Ben Wallace from Defence, Jack Straw who was Foreign Secretary during Iraq, Amber Rudd who was Home Secretary plus former civil servants, military etc. Obviously a little hysterical (and very much pro-rearmament) but interesting. And as much about how we ended up here as a "wargame".

[mongers]

FYI Sky News did an interesting wargame podcast ("The Wargame") with lots of former ministers like Ben Wallace from Defence, Jack Straw who was Foreign Secretary during Iraq, Amber Rudd who was Home Secretary plus former civil servants, military etc. Obviously a little hysterical (and very much pro-rearmament) but interesting. And as much about how we ended up here as a "wargame".

So really a crisis management game?

[Legbiter]

I may be too cynical, but with it involving a media parter, and given the scenario preconditions...it feels like it was biased towards generating the exact kind of media response/headlines that it is currently doing.

I can see this scenario playing out. Without a cigar-chomping American general in the room to act as an emotional support teddy bear and reassuring them every 30 seconds or so that they're actually the good guys, the Germans will fold like a cheap paper napkin in case of russian invasion of the Baltics.

The German upper echelons of society are very deeply penetrated by russia. Do not say anything to a German politician or official you would not say to the Kremlin. That leads to the second issue, AfD's (which is polling...25+) actual policies are mostly loathsome pensioner slopulism, their secret sauce is just saying out loud that Germany needs to get rid of it's Islamoid migrants (thus improving quality of life circa 9000% for everyone else). Also, the German military performed absolutely atrociously in Afghanistan. When MAGAS whine about "they stayed a little back" they are inadvertently talking about the German ISAF contingent. I'm extremely skeptical about any post-US European security architecture that has Germany as one of it's pillars in an actual direct warfighting role. They really should not even have national elections, they should be run by a French bureaucrat on a national level. If they had nuclear weapons they'd nuke the rest of the world in order to meet their climate targets.   


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[grumbler]

A "wargame" that tells us that, if none of Germany, Poland, and the US try to stop them, Lithuania could be conquered by a Russian surprise attack. I think that we already knew that.

[Legbiter]

The Balts were very upset with the wargame.   

German wargame simulating Baltic attack dismissed as 'insulting' and 'nonsense'

A German exercise simulating a Russian incursion into the Baltic states that found Moscow could destroy NATO's credibility and "establish domination over the Baltics" in a "couple of days" has been dismissed as "frankly insulting" by the Estonian ambassador to the United Kingdom.

The exercise was organized in December by Germany's Die Welt newspaper with the German Wargaming Center of the Helmut-Schmidt University of the German Armed Forces, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Sixteen former senior German and NATO officials, lawmakers and prominent security experts role-played a scenario set in October 2026.

The game's results showed that with "absent American leadership, Russia managed within a couple of days to destroy the credibility of NATO and establish domination over the Baltics, by deploying an initial force of only some 15,000 troops."

The scenario imagined that Russia used the pretext of a humanitarian crisis in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad to seize the Lithuanian city of Marijampole.

https://news.err.ee/1609935392/german-wargame-simulating-baltic-attack-dismissed-as-insulting-and-nonsense









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[Jacob]

Estonian intelligence reporting is not optimistic on Russia. Apparently they're managing to build up significant capacity for "the next war" while continuing to fight in Ukraine. They're also in the process of integrating drones at scale.

https://balticsentinel.eu/8412992/estonian-foreign-intelligence-russia-is-building-a-large-drone-force-and-replenishing-ammunition-stockpiles-for-another-war-while-fighting-in-ukraine

[Crazy_Ivan80]

And in the meantime the eu is greenifying by deindustrialisation. Green fools