The Only Way to Beat Russia in a War Over the Baltics

Robert Beckhusen

Security, Europe

Simple: Study history. More like recent history 

It was more than eight years ago when a tank force from the Georgian army’s 42nd Mechanized Infantry Battalion fought its way overnight through Tskhinvali, South Ossetia.

The tanks were in trouble. They were moving too fast, outrunning their infantry support and taking losses to South Ossetian irregulars scattered throughout the city. Only hours into a war which would last five days, they had to keep moving before Russian reinforcements could arrive to bolster the pro-Russian, breakway Georgian province.

Later in the day, the tanks arrived at a crossroads near the command center of a local detachment of Russian peacekeepers. And that’s when the full force of the Russian 19th Motor Rifle Division—rushed to reinforce Tskhinvali—slammed into the battalion.

The Russians quickly destroyed four of the Georgian tanks—not with tanks of their own, but with anti-tank guided missiles launched from lighter armored vehicles. Demoralized, the surviving Georgian armor retreated.

Fast forward to today, and the armed forces of the Baltic states are studying what happened during that battle, in the event they might one day find themselves in the same situation as Georgia. Namely, as small states with small armies colliding with a much bigger and much more heavily-armored one. And what they’re learning is that they need lots of anti-tank missiles.

“The Baltic States have integrated the lessons of the battle of Tskhinvali,” writes Frederic Labarre in a near-comprehensive history of the battle for Small Wars Journal. Labarre, a military analyst and former adviser to the Estonian Ministry of Defense, heavily based his account on interviews with Georgian commanders who fought in the war.

The past few years has seen the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania buying up large amounts of anti-tank weapons and ammunition.

Earlier in October 2014, the U.S. approved the sale of $55 million worth of Javelin anti-tank missiles to Estonia. The sale includes a rather large number of 120 launchers and 250 missiles, including batteries and repair parts.