| Frankel ‘17 (Michael Frankel is a leading expert on the effects of nuclear weapons, senior researcher at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, was associate director for advanced energetics and nuclear weapons in the Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Science and Technology), chief scientist of the Defense Nuclear Agency’s Nuclear Phenomenology Division, research physicist at the Naval Surface Weapons Center, et al., 2017, “Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons at an Inflection Point,” https://www.jhuapl.edu/Content/documents/NonstrategicNuclearWeapons.pdf)(Shiv)
Enhance conventional offensive and defensive capabilities: NATO’s conventional superiority is widely presumed. But that is an overly generalized assessment. At the point of potential conflict in the Baltics, for example, Russia could likely bring overbearing force to the battle before NATO could marshal an effective resistance. It is worth recalling that Operation Desert Storm, which demonstrated the overwhelming superiority of US conventional arms, required more than five months to deploy troops and equipment in theater. Recent war gaming simulations in the Baltics suggest that forward-deployed Russian troops could launch a conventional attack, perhaps under the guise of an exercise, and occupy a Baltic country within a matter of days.65 NATO has taken some initial steps to address this deficiency by deploying a multinational battalion to each of the Baltic countries and Poland in a rotational cycle. This action is intended primarily to demonstrate NATO cohesion and resolve but is likely to provide only marginal military utility.66 More recent war games suggest that a larger brigade-size military presence may be needed to provide a significant impediment to an invasion and to buy at least some time for reinforcement.67 In any event, there is general acknowledgment that steps must be taken to bring NATO’s conventional superiority to bear earlier in the military calculus of both sides.
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