"Working with these units in Trojan Footprint, U.S. special operations forces simulated an operation to “clear the way” for a counteroffensive by NATO’s conventional military forces to liberate the Baltics from an invasion.

“I put a lot of stock in the deterrent effect of us being here,” Ferguson said. “Our constant presence in the Baltics sends a clear signal that we’re going to take any sort of shenanigans seriously. I think that’s an important message to send.”

The Special Forces commander paused, narrowed his eyes a touch, and added: “Going to war with America is no joke.”

A conventional NATO counteroffensive to liberate the Baltics from a land invasion could take weeks to mobilize and deploy, U.S. officials said. Thus, the U.S. special operations forces taking part in Trojan Footprint trained to be self-sufficient.

“The point of the exercise is to rapidly deploy special operations forces into Poland and the Baltics on short notice—and quietly,” Weisman said.

“My dad defended the Fulda Gap, and now it’s the Suwalki Gap,” the special operations air task unit commander said.

Many military experts say the Suwalki Gap is the most likely target for a Russian invasion of the Baltics—a move that would effectively seal off the Baltics from any overland reinforcements by NATO forces staged elsewhere in the region.

“The Russian side is trying to destroy our society,” Lt. Gen. Leonids Kalnins, Latvia’s chief of defense, told The Daily Signal in an interview. “The responsibility of defending the nation falls to every citizen.”

“These nations don’t have the ability to oppose a significant incursion … their national defense plans are built on resistance,” said Ferguson, the U.S. Army Special Forces commander. “We’re trying to ensure that they have a legitimate resistance capability.”

“Nobody is afraid of Russia in Latvia, but we’re concerned about something unpolite from Russia,” Kalnins said. “They have many military units near our borders … all the scenarios in Russia’s exercises are oriented to attack, not to defend.”

In neighboring Lithuania, conscription has been reinstated. The government also recently issued a guerrilla warfare manual for the country’s 3 million citizens.

With about 8,000 troops in its ranks, Latvia’s National Guard is the largest component of the country’s armed forces, and forms the crux of its “comprehensive defense” strategy to resist a Russian invasion.

“The National Guard plays a very big role—it’s the main power to defend our country,” Kalnins, Latvia’s defense chief, said. “Our society has to be ready to defend our country, our citizens have to be ready to defend our country.”

The Latvian Ministry of Defense has plans for six new National Guard battalion bases by 2021. Yet, Latvia’s “comprehensive defense” plan is not just steeling its National Guard and regular army for war—Latvian society as a whole is being hardened to the task.

Latvia recently implemented new security laws to make it easier to carry out a general mobilization of all citizens in the event of an invasion, as well as to bolster “social resiliency”—an effort to prepare civilians to endure the hardships of a resistance war.

A recent poll in Latvia indicated that about a third of respondents were willing to take part in a resistance war should Russia invade. One-third said they would do nothing, and the remainder said they would leave the country.

“The civilian and governmental structures must train together,” Kalnins told The Daily Signal. “No matter how old you are, you are responsible for defending the country. Nobody has to wait for a special order, everyone is responsible in any attack.” [Bad idea. When everyone is responsible no one is responsible]

U.S. special operations forces do, however, possess a generation of experience fighting against the very kind of endemic resistance campaigns they are training to wage behind the front lines of a Russian invasion force.

The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria have been a 17-year education in combating an enemy that “hides among the population,” Ferguson said.

“I want to understand the Russian mindset,” Ferguson said, “I want to understand their way of thinking.”

Part of that education comes from literature. Part of it comes from interacting with troops from America’s contemporary NATO allies who used to be a part of the Soviet Union’s armed forces.

“We learn a lot about how [the Russians] think from those guys,” Ferguson said."

Through Trojan Footprint, the U.S. and its NATO partners advertised to Moscow that an incursion into sovereign NATO territory would immediately spur a resistance war in the lead-up to a conventional counteroffensive.

Some NATO brass say that sends a clear message to the Kremlin to not mistake the relative paucity of NATO conventional forces in the Baltic region with the assumption that an invasion would be a cakewalk, or that NATO is unprepared to strike back immediately, and lethally.

“If we show the high willingness of Latvian society to be ready to respond to any aggression, it’s the very best of our military tools to show real deterrence against Russia,” Kalnins said. “I absolutely believe that nobody would like to attack a country when all of society is mobilized to its defense.”

“It would be high-risk operation by Russia,” Kalnins added.

“The main aim of Russian hybrid warfare is to divide our society,” Kalnins, Latvia’s chief of defense, told The Daily Signal. “They’re using this tool to separate us.”

Ferguson noted that U.S. forces are accustomed to being able to call in airstrikes or artillery in a pinch. But, behind the front lines of a Russian invasion force in the Baltics, U.S. forces “cannot rely on air power to break contact.”

In short, U.S. special operators are training to be on the weak side of the fight, with the possibility of being cut off from communicating with their commanders. For that reason, the decision-making autonomy of U.S. special operations units is a priority.

“They’ve got to be able to operate with minimal guidance,” Ferguson said. “They need to know the game plan if we’re unable to communicate … I may not hear from them for a long time.”

Also anticipating the Russian electronic warfare threat, the CV-22 pilots trained to operate with degraded communication and navigation equipment.

“We’re training to operate without [communications] or GPS,” the special operations air task unit commander said. “We assume we’ll have degraded systems operating.”

To anticipate what a war against Russia would look like, U.S. commanders are studying Russia’s military campaigns in Ukraine and Syria.

“It’s a great primer for us to see how Russia is fighting in Ukraine,” Ferguson said. “We have an ongoing learning laboratory by watching Russia in Ukraine and Syria.”

Based on those lessons, Ferguson downplayed the mystique sometimes ascribed to Russian “hybrid warfare.”

“We’ve got a good picture of how they’re going to fight,” Ferguson said. “It’s a standard application of force from the USSR, with modern technology.”

Asked to describe what a war in the Baltics would look like, Ferguson replied: “High-intensity combat with significant casualties.”

One key lesson from Ukraine and Syria is that Russia has an advanced electronic warfare capability, which could inflict a communications blackout on U.S forces. Additionally, Russia is able to target its weapons systems on electromagnetic emissions.

“The U.S. reliance on robust communication infrastructure and GPS navigation means that a sudden interruption of this capability, even for a short duration, can be disastrous to an operation,” the report said.

U.S. troops have other habits to kick after a generation of counterinsurgency operations, the report said. With Russia, they’ll need to camouflage their electromagnetic emissions in ways they never had to worry about in counterinsurgency campaigns.

“We have to find creative ways to communicate,” Ferguson said, adding: “We won World War II with crappy radios and without cellphones.”"

https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/06/08/if-russia-invades-us-special-operations-forces-have-an-unconventional-plan-to-liberate-the-baltics/