Former CIA Chief of Station Sean Wiswesser says NATO’s deterrence is too weak and warns that the Baltic states could be Russia’s next target. “I believe the Baltics are next, unfortunately,” he tells Kyiv Post special correspondent Jason Jay Smart. He points to the Suwalki Gap as one place where Moscow could attempt a limited move that forces NATO to decide whether Article 5 will actually be enforced, without first launching another full-scale invasion.
Wiswesser says the danger is growing because Russia is already testing the West while rebuilding its military faster than many analysts expected. Moscow still regards the United States as its main adversary, while sabotage, cyberattacks, drone incidents and covert operations are already reaching European countries. The next challenge to NATO could be intentionally limited and difficult to classify, giving governments less time to agree on what happened and how far they are prepared to go in response.
That is why Wiswesser keeps coming back to deterrence. “Real deterrence is, unfortunately, risking war to prevent war,” he says. He calls for long-range weapons for Ukraine, including German Taurus missiles and F-16 ERAMs, greater pressure on Russia’s oil and gas sector, and the seizure of frozen Russian state assets in Europe. Warnings matter only if Moscow believes ignoring them will incur a concrete cost. Wiswesser’s bestselling book, Tradecraft, Tactics, and Dirty Tricks: Russian Intelligence and Putin’s Secret War, is currently available for purchase on Amazon