General Discussion

They are small countries who basically border just Russia, each other or the Baltic Sea, where Putin has an immense naval base and is brimming with weapons. Their topography can best be described as "flat as a pancake, come roll over us." Putin is not so weak that he couldn't invade and occupy any or all of them within 24-36 hours. He could block our naval forces from Kaliningrad, and keep us out for the few hours he'd need to make the occupation a "done deal, whatcha-gonna-do-about-it?" He'd hope we'd do another Sudetenland, 1938 pivot, and say, ahh, so what, that "faraway land," and write them off. He'd probably leave Poland alone, but take back Bulgaria and Hungary. Romania is the basket case it always was, and we probably couldn't pay him to take them back. Bulgaria is a mess, too, but it is too strategically located to ignore.

But if Putin wants to re-take Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, it would cost him more in PR than it would in men or matériel. I think it's only the resolve of France and Great Britain that is giving him pause. He certainly isn't worried about the USA or Germany. When the Soviet Union fell, and it turned out that much of the German anti-NATO "peace" movement had been organized and financed by the Soviet Union, the only ones who were "surprised" were the members of said movement, and I'd bet that it was only the rank and file who DIDN'T get any Soviet money who were the true believers. He could use a version of his current line on the Ukrainian invasion: protecting the downtrodden Russians who live in great numbers in those countries. Lithuania in particular is ripe for the taking because there is only a narrow 60km wide Lithuanian corridor between the Russian mainland and their Königsberg (Kaliningrad) enclave, which Putin has built up into sort of an immense arsenal with some residential areas.