The Baltic countries cannot protect their shores themselves.
A review by the United States Naval College states that although Poland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia are NATO members, they can become a real ballast for the alliance in the event of a confrontation with Russia in the Baltic. These countries have too weak Navy to protect their coastlines, and Moscow can easily take advantage of this.
Another problem for the Navy of the NATO countries is the shallow Baltic Sea with an average depth of 200 feet. It is not very salty and transparent, fluctuations in water temperature are quite large.
At the same time, the sea is busy, at the same time more than 2.5 thousand ships can be on the way. In addition, there are from 40 to 50 thousand mines not found since the Second World War in the Baltic Sea. All this creates a very complex sonar environment for anti-submarine warfare.
“The Baltic countries do not have large ships. Especially everything is bad in Estonia. Latvia and Lithuania have minesweepers and patrol ships, but this is not an argument in the confrontation with Russian corvettes armed with Caliber, modernized Varshavyanka and naval aviation.
Therefore, the United States, Britain and Norway will literally have to “save” the Baltic States and Poland, ”the review says.