I always look for new signals before I update of confirm my forecast, but in this case, I do not expect any new significant signals for months and likely years.
However, it may be very useful to create a list of indicators to watch. Lets start with macro factors before we may want to try creating the list of indicators on the smaller, more detailed scale (like Russian propaganda and rhetoric, efforts to destabilize Baltic States, troops build up etc). The key enabler for this to happen IMO would be some form of military collapse of Ukraine. Can something like that happen before April 2027? Unfortunately, I think it is something we shouldn't dismiss as a possibility. Ukraine has lost the core of their experience soldiers, and there are reports coming from the Ukrainian side that those soldiers who are now on the front lines are often poorly trained.
There are also other risk factors. I am not an expert on Systems Theory, but I see this conflict as a complex system in which a relatively slow rate of change is the result of either it not being far from equilibrium or the state where at least forces match each other. There are also forces working on both sides that prevent this situation from radical change (like the West mobilizing themselves to send more support quicker when the situation worsens for Ukraine). At the same time, this all depends on the lack of critical failures of these forces to balance the situation. If, for example, there is a critically low level of artillery ammunition and maybe so, that might start a cascading effect and produce a non-linear rate of change. Think about something like the fall of Afghanistan. I do not think this is likely in Ukraine, but we should not underestimate the complexity of this system. And complexity limits its predictability.
Even if by 2027 Russia is very successful in war with Ukraine, I still don't think they would go for confrontation with NATO unless there are some special circumstances limiting NATO effectiveness and especially the power and/or decisiveness of the US. What comes to my mind is some huge political crisis in the US or maybe the crisis caused by the Chinese invasion of Taiwan. This is of course very speculative, but coordinating moves between Russia and China in case of their decision to take Taiwan (with Russia, for example, invading Suwałki Gap) doesn't sound impossible to me.
I have also applied my ACTA Framework to analyze this question. I see source of resolution ambiguity in the term "significant deployment of Russian military forces". It might be worth reversing this and asking ourselves what deployment of Russian forces to Baltic states would we call insignificant? Since the fact alone has that big significance, I don't think there is force small enough to call it insignificant in case of cross boarder deployment.
"The Russian forces must engage in offensive actions against the country's military, including armed clashes, bombardment of targets, or attempts to seize and hold territory within the country."
Red teaming this with possible scenarios, I think positive resolution may be triggered by hybrid operations with sabotage mission of little green men or military intelligence operatives, or for example some drone attack on the Gas Interconnection Poland–Lithuania (GIPL) pipeline.
I don't think some form of hybrid attack is that unimaginable given the situation, we have on the boarder between Poland and Belarus where Polish soldiers and boarder guards are constantly attacked by migrants with stones, slingshots (these slingshots are particularly powerful because they are stretched between trees, allowing them to launch metal balls with significant force), knives (one Polish soldier died in June from a knife attack by migrants and two boarder guards were wounded), tree branches with nails, stun guns...
@michal_dubrawski I spoke with the question development team, and generally, we’re looking for a “significant” deployment of Russian forces in the sense that it’s a large and overt deployment of troops, rather than "significant" in the sense that it’s meaningful. An exact number for “large” is hard to define (e.g., if we said 20,000 was the threshold, would a deployment of 19,999 troops not count an invasion?), but something like a sabotage mission or covert operation we wouldn’t consider large enough for an invasion. Hybrid/grey zone attacks would likely be a prelude to or pretext for invasion, but we wouldn’t consider something like the border conflicts in Poland or bombing the GIPL pipeline to be an invasion.
Why do you think you're right?
I always look for new signals before I update of confirm my forecast, but in this case, I do not expect any new significant signals for months and likely years.
However, it may be very useful to create a list of indicators to watch. Lets start with macro factors before we may want to try creating the list of indicators on the smaller, more detailed scale (like Russian propaganda and rhetoric, efforts to destabilize Baltic States, troops build up etc). The key enabler for this to happen IMO would be some form of military collapse of Ukraine. Can something like that happen before April 2027? Unfortunately, I think it is something we shouldn't dismiss as a possibility. Ukraine has lost the core of their experience soldiers, and there are reports coming from the Ukrainian side that those soldiers who are now on the front lines are often poorly trained.
There are also other risk factors. I am not an expert on Systems Theory, but I see this conflict as a complex system in which a relatively slow rate of change is the result of either it not being far from equilibrium or the state where at least forces match each other. There are also forces working on both sides that prevent this situation from radical change (like the West mobilizing themselves to send more support quicker when the situation worsens for Ukraine). At the same time, this all depends on the lack of critical failures of these forces to balance the situation. If, for example, there is a critically low level of artillery ammunition and maybe so, that might start a cascading effect and produce a non-linear rate of change. Think about something like the fall of Afghanistan. I do not think this is likely in Ukraine, but we should not underestimate the complexity of this system. And complexity limits its predictability.
Even if by 2027 Russia is very successful in war with Ukraine, I still don't think they would go for confrontation with NATO unless there are some special circumstances limiting NATO effectiveness and especially the power and/or decisiveness of the US. What comes to my mind is some huge political crisis in the US or maybe the crisis caused by the Chinese invasion of Taiwan. This is of course very speculative, but coordinating moves between Russia and China in case of their decision to take Taiwan (with Russia, for example, invading Suwałki Gap) doesn't sound impossible to me.
I have also applied my ACTA Framework to analyze this question. I see source of resolution ambiguity in the term "significant deployment of Russian military forces". It might be worth reversing this and asking ourselves what deployment of Russian forces to Baltic states would we call insignificant? Since the fact alone has that big significance, I don't think there is force small enough to call it insignificant in case of cross boarder deployment.
"The Russian forces must engage in offensive actions against the country's military, including armed clashes, bombardment of targets, or attempts to seize and hold territory within the country."
Red teaming this with possible scenarios, I think positive resolution may be triggered by hybrid operations with sabotage mission of little green men or military intelligence operatives, or for example some drone attack on the Gas Interconnection Poland–Lithuania (GIPL) pipeline.
I don't think some form of hybrid attack is that unimaginable given the situation, we have on the boarder between Poland and Belarus where Polish soldiers and boarder guards are constantly attacked by migrants with stones, slingshots (these slingshots are particularly powerful because they are stretched between trees, allowing them to launch metal balls with significant force), knives (one Polish soldier died in June from a knife attack by migrants and two boarder guards were wounded), tree branches with nails, stun guns...
I also found this article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0030438723000224 Full text could be accessed via ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/371948393_The_Baltic_predicament_in_the_shadow_of_Russia's_war_in_Ukraine
German tabloid Bild also discussed supposedly leaked document said to be produced by the German Ministry of Defense related to NATO exercise confronting the Russian invasion of Baltics States and Suwałki Gap in particular: https://x.com/EHunterChristie/status/1746698331395403987?lang=en
https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/leaked-german-defense-document-sketches-out-russian-war-scenario/
I don't trust tabloids, but it might be true.
Why might you be wrong?
@michal_dubrawski I spoke with the question development team, and generally, we’re looking for a “significant” deployment of Russian forces in the sense that it’s a large and overt deployment of troops, rather than "significant" in the sense that it’s meaningful. An exact number for “large” is hard to define (e.g., if we said 20,000 was the threshold, would a deployment of 19,999 troops not count an invasion?), but something like a sabotage mission or covert operation we wouldn’t consider large enough for an invasion. Hybrid/grey zone attacks would likely be a prelude to or pretext for invasion, but we wouldn’t consider something like the border conflicts in Poland or bombing the GIPL pipeline to be an invasion.