Hybrid warfare and NATO cohesion

Source: WSJ.

In December, Die Welt newspaper and the German Wargaming Center of the Helmut-Schmidt University of the German Armed Forces held a wargame examining the hypothetical Russian seizure of the Lithuanian city of Marijampole. The exercise involved 16 former senior German and NATO officials, lawmakers and security experts.

According to the Wall Street Journal (paywalled):

In the exercise, Russia used the pretext of a humanitarian crisis in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad to seize the Lithuanian city of Marijampole, a key crossroads in the narrow gap between Russia and Belarus. Russian portrayals of the invasion as a humanitarian mission were sufficient for the U.S. to decline invoking NATO’s Article 5 that calls for allied assistance. Germany proved indecisive, and Poland, while mobilizing, didn’t send troops across the border into Lithuania. The German brigade already deployed to Lithuania failed to intervene, in part because Russia used drones to lay mines on roads leading out of its base.

…

In the wargame, absent American leadership, Russia managed within a couple of days to destroy the credibility of NATO and establish domination over the Baltics, by deploying an initial force of only some 15,000 troops.

“The Russians achieved most of their goals without moving many of their own units,” said Bartłomiej Kot, a Polish security analyst who played the Polish prime minister in the exercise. “What this showed to me is that once we are confronted by the escalatory narrative from the Russian side, we have it embedded in our thinking that we are the ones who should be de-escalating.”

A podcast account of the wargame can be found here (in German).

UPDATE: The Lithuanians have since pushed back firmly against any idea they wouldn’t vigorously defend their territory:

I know the rule when it comes to the war games- Don’t fight the scenario. But to assume a total blindness of NATO military, indecisiveness of allied countries and above all that in this case LT will not fight it makes me wonder about the motives of this game and the “conclusions” https://t.co/Yl41bXo739

— Amb. Māris Riekstiņš (@Riekstins__M) February 6, 2026