Dave Majumdar
Since 2014, the NATO alliance has made numerous posture changes on its eastern flank to deter Russia. Essentially, the alliance’s goal is to change Russian behavior, but how does one measure such policy modifications in Moscow? The RAND Corporation recently released a new report that attempts to build an analytical framework to do just that.
“Despite its overall military advantages, NATO faces an imbalance in conventional capabilities in regions bordering Russia, such as the Baltics,” reads the report.
“To address this local imbalance, analysts and policymakers have designed proposals to increase the apparent costs and reduce the probability of success of any attack on a NATO member that Russia might contemplate.”
The goal is to change Russian behavior in a way that is favorable to the alliance—thus NATO has to be careful not to provoke the wrong response. As such, knowing how far to push Moscow is of paramount importance to NATO
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/nato-vs-russia-why-europes-greatest-risk-war-the-baltics-22787
