How can Western analysts forecast what Russian president Vladimir Putin intends to do with the Baltic states?
Since the early 2000s, Russia has increasingly acted and been perceived as an aggressive and revisionist force on the global stage. The Kremlin’s military intervention in Georgia in 2008, the annexation of Crimea in 2014, and the invasion of Ukraine have all raised serious concerns about where Moscow’s ambitions might extend next. Among the most frequently mentioned potential targets are the Baltic states—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Once forcibly annexed by the Soviet Union, these countries reasserted their independence and quickly integrated into the Western security, economic, and political order, joining both NATO and the European Union in 2004.
Yet their geographic proximity and historical ties to Russia make them especially vulnerable—not only to conventional military threats, but also to the more insidious tactics of information warfare. The Kremlin has consistently challenged the historical narratives surrounding Baltic sovereignty and sought to exploit internal divisions, effectively keeping the question of their legitimacy alive in Russian discourse.
While these tactics fall short of direct military aggression, they reflect a broader strategy rooted in destabilization and coercion rather than diplomacy. For policymakers in the region and beyond, the key question is not whether Russia will act—but how. What old and new tools might Putin employ, and how can the Baltic states and their Western allies respond to them?
To address these questions, we employ strategic imagination—a forecasting method that we utilize in our analysis and teaching, which extends beyond traditional risk assessments by creatively anticipating plausible scenarios, including those that may seem unlikely from a conventional standpoint. Drawing on expertise in political science, history, and political psychology, we integrate historical analogies, behavioral models, and psychological profiling to shed deeper light on the unique risks confronting Estonia and its Baltic neighbors in the shadow of Moscow.
Three Lenses for Russian Strategic Forecasting
To predict what Putin—or other authoritarian leaders—might do next, experts often rely on three main approaches, depending on their training and views: examining historical cases for patterns, treating leaders as rational decision-makers, or analyzing their psychological motivations. Each method offers a different way to understand how these rulers think and act, especially since their governments tend to be secretive and tightly controlled.
Historical analogy draws parallels between past and present leaders, conflicts, or strategic choices. Today, it can reveal enduring patterns, such as Russia’s persistent drive to expand its influence or its strategic fixation on lost imperial stature, no matter the cost. Yet historical analogies can mislead as easily as they enlighten: the geopolitical arena of the 2020s is a far cry from that of the 1940s and other periods.
The cost-benefit approach views leaders as rational and strategic actors—deliberate decision-makers who weigh potential risks against anticipated gains to achieve their objectives. However, the limitation of this approach lies in its assumptions: we often lack access to the full range of information that leaders themselves use. As a result, the model misjudges opaque or authoritarian systems where decisions are made behind closed doors.
To complement these two approaches, psychological profiling focuses on the internal and subjective dimensions of leadership—factors often overlooked in strategic models. These include emotional drivers, cognitive biases, deeply held beliefs, or personal quirks. In this psychological landscape, decisions may be shaped not only by rational calculation but also by personal stubbornness, fear of decline, or a deep-seated need to maintain control.
Rather than privileging one framework, we advocate for a synthesis that considers the known and the unknown, the rational and the emotional, and the historical and the emergent. This approach enables policymakers to prepare not only for likely scenarios but also for disruptive ones that may catch conventional analysts off guard.
Historical Analogies and the Baltic Precedent
History often shapes the future in familiar patterns. After Tsar Peter I conquered present-day Estonia and Latvia during the Great Northern War (1700–1721), these territories were absorbed into the Russian Empire, but the center allowed a degree of autonomy under the so-called Baltic Special Order—a system that preserved the privileges of the Baltic German nobility, maintained Lutheranism as the dominant religion, and upheld German as the language of administration. Lithuania entered the empire later, in 1795, as part of the Third Partition of Poland.
This imperial legacy is essential to understanding Russia’s contemporary rhetoric and behavior. The Baltic states declared independence in 1918 following the collapse of the Russian Empire, a sovereignty later recognized by Soviet Russia. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 led to the Soviet annexation of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in 1940. Although independence was again restored and recognized in 1991, Moscow’s relationship with the region has remained fraught.
In a widely publicized 2020 article in The National Interest, President Vladimir Putin asserted that the Baltic states’ incorporation into the USSR was both legal and voluntary—a narrative sharply at odds with the scholarly consensus, and may suggest a potential intellectual template for justifying future claims. While the Russian Federation has not formally disputed Baltic sovereignty, its persistent framing of history implies that it does not consider the Baltic states as sovereign equals, but as wayward provinces lost to the West.
These analogies are more than academic: they offer a glimpse into how Moscow might rationalize future actions under the guise of historical continuity, legal reinterpretation, or “restorative justice.” Drawing on this historical context, the contemporary strategies of Putin’s administration reflect similar expansionist tendencies. In particular, the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 suggest that Putin may still view the Baltic states as part of Russia’s sphere of influence, which should return to it.
Vladimir Putin’s Strategic Mindset
To understand Putin’s behavior today, we must begin with the past. Putin’s worldview is anchored in the Cold War. During his formative years in the 1960s and 70s, he was deeply influenced by the inflexible, zero-sum thinking characteristic of Marxist-Leninist political doctrine, which framed global affairs as a clash between socialism and capitalism, virtue and vice, the Soviet bloc and the West. Consequently, Putin views the West as decadent, duplicitous, and corrosive to Russia’s social cohesion. In his worldview, chaos demands control, and pluralism must be answered with power.
The West’s triumphalism coincided with Russia’s internal collapse in the 1990s. The Baltic states’ swift pivot to liberal democracy and full integration into NATO and the EU was perceived by many in Russia not merely as a political divergence but as a betrayal and humiliation. Baltic societies’ adherence to liberal democracy—open, pluralistic, efficient—offends the Kremlin’s ideology and unsettles its sense of order. This was not idle frustration. It marked the beginning of an ideological doctrine—one that regards liberalism as a threat to Russia’s security.
These Cold War instincts—mistrust, secrecy, ideological confrontation—still shape how Putin perceives the world. Although some initially viewed Putin as a pragmatic modernizer, his actions were driven more by grievance than vision—a tendency laid bare in his infamous 2007 Munich address. In a 2025 interview, Putin revealed that he wrote the speech himself, on the plane, propelled by an emotional impulse. At the time, many observers dismissed his remarks as mere posturing, assuming he simply wanted to appear tough. In retrospect, the speech now reads more like a declaration of intent than a moment of rhetorical bravado.
When we approach Putin as a rational political actor, we must assume he understands the enormous costs of initiating any military action against the Baltic states. Hypothetically, should he consider such aggression, it would demand extensive financial resources, major military mobilization, and the political risk of a direct confrontation with NATO by invoking Article 5 of its founding Treaty.
Moreover, its strategic position on the Gulf of Finland, just across from St. Petersburg, makes it a high-risk, high-consequence target—one that Putin would likely think twice about engaging militarily. In rational terms, a conventional attack on the Baltics could provoke a swift and devastating NATO response, potentially undermining Russia’s own security and stability.
Vladimir Putin’s Pet Peeves
Leaders are often expected to be stubborn, which can be their greatest asset. However, rigidity can also be a liability. Putin’s ideological rigidity is reinforced by psychological traits that have hardened over time. As a trained intelligence officer, he learned to view politics not as a dialogue but as a battlefield. Deception, manipulation, and disruption were not ancillary tools; they were the essence of strategy. His managerial reflexes were further tempered in his forties as he worked for the mayor of St. Petersburg amid the turbulent 1990s—a decade defined by rampant crime, corruption, and assassinations. There, he assumed the role of a godfather, brokering peace between rival clans.
His rise to the pinnacle of power was astonishingly swift: when he was appointed president, he had never once held elective office. Over the next quarter-century, he grew ever more insulated from criticism and cocooned by loyalists. Insiders claim that he is becoming increasingly self-centered, focused on his legacy, and disenchanted with the day-to-day responsibilities of running the government.
Crucially, Putin’s ideological brand is not a throwback to Soviet communism, but rather a fusion of imperial nostalgia, social conservatism, and national pride. Regressive tendencies like homophobia, misogyny, antisemitism, and conspiracy theorizing have become more pronounced in the post-Soviet era. Instead of embracing Western modernity, the Putin regime has rebranded these tendencies as “traditional values” and weaponized them in both domestic and foreign policy.
Though rarely emphasized, Putin’s age is a relevant factor in assessing risk. Aging autocrats often grow more rigid, less open to dissent, and increasingly reliant on old habits and ideological convictions. For someone shaped by Soviet-era dogma, this rigidity may intensify his resistance to compromise and preference for confrontational strategies.
This mindset occasionally surfaces in public statements referring to various doomsday scenarios, and statements like, “We will go to heaven as martyrs, while they [the United States] will simply croak, because they won’t even have time to repent,” made in 2018 during an international meeting. Such thinking, if left unchecked, overrides traditional cost-benefit analysis and leads to catastrophic decisions rooted in emotion rather than strategy. The risk of miscalculation remains real, especially if paranoia, a concern for legacy, or a warped sense of historical destiny drives the decisionmaking process.
The Role of Estonia in Vladimir Putin’s Mind
These insights illuminate Russia’s strategic posture toward the Baltic states, which it regards as a “vulnerable part of the West” ripe for manipulation through sustained psychological operations—what we term “global knowledge warfare” (GKW), the deliberate use and management of information to secure a competitive advantage over foreign adversaries. Estonia’s transparent institutions, efficient e-governance, and NATO membership symbolize everything Putin’s Russia is not (and cannot be) under his rule. By undermining a successful counter-model on his doorstep, Putin seeks to reinforce the legitimacy of his own authoritarian rule.
Destabilization—not domination—is the keyword in understanding Russia’s anti-Western grand strategy. Lacking an appealing ideology to rival Western liberal democracy, Moscow instead seeks to undermine the legitimacy and stability of its neighbors through psychological warfare, disinformation, and provocation. Estonia, fully integrated into NATO and the EU since 2004, has found itself on the front lines of this campaign.
From cyberattacks to orchestrated controversies—such as the 2007 Bronze Soldier riots—Russia has consistently tested Estonia’s societal cohesion and political resolve. These efforts are not isolated incidents but part of a broader revisionist strategy to preserve Russian influence in the post-Soviet space. A particularly sensitive flashpoint is the unresolved border agreement between Estonia and Russia—an early warning of Russia’s intent to deepen its status conflict with the West.
Since the end of the Cold War, Russia has fostered territorial and ethnic disputes in former Soviet regions (frozen conflicts)—Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Transnistria, Crimea, and the Donbass—hindering peaceful resolution, stoking tensions, and enabling ongoing interference to sustain its sway. In sum, this policy amounts to maintaining influence through destabilization. Had Estonia applied strategic imagination in 2005, it might have anticipated Russia’s true objectives and reduced Moscow’s ability to turn Estonian public opinion against the border agreement.