A large-scale attack on the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania is the most likely scenario if Russia makes a move against NATO, a think tank warns in a new report. The Center for Strategic and International Studies’ study comes as the Kremlin expresses increasing fury at U.S. and Western efforts to arm Ukraine.

The report, “Is NATO Ready for War?” is an assessment of the alliance’s efforts to strengthen defense and deterrence since a NATO summit in Madrid in June 2022.

Since Madrid, NATO has made “substantial progress” on defense spending and collective defense exercises, along with fully integrating new members Finland and Sweden into the alliance. But, the analysts say, that may not be enough to deter Russia.

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“While NATO might be ready for war, the question remains whether it is ready to fight — and thereby deter — and protracted war,” according to the CSIS report that was released Tuesday. “To meet this goal, allies still need to spend more, boost industrial capacity, address critical capability gaps and bolster national resilience.”

In less than a month, NATO leaders will gather in Washington for the alliance’s 75th anniversary summit. In the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, some questioned whether the alliance even had a role in a post-Cold War world. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine changed all that.

NATO has once again put deterrence on the European continent at the heart of the alliance’s grand strategy. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the invasion triggered a “fundamental shift to our deterrence and defense.”

Russia’s actions in Ukraine confirmed the fears of many that Moscow under Mr. Putin would seek to revive a “Stalinist subjugation” of countries it believes should be in the Kremlin’s sphere of influence.

“The war suggests that the worst-case thinking about Russia’s ‘maximum intentions’ that historically guided NATO’s planning is warranted for the foreseeable future,” according to the CSIS report. “Putin’s apparent propensity for aggression, risk-taking and strategic miscalculation makes him a dangerous adversary, and a difficult one to deter.”

And a move against the small Baltic states on Russia’s border, all NATO members, remains the most “stressing scenario” for NATO strategists trying to anticipate Mr. Putin’s plans, the report said.

“Variations of this scenario have been described, war-gamed, and analyzed in recent years, almost becoming cliche, but it should not be dismissed,” the CSIS authors write. “In military planning jargon, it is the ’most likely’ and ’most dangerous’ course of action for Russia to take.”

After experiencing staggering combat losses in Ukraine, Russia has almost completely reconstituted itself militarily back to prewar levels, thanks to a national mobilization and a war economy supported by China, Iran, and North Korea, the report noted said.

“Several European leaders have warned that Russia could attack NATO allies within three, four, five or eight years,” the report said. “Beyond Ukraine, Russia is making nuclear threats against NATO and stepping up hybrid threats across Europe.”

The most notable achievement within NATO since the Madrid Summit has the addition of long-neutral Finland and Sweden as full members of the alliance. After nearly two years of political drama, NATO members Turkey and Hungary eventually dropped their objections and signed on after extracting concessions from allies, including the U.S.

“This sent a resounding political signal to Moscow and added serious deterrent power to NATO’s ranks — gaining two highly capable members with the ability to severely constrain Russia’s freedom of maneuver in the Baltic Sea,” the CSIS report stated. “The process of fully integrating Finland and Sweden into NATO is ongoing, but substantial progress has been made.”