There's really no need for US ground forces to get involved. We'd shoot down anything the Russians sent up, and recreate the highway of death for Russian ground forces in Estonia, with the help of Baltic ground forces. In a way, it would be similar to the Korean and Vietnam Wars, where Russian pilots went up against US pilots over the skies of Korea and Vietnam. Nobody's going to use nukes. We wouldn't and the Russians certainly wouldn't, not over a failed invasion of Estonia, any more than Stalin used nukes while we were fighting in Korea.
And just what EU nation will commit troops and equipment for this endeavor without a couple of US Armored Brigades alongside?
I suggest none would.
“There’s really no need for US ground forces to get involved. We’d shoot down anything the Russians sent up, and recreate the highway of death for Russian ground forces in Estonia, “
You are crazy.
First, I think we have about 180 F22’s and zero F35.
The f22 does not have a long “loiter time” because it has no external fuel tanks to be stealthy. The f22 also needs a lot of down time for maintenence. Committing our entire f22 fleet would mean having maybe 20 in the air at all times sustainable for maybe 1 month.
All the other jets can be shot down by russian AA missles.
There will be no highway of death.
from wiki
“In 2004, the F-22 had a mission ready rate of 62%, this rose to 70% in 2009 and was predicted to reach 85% as the fleet reached 100,000 flight hours.[206] Early on, the F-22 required more than 30 hours of maintenance per flight hour and a total cost per flight hour of $44,000; by 2008 it was reduced to 18.1, and 10.5 by 2009;[206] lower than the Pentagon’s requirement of 12 maintenance hours per flight hour.[207] When introduced, the F-22 had a Mean Time Between Maintenance (MTBM) of 1.7 hours; by 2012 the figure was 3.2 hours, exceeding the requirement of 3.0 hours by 2010.[206] By 2013, the cost per flight hour had grown to $68,362, over three times as much as the F-16.[208]
Each aircraft requires a month-long packaged maintenance plan (PMP) every 300 flight hours.[209] The stealth system, including its radar absorbing metallic skin, account for almost one third of maintenance.”