As Russian forces flail in Ukraine, NATO and the U.S. beef up forces around it as a precaution Moscow is sure to see as provocation.

(Originally published March 24 in “What in the World“) U.S. President Joe Biden has landed in Europe for talks on Ukraine as cracks emerge between the U.S. and its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization about whether to keep giving Russia clear red lines or keep Russian President Vladimir Putin guessing about what would trigger war with the alliance. Some favor more “strategic ambiguity” to avoid giving Putin a green light to escalate his war against Ukraine.

Either way, NATO has already begun beefing up its strategic deterrent against direct incursions into Eastern Europe, including the temptation to attack the burgeoning logistics centers and convoys on Poland’s border supplying weapons to neighboring Ukraine. The U.S. has created a “Tiger Team” of national security officials to draw up plans for how to respond if Russia attacks these supply lines or deploys chemical, biological or nuclear weapons against Ukraine. And on Wednesday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced that NATO would double its troop presence in Eastern Europe by sending four battalion-sized units into Ukraine’s neighbors Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, as well as into Bulgaria.

NATO is hoping to make it abundantly clear that any Russian expansion beyond Ukraine would trigger a massive conventional—and potentially nuclear—response. Germany has already overturned decades of post-Nazi reluctance to start rebuilding its military strength.

Poland and the Baltic states have been requesting just such a buildup, beyond the almost symbolic NATO presence on their soil now. Current NATO troop deployments in the Baltics are only large enough to make any attack on the former Soviet satellites a direct attack on NATO personnel, but not to keep these territories from falling into Russian hands.

The problem with a massive military buildup in the Baltics, however, is that Moscow would likely to see it as a direct threat along Russia’s border. What it wants is a buffer zone between it and its adversaries. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy secretary of Russia’s Security Council, on Wednesday repeated his accusation that the United States was bent on Russia’s destruction, and warned that this could lead to nuclear conflict.

One could argue that in modern warfare, control of the Baltics might be determined by air, sea and missile power beyond these small countries, not by troops and armor inside them. But knowing they’re the next potential battlefield and that their independence from Moscow depends on a massive counter-strike won’t be much comfort to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

The only real solution that reduces the risk direct military confrontation and nuclear confrontation, argues Nobel-prizewinning former Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, is to negotiate a settlement with Putin that “assures peace and security for both Russia and Ukraine.”