... Baltic countries, former members of the Soviet Union, became members of NATO, an alliance directed against Russia. And contrary to their official status as “neutral” countries, Sweden and Finland, have after the Cold War also become more or less NATO members de-facto. Should the three Baltic states and even Finland one day become highly militarized by NATO, they will pose a permanent and acute threat of strategic surprise-attack against the Saint Petersburg and Pskov region, one of Russia’s centers. Also, after the Cold War, the ...
... in the event of a crisis appears to be a more significant factor. The same goes for the expansion of NATO's Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF).
Changes are taking place in Russia as well. Moscow has managed to implement a massive, the four NATO battalions deployed in Poland and the Baltic states and apparently successful, military reform, creating " more compact, mobile, and possibly more efficient armed forces. A number of military units have been restored; in particular, three divisions were deployed on the country s southwestern ...
... fighting against international terrorism on the global scale. Each of the tasks requires significant political investments from both sides, neither of them we can take for granted.
2) Russian upcoming military exercise Zapad-2017 is causing concern in the Baltic States and NATO. Do you think Russia is interested in making the exercise transparent and defensive or is it rather going to be a demonstration of force meant to frighten NATO´s eastern members?
You should keep in mind that Russia – even the Russian leadership ...
....com/us-news/2016/mar/30/pentagon-restore-barack-obama-troop-cuts-europe-address-russian-aggression.
7. Jan Techau, “The Politics of 2 Percent: NATO and the Security Vacuum in Europe,” Carnegie Europe, September 2015, http://carnegieendowment.org/files/CP_252_Techau_NATO_Final.pdf.
8. Piotr Szymanski, “Between continuation and adaptation: The Baltic states’ security policy and armed forces,” Centre for Eastern Studies, 24 November 2015, http://www.osw.waw.pl/sites/default/files/commentary_190.pdf.
9. Press Conference, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg following the meeting ...
... unfortunately, we are likely to see a rather tense period, although I don’t think it will escalate into a direct conflict,” Kortunov went on. “I don’t think Russia will take any actions that might compromise the integrity of the NATO alliance. The Baltic States are members of the alliance, and I don’t think that Russia is likely to exercise any direct threatening actions against them.”
Source:
ERR.ee
