The first threat is the military menace posed by Putin’s Russia. It claims the right to “defend” any remnant ethnic Russian minorities left behind outside Russia when the Soviet Union imploded. Each of the Baltics plays host to an ethnic Russian minority.
The second threat is President Trump’s stated reluctance to support NATO members which haven’t met their treaty-obligated requirement to spend 2% of GDP on defense. When he said that, roughly a year ago, only one of the three former SSRs was doing so.
As of 2018, each of the Baltic States will have finally reached NATO’s mandated minimum of defense spending equaling at least 2 percent of their GDP.In addition to conventional military preparations, all are ramping up efforts to become places Putin would not find easy to “digest” after invading. They are working to develop, in advance, both the will and the wherewithal to field an armed resistance movement. This follows the much-admired Swiss/Finnish model.
The outcome is clearly not one Putin either wanted or anticipated, Trump on the other hand achieved his aim. Now, if only the rest of NATO would take defense seriously and stop “free riding” on U.S. defenses.
