Stardate 20010903.0910 (On Screen): Russian President Putin has said that he doesn't see any reason why Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia should want to join NATO. Russia is no threat to them, he says. I find this pronouncement rather odd, in several ways.
Probably the strangest reason is that a couple of years ago, Russia itself said it wanted to join NATO. (That was a mind-boggling concept for someone like me who grew up during the Cold War.) It's also the case that Russia has been trying off and on to dominate the Baltic states for hundreds of years. But the real reason for the Baltic States to fear Russia is because there are substantial minority populations of ethnic Russians living in all three countries left over from when they were part of the Soviet Union. World-wide, there have been just too many cases in recent years when countries have used perceived mistreatment of such ethnic minorities in neighboring states as a justification for military operations -- most notably Serbia attacking everyone in sight for "oppressing" their Serbian minorities. Also, when a nation's economy is crumbling and there is unrest at home, demagogues will sometimes start a war as a way of trying to unite everyone in patriotism; that's why Argentina attacked the Falkland Islands, for instance. Given the combination of how unstable things are in Russia right now and an unhappy ethnic Russian minority in the Baltic states, Russia's still considerable military capability is a very real concern for those new nations. (discuss)
