Weakening the Baltics

One of the reasons that the West prevailed in the Cold War was the willingness of, above all, the U.S., to play the long game. One small example of that, although it was not so small to the people who lived there, was the American refusal to accept the legality of the Soviet annexation of the three Baltic states, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia throughout nearly half a century of Moscow rule. So far as the U.S. and a number of other Western countries were concerned, the interwar independence of the Baltic trio lived on, at least legally. As a practical matter, this spared many Baltic refugees from being handed over to the Soviets at the end of the Second World War, and, when these nations eventually regained their freedom, it helped smooth their return to the West.

Given the chance, the Kremlin would either reoccupy Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia or, at the very least, bring them back under its thumb, reducing their independence to a sham. Had they not joined NATO in 2004, this could well have already happened by now. Deterrence works, it keeps the peace and, yes, it is cost-effective.

This move, therefore, as reported by the Financial Times, is (if the story is accurate) a mistake:

The US is to phase out security assistance programs for European armies along Russia’s border, as it pushes the continent to pay for more of its own.

Much of this spending falls under “an authority known as section 333 [and] must be agreed by the US Congress, but the Trump administration has not requested more money. Funds already approved will be available until the end of September 2026.”

As an indication of the program’s size, between 2018-22 roughly a third of Section 333 spending ($1.6 billion) related to Europe, and much of that went to the Baltic States. According to the FT, European governments were “startled” to hear that it was to cease. On top of this, the Baltic Security Initiative, a program to help boost the Latvian, Lithuanian, and Estonian armed forces is, the FT relates, being reevaluated.

The Baltic states, with a combined population of only 6 million are small, but strategically they matter, and not only because of their geographical position. They have sharply increased their defense spending (Estonia will spend an average of 5.4 percent of GDP on defense each year between 2026-29, Latvia will increase its spending to 5 percent of GDP next year, as will Lithuania), but their small size and tricky location leaves them highly vulnerable. Narva, for example, Estonia’s easternmost city, is only separated from Russia by a river — and almost all its population is of Russian descent. If Russia were to want to test what NATO’s collective defense really meant, the Baltics would be where it would try it. The pact only has to be shown to be toothless once for its whole structure to start unraveling.

That must be a tempting prospect for Putin, so it’s essential that he be convinced that a Baltic incursion is something too risky to try, which is why the current presence there of military from other NATO countries is of such value.

Donald Trump has been right to press NATO’s European members to take more responsibility for their own defense. He should continue to do so, but not in a way that could encourage Putin to think that he has either a window of opportunity — the Europeans couldn’t fill the gap left by the U.S. spending overnight — or, for that matter, that the U.S. regards the Baltic countries as less than full members of the NATO club.

Any plans to cut U.S. financial support for their defense should either be put on hold or abandoned altogether.