For decades, NATO’s European members have depended on the U.S. to bolster their defense. Perhaps nowhere is this reliance more acutely felt than in the Baltic countries, which joined the alliance 20 years ago this month, and experienced occupation in living memory.
With Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine entering its third year and the future of U.S. military support for Kyiv in doubt, European officials and military analysts have begun sounding the alarm about the risk of Moscow starting a wider war. Meanwhile, the presumptive Republican nominee for the U.S. presidency, Donald Trump, threatens to renege on Washington’s NATO commitments, stoking fears of the alliance being undermined from within.
Is a Russian invasion of NATO territory really plausible? If so, how are the Baltic states working to deter it? And in a worst-case scenario, how prepared is the West to fight back? For answers to these and other questions, Meduza spoke to Baltic defense expert Lukas Milevski, political scientist Henrik Larsen, and retired Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, the former commander of the U.S. Army in Europe.
Articles mentioned: The Baltic Defense Line by Lukas Milevski and Europe’s Contribution to NATO’s New Defence by Henrik Larsen.
Timestamps for this episode:
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Returning to the talks that could have ended the war in Ukraine
How Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadyrov dies
Migration and discrimination in Putin’s Russia
The evolution of the Russian FSB
Daniel Roher and Julia Ioffe remember the Navalnys
How terrorism’s geopolitics brought tragedy to Moscow
Politico’s Alex Ward on Biden’s Russia and Ukraine policy
The Russian space nukes scare
Christopher Miller on how war came to Ukraine
The death of Alexey Navalny
Yandex’s restructuring and the future of Kremlin tech control
How Russia targets its critics abroad in wartime
How doomed presidential candidate Boris Nadezhdin rallied antiwar Russians
Why hasn’t the West seized Russia’s frozen sovereign assets?
The evolution of Russia’s combat recruitment
Memories of Russia
Growing up German in Soviet Kazakhstan, with Lena Wolf
How studying Russia became a paradox
Russia’s ban on the ‘LGBT movement’
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