It has been publicly admitted on the pages of Forbes that the Baltics presence in NATO is “meaningless”. Including the Baltic countries into the North-Atlantic Alliance has significantly damaged United States security: their actions in NATO create a threat of nuclear war with Russian, all for the countries that America doesn’t give a damn about. For the Baltic elites, such statements from across the ocean are a reminder that to their American overlords, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are the dead weight, which USA will drop if need be.
One of the most famous and influential business media of the planet – the American finance and economy journal Forbes published a “programme” analytical article “Why Is America In NATO?” which doubted the feasibility of the North-Atlantic Alliance’s existence, as it doesn’t guarantee safety to the United States and instead only endangers the country.
The main point of the article is that when accepting new members, which are frequently weak and petty countries that can’t even mount a self-defense, the Alliance is forcing Americans to take these pitiful allies under its wing. This only causes headaches for Washington, because it pulls it into various regional conflicts on the side of countries who do nothing for the United States security. Countries, who America doesn’t really need.
NATO’s expansion has long since become a goal in itself, with the actual expansion being meaningless to the Americans, not aligning with the United States national interest and possibly creating problems for the Pentagon and the State department. “Adding Montenegro as another meaningless Facebook friend” says Doug Bandow of Forbes
“So presidents and legislators continually write guarantees on the money and lives of the American people for foreign countries, even when, like Montenegro, they are utterly irrelevant to U.S. security.” states Forbes. The journal also heavily criticizes the policy of bulking up NATO’s ranks, being quite sarcastic about the “expansion for the sake of expansion” principle thanks to which America now has to, for example, have ally responsibilities to Turkey – America’s friend-foe ruled by the islamist Erdogan, who bashes the “rotting West” and “American Imperialism” in his speeches, but runs to his NATO allies for help after he provokes a conflict with Russia.
However, a much better example of petty and pitiful allies who America took unto their shoulders and is now forced to protect, even though they are useless to both the US and Europe – the Baltic states, who Forbes mercilessly dubs “helpless nations”
“Expansion to the Baltic States turns out to have been a huge mistake, bringing in helpless nations which the rest of Europe has no interest in defending, countries of no geopolitical importance to America but involved in bitter disputes with Russia. If anything bad happens, America will be expected to confront, with minimal support from its European “allies”—who likely will run for cover in Brussels—nuclear-armed Russia over a controversy of far greater interest in Moscow than Washington” writes the American journal.
“U.S. security has suffered dramatically from adding Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.” concludes Forbes, and judging by that conclusion, it is calling to not repeat the same “huge mistake” with the Eastern Partnership countries, by admitting Georgia and Ukraine into NATO.
It is noteworthy that Forbes hasn’t said a single word about any “imperial ambitions” or “aggressive neighbor” – the conflict between Russia and the Baltics objectively exists, but the cause of it are the “bitter disputes” between Moscow and the Baltic states. Who started this policy is a rhetorical question, when you consider that the latest Russian Federation Foreign Policy Concept (2013) had not a single word about the Baltics, Moscow’s legally established diplomatic stance on Lithuanian, Latvia and Estonia is to ignore all three. Silent contempt is the universal official reaction of Russia to the calls for its international isolation, Third Reich comparisons and hysteria on a “terrorist state”. Only a few months after the public outcries, suddenly Latvian sprattus, milk and stuff was under embargo and the Russian trade transit switched from Baltic ports to Russian ones.
So the conflict between Russia and the Baltics is mainly the Baltics’ fault, as expressed America’s leading business journal, and appealing to the most sacred of things - “the lives of American citizens” asks the question: why should America put itself under the threat of nuclear war with Russia due to Dalia Grybauskaitė or Edgars Rinkēvičs verbal incontinence?
And that is exactly what the Baltic allies demand it do: not a week goes by without Vilnius sounding off another call to increase USA’s presence in the region, including military presence. For the Baltic countries, it is not even up to discussion that they fight for themselves: no, they are much too small and it is their allies who must take responsibility for their “new Mordor” accusations. The allies must do everything in fact: they must increase NATO presence in the region, send their military contingents to the Baltics, establish NATO land bases, going into direct conflict in Russia for it.
Such behavior actually contradicts the foundations of Anglo-Saxon culture, and the Americans, who are taught to always rely only on themselves, talk the talk and walk the walk, and stand up for your beliefs. So such cowardice can only seem repulsive. This repulsion is visible between the lines of the Forbes article and it asks the question: why do the United states need these “helpless nations” as their allies? “After all, 70 years have passed since World War II. The European Union has a larger GDP and population than America, and dramatically larger than Russia. Isn’t it time for Washington’s rich friends and allies to defend themselves?” writes the American journalist, noting that due to their cowardly allies, the White House continues to keep risking their citizen’s lives “because Europe can’t be bothered to put enough of its own men and women into uniform?
For Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia this Forbes article is a grim reminder that the Baltics are dead weight to Washington, which USA will drop overboard. They don’t see any value in it and the Americans will most definitely not fight for it.
The Forbes article is not just an article, because Forbes is not just a business journal. Forbes is one of the Wall Street outlets, it is the poster for the world’s number one economy, who the United States business a political elite use to speak their minds. Forbes talks to its big (quality, not quantity-wise) reader base of the industry leaders (ratings of the world’s wealthiest) and about the problems of working in the supercorporation called USA.
An article on the pitiful, petty and yet threatening the US security NATO allies couldn’t appear in this place out of nowhere.
The American establishment realized the true situation of the “helpless nations” as a problem and came to the conclusion that Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are of no value for the United States and let them know publicly, that when the need arises, Washington will give the Baltics up.
Translated by Pavel Shamshiev.
