A nation must think before it acts.
In association with the Center for European Policy Analysis, I spent a little over one week in June and July interviewing diplomatic, military, and economic government officials in the Baltic States on the subject of Russia’s long-term challenges to these countries, their national responses, and related NATO and US policies.
I found that Baltic officials agree broadly on the nature of the challenge they face from the East. Under Vladimir Putin, Russia asserts itself as a revisionist power determined to expand its sphere of influence using a wide array of tools. These tools include economic pressure, shrewd diplomacy, oil and gas manipulation, bribery, disinformation, covert action, cyber-attacks, military coercion, and sometimes outright invasion.