“The Russians were afraid of the Lithuanians? The Latvians? The Estonians? “
No. The Russians were afraid of US/UK military and CIA/MI6 stations in those countries.
No, obviously not. They were afraid of Britain, France, US who would have been the support of Eastern nations being part of NATO. The Lithuanians and Estonians and Latvians were nothing more than fronts for us to put our weapons right at Moscow’s front door.
I bet you think that everything the West has done and will do is with the hands of Jesus holding our hands and telling us to do that. 143 million extinguished Russians is what Jesus wants, because we think we are doing the will of God with our provocations.
I have no other explanation as to why you think it shouldn’t be considered provocative to park our weapons outside Moscow’s door.
Can you think of any other reason, other then planned elimination of the Russians, for doing that?
Most of the US weapons and soldiers were stationed in Germany, with the US cutting back the numbers drastically after 1991.
We showed we weren't a danger to Russia by reducing troop levels.
Russian response, attack its neighbors(Georgia and Ukraine) and seize their land.
The number of U.S. troops stationed in Europe has fluctuated significantly over time, particularly after the end of the Cold War. In 1989, there were 315,225 troops, which decreased to 107,158 by 1995. By 2021, the number had further decreased to 63,853. In 2018, the number bottomed out at around 65,000