Posted on 04/08/2014 8:57:52 AM PDT by ComtedeMaistre
Estonia is a little nation of 1.3 million people, which was made a member of NATO in 2004. Estonia was once a province of the Soviet Union. It has a Russian minority that is 25 percent of the population, and Russia has vowed to protect ethnic Russians if they are subjected to mass violence by the Estonian majority.
Did NATO make a wise decision to bring in itty-bitty baltic nations that were once part of the Soviet Union? I can understand the importance of preventing the Soviet Union from being brought back into existence. But the lives of American troops are valuable, and should only be used to defend high value allies of the United States.
Maybe the Russians should learn Estonian then.
Bingo!
We should invoke the NATO clause that requires mutual defense if a member nation is ever criticized. And especially if it seems “bossy”. That word has been strictly banned!
(because NATO isn’t meant to protect member nations ability to crush internal dissent that results in someone intervening)
The question should be: As there is no evidence that Estonians are treating the descendants of former slave-masters with tolerance and generosity, is there any reason the US shouldn’t come to their defense if they are threatened by Russia?
Please stay focused. Russia has been trying to boss Estonia around for decades. Again, there is no evidence Russia wants to invade. But there was no evidence Russia wanted to invade Ukraine, either, until right before it happened.
If the Ruskies invade Estonia, we take back Kaliningrad. At worst, break even. Perhaps Estonians would prefer that place, like the Sami people chose Finland over the USSR after WWII. The Russians in Kalliningrad could just go back where they came from.
Then there are the little places that Russia is cozy with in this hemisphere, like Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua. Goodbye to dachas in the tropics. But mainly, it is cut off pipelines from Russia to Europe that go through Poland and Ukraine. No euros for apparatchiks.
As for Ukraine, the U.S. guaranteed the territorial integrity of that country as part of the agreement by which it gave up nuclear weapons. This is not the same high level of guarantee that we have for Estonia, but it’s not nothing either.
Awesome, so Poland won’t wait. Poland apparently has the sole say as to when America is required to go to war. Alliances sure are fun.
Like I said. If our nation is required to fight on the behalf of member nations, as the main military contributor BY FAR we should have final say over all foreign policy decisions those countries make.
No free ride.
Their former President resided and studied in America for many years.
Would you wait until the enemy was near the border with Mexico?
“Nazis made all kinds of newsreels in 1939, about how the “poor” Volksdeutsche were being slaughtered by those “evil” Poles.”
And then the Poles attacked that German Radio post on the border and started the war. Nutty move.
I should add that Estonian kids today are normally offered Russian as an option for their third language they must study in school, (along with German, in addition to English as the second language all must study).
+1
It won’t be nuking of U.S. cities. If Vlad wanted a very cheap way to cripple us, he could send in a couple hundred loyal, decently trained men with exceptionally clean backgrounds. Once they are on our soil (either by coming in “legally” or hopping our border) all they have to do is spread out in two-three man teams across the nation, obtain hunting rifles and got to work on many key transformers. Hell, there was report a couple months ago that basically told the world which area’s would hurt us the most and that the big ones would take years to replace. It wouldn’t be game over, but we would be in “check” for many years and our economy would fail BIG TIME. We would still have a strong military but with no real means to replace equipment should we get into a serious engagement which means we would probably just hunker down in pure defense mode. THAT is when Russia would go to work invading other nations.
Yep, those wacky Poles.
Apparently only during business hours and subject to Union rules.
“Russia was concerned” isn’t proof of any linguistic oppression.
It’s propaganda.
Or do you think the Mexican invaders in the US southwest are oppressed because it helps to learn English to get ahead?
The Russian bums and thugs in Estonia get all the benefits that Estonia offers. And the hard-working Russians get jobs along side the Estonians.
No arguments with that. The Poles know all about being occupied, first by the Nazi’s then by the Soviets for half a century. Yes I believe they would fight even without NATO.
First off this troll needs a history lesson: Estonia was a COUNTRY INVADED BY THE SOVIET UNION IN WWII!
After that, I've lost interest in another troll article written by a moron.
Good post. I hardly recognize this country anymore.
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