PrairiePundit

Daily Mail: US sends elite commandos to the border of Russia to defend nervous Baltic states while NATO beefs up its defenses The Americans are eager to help the small armies of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia repel any possible threat from their neighbor to the east and reassure them of Washington's commitment to NATO. The three may be among the few NATO allies who are actually spending a greater percentage of the GDP on defense than NATO targets.  They are being trained to resist a Russian invasion with insurgency tactics.  Having been a part of the old Soviet Union they are familiar with Russian military operations and the weaknesses of some of their older equipment.

Daily Beast: If You Knew Putin Like We Know Putin… Estonia’s president and Lithuania’s foreign minister talk to The Daily Beast about the menace Moscow poses to them, Europe, and the United States. ... (Estonian President) Toomas Ilves : We’ve been facing this dezinformatsiya [disinformation] ever since our independence, in many ways already before that. I remember as an ambassador — in ‘93, ‘94, ‘95 — in Washington, constantly having to defend myself or my country at the State Department in the face of completely outrageous and nonsense claims made against it. People took seriously outright lies. On Donald Trump’s questioning of whether or not the United States would defend an invaded NATO ally, as mandated by Article V of the Atlantic Charter, and his supporter Newt Gingrich’s recent comments that ‘Estonia is in the suburbs of St. Petersburg.’ Ilves : It was just odd, having been the ambassador to the United States in 1994 when the “Contract for America” was introduced [by...

Newsweek: COUNTING DOWN TO A RUSSIAN INVASION OF THE BALTICS Although Russia's economy is reeling and its military forces are increasingly engaged in Syria and Ukraine, NATO commanders, governments and analysts are concerned that Russian President Vladimir Putin's adventurism has not run its course. Most anxieties focus on the Baltic states as Russia's next potential military target. Russia has many advantages in the Baltics. The situation of Russians there, particularly in Estonia and Latvia where many Russians remain non-citizens, provides Moscow with an issue with which to stoke tensions. ... In other words, the situation  is similar to the pretext used by Germany in the lead up to World War II.   Estonia especially has been one of the more successful countries to gain freedom after the fall of the former Soviet Union.  It will probably take more than sanctions to defend these countries.

BBC: The Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have been studying the 2008 Russia-Georgia war, writes Robert Beckhusen for Medium, and they think they've learned an important lesson The way to stop Russian tanks isn't with other tanks, he says, it's with anti-tank missiles. Lots of them. When it faced off against Russia, Georgia didn't have this capability - and it proved costly. Beckhuson quotes Frederic Labarre, who wrote a history of one of the key battles in the Russia-Georgia conflict for Small Wars Journal. "On the one hand, it is clear that cool-headed infantry is more than a match for armour, especially in an urban environment," Labarre says. "This lesson had been put to the test many times and many years before, by many countries. One wonders therefore why it wasn't applied by the Georgians." The Baltic states, according to Beckhusen, aren't interested in repeating these strategic errors. Over the past two years, they ha...

Guardian: Washington and its western allies have for the first time since the end of the cold war drawn up classified military plans to defend the most vulnerable parts of eastern Europe against Russian threats, according to confidential US diplomatic cables. The US state department ordered an information blackout when the decision was taken earlier this year. Since January the blueprint has been refined. Nine Nato divisions – US, British, German, and Polish – have been identified for combat operations in the event of armed aggression against Poland or the three Baltic states. North Polish and German ports have been listed for the receipt of naval assault forces and British and US warships. The first Nato exercises under the plan are to take place in the Baltic next year, according to informed sources. Following years of transatlantic dispute over the new policy, Nato leaders are understood to have quietly endorsed the strategy at a summit in Lisbon last month. Despite Presid...

You can see more photos from the parade here . It looks like they had a good turnout. The parade included 500 blonds.