NATO Cannot Defend Baltic States

NATO will be unable to defend Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania if Russia invades, German news magazine Spiegel reported on May 19, citing German government sources and leaked NATO documents.

German defense and foreign ministry officials told Spiegel it would take NATO six months to put together a response. “We wouldn’t even show up in time for the Russians’ victory celebration,” one German official said.

German MEP Elmar Brok, a member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and head of the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs spelled it out plainly: “At present, the alliance could not protect the Baltic countries with conventional military means,” he said.

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