Baltics to ask NATO for thousands of troops.

[Duque de Bragança]

If a fox stole your chickens, would you slaughter your pig because he saw the fox?  No. You would hunt the fox-- you would find where it lives and destroy it!  And how do we do this?  Become a fox.

red Dawn? Re-watched last night.

Enjoyable again after the recent remake I guess.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

If a fox stole your chickens, would you slaughter your pig because he saw the fox?  No. You would hunt the fox-- you would find where it lives and destroy it!  And how do we do this?  Become a fox.

wouldn't it be handier to hire an english hunting posse?

Anyways: put troops there. With only talking Putin or a similar guy is only going to pick off the civilised world one by one until nothing's left

[Eddie Teach]

Enjoyable again after the recent remake I guess.

No Swayze, no way-zee.

[Archy]

I'm all for it. We could even help by sending some tents, minesweepers and guards for the local airport.

[Martinus]

@Tamas: The situation isn't comparable to the World Wars, but to the Cold War. Showing strength was the right policy for the West to counter the Soviet Union. It is again the right policy towards Putin's neo-imperialist pretensions.

Agreed.  Putin's strategy is to show strength by picking on the weaklings.  He knows russia cannot afford a real war against a real opponent.  While Tamas is correct that many Russians would see a NATO deployment to defend NATO territory as an intolerable aggression against Russian aggression, we know beyond doubt that those same Russians will swallow any lie Putin's government can come up with.  The key to keeping the peace is convincing Putin to alter the lies from "why we must take over EVOL BALTIKS TODAY to REVENGE IS DISH BEST EATEN COLD.

This. Plus, if Ukraine is any indication, the "let's wait until shit starts there" method will not work because there will be a lot of grey area about whether "shit has started". Russia has already conducted cyber attacks against all three countries, and apparently kidnapped an Estonian military officer; it has also violated the air space of these countries. So, from that perspective, shit has started.

We will never get to the point of Russian tanks just invading the border - or if we do, this will be too late for a reaction then. If Russia wants to do something more in the Baltics, they will most likely orchestrate protests of the Russian minority etc. - giving Western European cowards another excuse not to come to aid as "the shit has not started yet".

[Martinus]

If a fox stole your chickens, would you slaughter your pig because he saw the fox?  No. You would hunt the fox-- you would find where it lives and destroy it!  And how do we do this?  Become a fox.

[Norgy]

Russia's probably a bit peeved about the regional defence co-operation between the countries in the Nordic Council as well.
Even Finland and Sweden take part.
Putin probably realises war over Latvia or Estonia isn't a great idea.