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| Have they outlived their purpose ? |
Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the troop surge in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland was meant to “send a clear signal that NATO stands ready to defend any ally”.
“We will agree to deploy by rotation four robust multi-national battalions in the Baltic states and Poland," he told a news conference ahead of a meeting of NATO defence ministers in Brussels on Tuesday.
The Baltic states and Poland have expressed concern over perceived threats by Moscow, especially following the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and covert Russian military interventions on the side of Ukrainian separatists.
The announcement also comes after a series of risky military encounters between Russian and US military personnel.
In April, the US Navy vehemently protested what it described as a “simulated attack” by a Russian fighter jet, which flew within nine metres of a US destroyer that was conducting exercises in the Baltic Sea.
The Donald Cook was in international waters off the coast of Poland. Those waters are also close to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.
Note EU-Digest: why is the US military leadership of NATO playing with fire (and endangering the EU) to please Eastern European members of the EU.
Whenever these same Eastern European members of the EU are asked to support EU programs related to the refugee crises or other important programs, they are usually un-supportive and take a very nationalistic and self-centered position.
Hopefully Brussels and other EU member states will remind these Eastern European EU member states that they can not serve two masters.
As the saying goes, you can't have your cake and eat it too !
The EU, as a whole, needs to be reviewing the actual need for and value of NATO, a cold war creation, which has outlived its time and purpose within the context of the European Union.
Read more: NATO to deploy four battalions in bid to reassure Poland, Baltic allies - France 24
