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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

> Will NATO come for let’s say Latvia or Lithuania? I honestly don’t think so.

I fear that you are right. And with Kaliningrad pretty much ideally positioned to pull another Donbass the stage is set for a lot of misery in Poland, Lithuania and possibly even Latvia and Estonia.

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Ukraine is not part of NATO. The Western response is very different for Ukraine then it would be for a NATO country.

We'll see about that. I wouldn't put too much stock in that if that country is Latvia, Lithuania or possibly even Poland. If it were Germany, France, Finland, Sweden or the UK it would likely be a different matter. Article 5 of the treaty is nice in principle, but those principles have never been put to a real test (in some circles this is called the 'Riga test' for a reason).

It's worth mentioning that Finland and Sweden are not NATO member states.

That is true, at the same time they are part of the EU and part of the EU co-defense pact.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Security_and_Defence_Po...

They also collaborate on NATO exercises, and the reverse is also true: NATO partakes in Swedish and Finish military exercises.

> We'll see about that.

I understand your pessimism but we are talking about the most powerful military organization on the planet. If for some strange reason they decide they give up protecting their borders, they might as well not exist. If Russia decides to invade Latvia and NATO does nothing, the whole pact might as well dissolve itself as it serves no function.

The problem is that the rest of Europe doesn't really 'know' Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, they are just names to them. Possibly some people would be able to point them out on a map but the vast bulk of the people has absolutely no link with those countries on account of them being geographically isolated. Their only direct connection is a less than 50 km wide strip of border between Poland and Lithuania with exactly two roads running through it and relatively little cross border traffic.

There is little tourism and not that much in terms of import or export from that region where people will associate whatever product they are looking at with the Baltics.

A co-defense pact makes sense from a military perspective, especially because the Baltics are pretty useful as forward bases. But from a 'hearts and minds' perspective there isn't all that much there. And I'm saying that as someone who has a very direct connection with the Baltics and who has spent collectively probably close to a year (or even more by now) there.

Ask any Western European in which country Riga is situated, or Vilnius or Kaunas or even Tallinn and you're likely going to get a wrong answer or no answer at all. By contrast even Finland would do quite well.

Mind that Baltic countries have been popular tourist destinations for Europeans.

Popular tourist destinations for Europeans are France, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Germany, the UK, Austria, Greece, Russia, Portugal, Poland etc.

Even Romania sees more tourism than all of the Baltics combined, and Romania is pretty far down the list of tourist destinations. I don't know how you define 'popular' but in my circle I'm the only person that has visited the Baltics for something other than work.

I completely agree about hearts and minds, but this is not how NATO works. When the USA asked their partners to help them in the invasion of Afghanistan, Iraq etc., nobody asked about hearts and minds. Many f not most people in the EU were against the war. There were demonstrations in most capitals[0]. But everybody sent their troops even if they didn't care about the war, because this is how NATO works in practice. Moreover, the EU did much more, and some of these things are unknown to the general public. Just some of these leaked, like illegal CIA prisons in Eastern Europe.

Of course France and Germany - the two countries traditionally closer to Putin and trying to keep a bit warmer diplomatic relations than the rest - will hesitate a bit, but rest assured that all other countries will join a NATO defensive operation in order to protect a member state from Russia. Putin knows this, and realizes he can win a conventional war with one small state, but not with many bigger ones. Therefore his main focus is on Ukraine that is not protected by NATO, and as for the Baltic states, he's just performing some minor non-military operations like bringing migrants to the border.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_the_Iraq_War

I'm quite concerned that this is a one way street. The United States is the first to lean on other countries to support them in their adventures but I somewhat doubt if the Baltics were in need that the US (for instance: under Biden or god forbid another run of Trump) would step in. They just pulled out of Afghanistan, a mess of their own making, without any consideration for the consequences.

For sure it won't be easy, because it would be the first time NATO would have to engage in a conventional war with a country with nukes. That's the whole point Russia counts on: that the nukes will scare NATO partners away. But this would be a suicidal move that would make no sense. And in a conventional war Russia stands no chances against the armies of NATO.

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