And now Putin is threatening the NATO with nuclear strikes not only over the Crimea but also over the Baltics.
And I mean, why not? This threat worked beautifully when he easily got the US to go back on Budapest accords and allow Russia to annex the Crimea a year ago. So why not continue with such a winning strategy?
Clarissa's Blog 
It’s going to be 658 days until the next President of the United States is sworn in, and the world is going to be a VERY interesting place between now and the time Obama finally leaves office.
Alas.
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And there’s not a single candidate that I know of who would do any better… Not to mention Europe whose leaders are desperately trying not to notice…..
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I just keep shaking my head in utter disbelief at Putin’s moves. It makes me wonder — if Hitler had nuclear weapons, would we all be speaking German right now?
Is Russia as a whole really this aggressive or is it just Putin? What could possible make this stop??
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Putin isn’t going to start a nuclear war. (He knows that he’d lose it.) The danger is that he may provoke a conventional conflict with a NATO country that spirals out of control, like Hitler kept pushing his luck until he stumbled into the Second World War.
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“It makes me wonder — if Hitler had nuclear weapons, would we all be speaking German right now?”
“Is Russia as a whole really this aggressive or is it just Putin?”
“What could possible make this stop??”
Honestly, I’m not seeing what it could be right now.
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I do not think Russia will start a nuclear war. Hard to do it and stay “the good guys oppressed by the evil West”. And the preservation of the latter self-image is very important to the Russians. With the Baltics they are going to play a longer game:
a) Scare the people of Baltics with a lot of tough talk and occasional provocations. Make them beg for more involvement of the NATO, that in turn will be presented internally as “NATO is encircling Russia and is about to attack” (achieved)
b) Ensure the increasing distrust towards local Russian minority, that would result in the rise of extreme nationalism* and attempts to limit the influence of Russian minorities in all spheres of life. This in turn will make Russian minorities feel more discriminated and more susceptible to imperial propaganda (achieved)
c) Help some idiots proclaim “People’s republic of Narva”. Since doing something like that to a NATO country is a somewhat different beast than in Ukraine (for instance, Baltic countries do not have Russian-made tanks or armored cars, so one cannot possibly claim that those were taken from the government troops), one probably should not expect involvement of real Russian troops even on this stage. Light weapons may be supplied, and if the separatists are lucky enough on their own (or the defenders are inept enough), it may end with the annexation of the areas populated by ethnic Russians. But this will not be the main goal, the goal will be destabilizing the NATO. Creating hard feelings due to “those French did not come help us when we needed it”, for example…
we now have a real Nazi party in the Parliament. As in “Hitler did a lot of good things for Germany” and “you are a dumb uneducated sportsman, educate yourself about the works of Hitler first, before attempting to discuss Nazism”…
And the only minister of Russian origin is resigning. Not because of the above Nazis (those only have 7 seats and nobody invites them into any coalitions), but because of his inability to do things he deems useful for all people of Estonia in the increasingly “Estonia for Estonians” climate.
For all unfamiliar with political dynamics of the Baltic states: imagine Quebec run by Parti Quebecois for 20 years in a row. And then somebody scaring the PQ real hard and it going into self-preservation mode.
Are Russians “aggressive”? In some sense yes. They are definitely not into “lets avoid conflict and hurting somebody’s feelings at all costs” liberal stance. Imagine Tea Party… But current political situation is primarily framed as “restoring historic injustice”, not just as “let’s show them”… If the question is – do real Russians in the streets believe all this imperial shit, or are these just the politics of the elites/Putin – as far as I can judge, the majority of Russians do support Putin and the revival of the empire / superpower.
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How hard is it to convince the Russians that evil Americans attacked them first? Human capacity for self-delusion is enormous.
I agree that the Kremlin ‘ s current policy simply gives the Russians what they passionately want.
I do fear that the NATO will not stand up for the Baltics. As you say, it will be easy to pretend that nothing special is happening there. So my hope for now is that Putin will not choose to engage Russia with the Baltics. The Baltics are not nearly as crucial to the Russians’ national identity as Ukrainians, so why get into a hassle over them? Discrediting NATO as a joke it is will be the only reason. But us that reason enough for a serious engagement?
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[would love to see Finland support Estonia with a mutual protection treaty, especially since it might mean that Russia would get to stare down the gun barrels of Finnish snipers again …]
🙂
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Estonia is a member of NATO, and can’t make a separate military pact with any country, because NATO would be compelled to join any conflict involving Estonia.
Putin has recently made explicit threats warning Finland not to consider NATO membership.
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And how hard is it to convince the Americans that evil Russians attacked them first?
Human capacity for self-delusion is enormous, indeed.
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Extraordinarily difficult. I’ve been trying to do it for over a year but to no avail. In general, convincing Americans that anybody but them is capable of doing anything wrong is next to impossible.
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