"Latvia Wants US Troops, And Is Ready To Pay For Them" Topic

"Latvia's defense minister announced today his country is willing to house American troops if the Trump administration follows through on its decision to pull thousands of troops out of Germany, becoming the second NATO ally to ask for those troops to be housed within its borders.

"We are ready — and this is an official announcement — we are ready to invest to receive a certain amount of American troops on Latvian soil," minister of defense and deputy prime minister, Artis Pabriks, said during a virtual event hosted by the Brookings Institution. The desired deployment would be the first large US basing effort in the Baltic nation…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Perhaps they should field their own, instead.

Hmmn. I don't think they will get US forces except perhaps as visitors on an exercise.

The US has nothing to gain by stationing forces in the Baltic states. They don't base forces abroad for the benefit of the host nations. Never have and never will – nor should they.

Hardly surprising they want something concrete since they are on the front line. If Putin was to invade the Baltic states it would in reality be a done deal and I'm not entirely certain a couple of hundred US troops would make that much difference.

But probably what the Baltic states rightly fear is that in such a situation the vagaries of realpolitik, western public opinion and likely Russian nuclear blackmail will see their sovereignty get kicked under the geopolitical bus yet again. May be, rightly at the moment, they figure their best shot of ensuring the alliance actually works is to ensure key players have some skin in the game…

Latvia is spending according to NATO demands, that is 2%. Like previous post says, they want some NATO troops to be in the game. Probably because they do not really trust the other NATO countries to honor their agreement of helping out.

So, Thresher, they are fielding their own troops make no mistake about that. They just know that they will lose unless they get help and get it fast.

NATO is a shell of what it used to be. NATO military forces are worthless as countries like Germany, France and the UK continue to draw down their militaries.The US has no real business stationing forces in the Baltic states.

Problem is defence spending doesn't get you elected. I'm sure a simplistic 'the need for security' scores highly among the right of centre when polling, but drill down in a focus group and bet that covers a whole bunch of stuff – a lot of which is nothing to do with the military.

In the UK at least the military will always lag behind the NHS, education, and welfare spending in more or less that order. And UK finances aren't in the best of states. I also suspect that UK politicians rather take the apparent ability of the UK military to improvise a successful military expedition regardless of funding and usually the lack of it.

ROU- +1

"So, Thresher, they are fielding their own troops make no mistake about that. They just know that they will lose unless they get help and get it fast".

Yea, I get that, and they are one of the FEW deserving nations in NATO actually doing that.

I know it's difficult, but with such a dire, and very real, potential threat, they may need to spend much more to keep from being reabsorbed into the "USSR" that Vladimir wants to recreate.

Invasion and "Nuclear Blackmail" to keep the Baltic states is a real possible tactic that could be used by Putin, and he's shown a willingness to avoid international norms on territorial integrity in the past. They've hinted at nuclear escalation in the past, by flying strategic bombers into and near other peoples' airspace, and by deploying nuke capable missiles in Crimea, and Kaliningrad.

"In the UK at least the military will always lag behind the NHS, education, and welfare spending in more or less that order".

Makes sense until a conflict breaks out, and someone decides to invade, e.g. the Argentinians, the Spanish, French, uppity New Zealanders bent on global domination (I kid, I kid).

Who told you we are going to invade Latvia!… now I have to kill him!…. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

We know you guys are always up to something, Armand………. ;-)

A problem for Latvia is it is a very small, and fairly poor, country. Even if they spent an insane percentage of their GNP on defense it would still not be enough. That is probably why they want to "rent" it.

They do not have an airforce, they have some helicopters but nothing more. They have no tanks for example. Their navy is just a few small ships.

Its just too expensive. And with US troops on the ground, even if it is only a small force it would act as an deterrent.

Oh, I agree on the last statement, though getting some local European countries to add some "skin in the game" would be appreciated too.

Not sure that adding US troops would really be much of a "deterrent" vs. Putin though.

Actually, if anything, unless we added a really substantial force there, I think it might just make things worse, and embolden him to make a play to take over the former "Soviet territory".

I suspect who or who isn't there would make little difference. Though Putin is unlikely to send in the tanks – more likely any take over would be a 'hybrid warfare' action – so the ultimate arbiter may well be attitude of the local ethnic Russian population and if they can be persuaded to behave rashly.

"Latvia Wants US Troops, And Is Ready To Pay For Them"

Well of course they do. They realize that the US is the only country in the world that could provide them meaningful protection.