THE morning after celebrating her husband’s birthday earlier this month, Barbel Salumae rose at 6am, donned fatigues, and made for a compound outside Tallinn to practice her marksmanship. “I tell my children it’s my hobby,” says Ms Salumae, a member of Estonia’s volunteer Kaitseliit, or Defence League (EDL). “I can’t tell them I have to train because maybe there is war coming.”
Such talk once struck many outside the three ex-Soviet Baltic states as hyperbolic. Then came Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. Now, with American president-elect Donald Trump having questioned commitments to longtime allies, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have new reasons to worry. Issues that seemed settled after their ascension to NATO in 2004 have been reopened. “It’s living proof that history never ends,” says Juri Luik, a former Estonian foreign and defence minister.“We have to explain who we are all over again.”
The Baltic states, with their bitter memories of Soviet occupation, have much to lose if America’s stance in Europe shifts. During the campaign Mr Trump called NATO...Continue reading
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