Chris, what are some of the major issues between them? I know there are many trade and transport disputes between Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Russia. Also, there are language requirements that are being used as protectionist tools of sorts. And then there is the whole trafficking/sex tourism problem between East and West involving children. But none of these issues seem to be a NATO style security concern. Are there security issues between them?
Diane -----
I suppose it's in the realm of conceivability that a hypotherical future expansionist Russia might invade the Baltics. I don't think that that slim possibility justifies the costs, both economic and in terms of independence, of joining NATO.
I think you have to put this in context of the rabid ultra-nationalism that characterizes a lot of people -- especially demagogic politicians -- in some of the former republics, especially the Baltics. (These are countries that exalt Nazi collaborators as heroes, you know.) Moscow's biggest beef with those countries at present is blatant discrimination against Russian speakers living there, who are often denied employment opportunities and have citizenship problems. (I didn't notice this much personally when I was in Estonia, but then I was only there a week, in the extremely cosmopolitan old town of the capital city.) Riga at least recently was trying to ban media broadcast in Russian -- in a city in which 40% of the population is Russian. Moscow's bid to have a visa-free passage corridor opened between Kaliningrad Oblast through Poland and the Baltics so Russian citizens in the enclave can visit their families was turned down last week.
Come to think of it, in Tallinn there is a monument to the bombing of the city by the Soviet Air Force. Yeah, that's tragic and all, but it would be nice to have it noted somewhere that the reason Stalin bombed it was because they were allied with Hitler.
Chris Doss The Russia Journal