They destroyed some of it themselves... like the early-warning radar (which they might've profitably leased to Russia for a decade and a half until the Voronezh-DM at Lehtusi was built). Also chunks of Soviet Army assets from Belarus and Ukraine were also returned to Russia (a prime example, the mobile Topol units in Belarus, which could've been kept by Belarus, and eventually destroyed, but instead were returned for free).
In all honesty NATO is a bit overstretched as is. I'm not sure Romania, or the Baltic states, made good additions, given how impoverished and militarily un-valuable they are.
Feanor simple question you said in the last lines of ur reply that you are not sure about the baltic states mainly because of their crappy at best armies.
But does the umbrella of NATO not provide a security guarantee?
I mean yes the baltic states are ina relative bad shape army wise and to some degree in a political way but who is going to attack a NATO member knowing that by doing this the whole of NATO will come down on them?
Keep in mind the backbone nations of NATO, US, UK, France, Germany to name a few are not exactly little puppies combined they can muster a credible response and if everything else fails and the rest of NATO is going to commit their resources and assents to a crisis situation then honestly who want to face and fight that?
There are world wide only a few nations that have the strenght, resources and funding to pull such a thing off and imo those few nations must be completely out of their minds to do so....
On the otherhand honestly speaking i believe that NATO itself would love to walk away from any confrontation if it really comes down to it, however that is not saying that they will leave their members out to dry there...my point is NATO is a slow and massive body and disisions take ages....but ones they are made its FINAL we all know that.
Not sure if i am right but conventional no nation has the strenght to defeat NATO ( Well maybe i say it wrong but facing the whole of NATO is suicide....)
Even with the political and economic unrest in the EU which at this point is bad i mean greece, Italy, spain and portugal are 4 nations that put NATO and the EU in heavy water.....economic wise having that said NATO itself (With or without US) is a solid alliance and correct me if wrong but there are 2 things in the world you are not going to do: 1 attack the US, 2 attack a NATO member...doing that will end up in a huge war where given the technological, production, cash flow advantages that the average NATO members have will draw the line who is going to win or not..agree?
Infact i dare to venture to say that NATO (Without US) is nearly equal to the US army wise.
Sure the US might be a big better but numerical and overall i believe that NATO as a body (Not counting US itself) is pretty much on the same page as US.
And then again today things are differend ALOT differend with worldwide resources shrinking, economic unrest and so on...20 years ago there was a clear goal and a clear " enemy" which was russia and since the USSR did fall apart this enemy and goal faded away and NATO lost its true goals and beliefs.
My point here is that IF there would be a clear enemy then things within the EU and NATO would be alot easier as everyone knows what to do and whats on the table.
Nowadays even the US has trouble to oversee the many challenges worldwide and to monitor upcomming nations as others did say in the past its a dynamic fast changing world and i believe that this is what weakens the NATO alliance.