The Baltic States and capability of their Armed Forces

,

The three small Baltic nations (
Estonia,
Latvia and

Lithuania) are since the spring 2004 full members of NATO and this paper aims to evaluate how they are coping.

A background into their history in the last century

As the result of the Russian revolution and WW 1 these three small countries gained independence and lives an uneasy life up the break out of WW 2, where they were occupied by the
Soviet Union. With the attack on the Soviet Union by Nazi-Germany they were occupied/liberated by

Germany. The Soviet operations leading to the defeat of Nazi-Germany generally bypassed to be dealt with later.

This proved to be a long process as the terrain and a number of combat experienced veterans of German service (with no other prospect than the firing squad) kept on fighting. Any attempt to help this resistance failed abysmally. In spite of the hopelessness of the situation it was not before the mid 1950