The seventh and final installment is "On Russia's Doorstep: Bringing in the Baltics"
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“I’m against NATO enlargement. When NATO approaches the borders of the Russian Federation, you can say that there will be two military blocs, and this will be a restoration of what we already had.”
Indeed, the Lithuanian President was so bold as to directly "apply" for NATO membership via a letter (which had never been done).
(Thx @NATO#Archives for 👇)
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By the mid-1990s, due to the Balkan Wars, @NATO was focusing on deploying Peacekeeping operations.
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As a 1999 editorial in the Norwegian paper @Aftenposten remarked,
"BALTBAT almost functions as a preparatory school for NATO membership"
“Quite bluntly, the Russians need to get over the neuralgia on this
subject [of Baltic membership]"
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