NATO spokesman James Appathurai said "NATO states back a U.S. call to show the alliance is prepared to defend Baltic members Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania from any attack after Russia's intervention in Georgia" and in the same press report Kurt Volker said, "We will have to make sure ... that the Article 5 commitment is realizable, not just as a political matter, but as a military matter too."
(Reuters, September 3, 2008)
The US State Department's Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried, visiting Lithuania in October, said "Lithuania is a NATO member, and NATO is a serious organization, and Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which provides for collective security, is a serious obligation," and speaking as it were ex officio for the Alliance further affirmed that "NATO is now authorized to do what it should do: to revise how the Alliance is ready to fulfill its obligations under Article 5."
(Interfax, October 3, 2008)
While also in the capital of Lithuania, the US's top military commander, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, reiterated that "NATO's commitment under Article Five for mutual defence is a very real commitment and it is one that NATO, I am confident, would stand up to."
(Reuters, October 22, 2008)
In meeting with US Pentagon chief Robert Gates in November of last year, Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip was confident that "NATO will operate under the principle of Article 5 of the alliance's treaty, which states that an attack on one ally is treated as an attack on all," and added "NATO has plans to defend all members of the alliance."
(U.S. Department of Defense, November 12, 2008)
The Pentagon's Press Secretary Geoff Morrell characterized Gates's own position as wanting to "send a very strong signal of his support for Ukraine and the Baltic States and our other NATO allies from Eastern Europe that the United States stands firmly behind them."
(Voice of America News, November 11, 2008)
A month before NATO Supreme Allied Commander (and top military chief of the Pentagon's European Command) General John Craddock had dropped the final veil and, in recounting that "Prior to the Russian incursion in Georgia, Nato members had refused to draw up plans to fight the Russian military in Eastern Europe," now "has asked for the political authority to draw up contingency defence plans at a Nato meeting in Budapest later this week."
Indeed, "Nato's top military commander has demanded the authority to draw up detailed military plans to defend former Soviet bloc members for the first time since the alliance expanded eastward" and he "has already proposed that Estonia, the Baltic state that has a 20 per cent Russian speaking minority, should be the first country to undergo a formal military risk assessment."
(The Telegraph, October 7, 2008)
Craddock has taken the call by the Polish foreign minister recorded above to its logical conclusion - to actively prepare NATO for war in Europe, namely on its northeast frontier - one which has been intensified evenly more dangerously this year at the Munich Security Conference in this month and since.
This year's acceleration of those plans will be detailed after a brief chronicle of how NATO has matched its pronouncements with actions.
During the last few months alone the following initiatives have been added to NATO's buildup in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania:
In mid-September General Roger Brady, US military air forces in Europe and NATO allies air forces chief, visited Lithuania and inspected its main airbase. In late October Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff was in Lithuania meeting with President Valdas Adamkus, where "Adamkus expressed confidence that NATO is a guarantee of security for the Baltic states, while Mullen spoke of the United States as a reliable ally of Lithuania...."
(Interfax, October 22, 2008)
Also in October NATO conducted the Strong Shield 2008 war games in Lithuania which trained over a thousand troops from the three Baltic states for the Baltic Battalion to be assigned to the NATO Response Force. NATO warplanes from the US, Poland and Denmark conducted Quick Reaction Alert exercises over Baltic skies.
In the same month the US warship the USS Doyle joined a Lithuanian counterpart for joint naval drills in the Baltic Sea. In November NATO held the Viking '08 military exercises in Latvia to train and integrate NATO and Partnership for Peace forces.
Days later the NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency confirmed that it would provide Lithuania with advanced air radar.
Still in November, the US 493rd EFS [Expeditionary Fighter Squadron] deployed to the Siauliai airbase in Lithuania "to provide air policing for the independent and democratic (4) nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to fulfill NATO air defense commitments in the region."
(United States European Command, November 20, 2008)
At the end of the month the Czech Republic stated that its newly acquired supersonic Jas-39 Gripens would be tested out in the Baltic in "the biggest Czech military mission in modern history."
(Czech News Agency, November 25, 2008)
In the beginning of last December it was reported that "The Baltic states are interested in entering into talks with Nordic nations about the basis for a regional defense strategy under the so-called Nordic-Baltic 8 format" and that the "Baltic governments are working on a common air-defense solution with NATO." (Defense News, December 3, 2008)
On the same day it was reported that Lithuania called for the extension of Baltic patrols by NATO warplanes for another decade, until 2018, and issued a draft that included the call for "the deployment of allied forces or ....Sea, airport and other infrastructures necessary for or incoming back-up forces in Lithuanian territory".
("Permanent NATO mission priority for Lithuania," Baltic Times, December 3, 2008)
A week later the US hosted the 2009 BALTOPS exercise, which gathered together delegations from Britain, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and the United States - that is the expanded Baltic front against Russia - with the head of the German naval delegation saying, "Normally, we don't train with the United States, so this is the only time we have training with Americans inside the Baltic. It's a very important thing."
(United States European Command, December 10, 2008)
On the same day NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer met with Latvian President Valdis Zatlers and NATO spokesman James Appathurai pledged an "increase of NATO presence and visibility in both Ukraine and in Georgia. The same is about Latvia you know, we're going to increase NATO visibility in Latvia including air policing and training, military training, and also military exercises."
(NATO International, December 10, 2008)
Later in the month the US Air Force and NATO dispatched engineers for the expansion and upgrading of Lithuanian air basing capacities with an American Air Force officials stating: "This base is undergoing an evolution and as new NATO partners, we can help them expand to allow more aircraft to occupy this space. The airbase will be a first-rate, top-of-the-line fighter base once everything's complete."
(United States European Command, December 19, 2008)
At the 2009 Munich Security Conference British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said:
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