In the meantime, those who are looking for some grist for the anti-Baltics-in-NATO mill have available such fare as that recently offered by the prestigious American literary magazine, The Atlantic Monthly. Published in Boston, it covers weighty issues of the day in a lofty manner.
It is not especially known for its coverage of world affairs, but has recently covered such topics as the future of Russia and NATO enlargement. Some of this has already been covered in The Baltic Times, but the latest issue carries the next chapter in the evolving efforts of The Atlantic Monthly to throw light on the issue of the Baltic countries joining NATO.
The magazine's May 2001 issue featured a provocative article titled "Russia is finished." The author was Jeffrey Tayler, a Westerner who lives in Moscow and serves as the magazine's Moscow correspondent.
Tayler's bottom line is that, "...within a few decades Russia will concern the rest of the world no more than any Third World country with abundant resources, an impoverished people, and a corrupt government. In short, as a great power, Russia is finished."
Tayler backs this up reasonably well, citing numerous indicators of Russia's fall. Where Russia will stand as a nation a decade or two from now is anybody's guess, but Tayler is to be commended for his frankness.
Few others have dared go out on such a limb about Russia's future.
Mr. Tayler was heard from next in the February 2002 issue of the magazine in a piece titled, "The next threat to NATO" and subtitled "The Baltics are knocking at NATO's door.
Don't let them in."
Here, Tayler seeks to build a case against Baltic membership in NATO, throwing up one objection after another, from military to political to social.
If these standards were applied to NATO's present membership, only the United States and perhaps Great Britain and Germany would be left standing as deserving members of the alliance.
Tayler seems to be making the point that size and military muscle should be the only considerations for admission to NATO.
Tayler's lead argument against the Baltics is that allowing them into NATO will upset Russia too much and cause it to make trouble for the West. (Tayler takes Russia's side throughout the article.)
Tayler continues in this appeasing tone, as he goes on and on about the supposed repression of the large Russian minorities in especially Estonia and Latvia.
He consigns those Russians to being little more than fifth-columnists loyal only to Russia (yet doesn't take the next logical step by advocating their return to Mother Russia).
Now, in its recently issued May 2002 number, The Atlantic Monthly has published three letters to the editor in reaction to Tayler's anti-Baltic piece. The three writers are Ojars Kalnins, a former U.S. resident now heading a policy institute in Riga, Girts Kristovskis, Latvia's minister of defense, and Algimantas Gecys, a prominent Lithuanian-American political activist from Philadelphia.
Tayler closes with his own rebuttal to the three letters.
Kalnins, in his letter, responds to Tayler's article by arguing that leaving the Baltics outside the alliance will likelier lead to military mischief by Russia than would taking the three countries into NATO.
Countering Tayler's assertion that Baltic membership in NATO will pose "unsettling strategic risks for Russia," Kalnins points out that the Baltic borders are remarkably stable in contrast to the instability elsewhere along Russia's rim, and that having the Baltics as NATO members will further increase Russia's zone of "secure, reliable, democratic neighbors."
Kristovskis is the only one who seeks to rebut Tayler on the Russian minority issue, noting that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe just closed its monitoring missions in the Baltics, finding them in compliance with human rights standards, and that other international human rights organizations have given the Baltics a clean bill of health on human rights as well.
He adds that Tayler "...offers a narrow, one-sided view of the real situation in the Baltics and misrepresents the social situation inside Latvia in particular."
In the last letter, Gecys focuses on the accomplishments of the Baltics, such as their allocation of required funds for defense, their peacekeeping missions in the Balkans and elsewhere, and their cooperation in the global fight against terrorism.
Gecys finds that the Baltics meet today's standard for NATO admission.
In his rebuttal to the three letters, Tayler basically dismisses them out of hand.
On countering Kalnins' arguments, he resorts to outmoded and overwrought concerns, positing that the security of the West is at stake over the matter; that the West needs the cooperation of Russia "...now more than ever..."; that with the Baltics in NATO, the alliance would have the potential to deploy nuclear weapons within 150 kilometers of St. Petersburg (nuclear weapons in the Baltics?); and, how "...sensitive the Russians still are about territories they once ruled."
Hardly a valid or legitimate concept in the bunch.
Continuing in much the same vein, Tayler takes Kristovskis to task on the Russian minority issue. He argues that it is the Baltic Russians' perception of how they are being treated, not the opinions of the OSCE, that would constitute a problem for NATO.
In addition, Tayler schools Kristovskis on the West's relationship with Russia, concluding that "...Russian suspicion of the West shows no signs of abating...."
Tayler acknowledges the Gecys letter without cogent comment.
This debate in The Atlantic Monthly on Baltic admission to NATO should be welcomed and Tayler is to be recommended for his efforts. Most of his arguments, however, are more in the realm of supposition, and practically all are worst-case scenarios.
As Kristovskis said in his letter, "If Tayler's article opposing the Baltic states' membership in NATO represents the strongest case to be made against NATO enlargement, my confidence that Latvia will soon join the alliance has been increased."
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