Book Talk: The Baltic States and Baltic Security in a Historical Context

The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the expansion of NATO to include Finland and Sweden has focused new attention on issues of security in the Baltic Sea region. This applies especially to the three Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, whose relations with Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union have been bedeviled by mutual perceptions of security threat and by the question of the rights and status of the Russian minorities in these countries. There is widespread fear in the West that these states could be the next objects of Russian aggression, while in Russia it is feared that they could be springboards for NATO intervention in Belarus. To discuss these issues, Anatol Lieven, director of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute, is joined by the Right Honorable Charles Clarke, editor and co-author of the recently published book of essays, Understanding the Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania Since 1991 (Hurst May 2023). As Mr. Clarke wrote in his introduction to the book, “the welfare of democratic society requires that public debate is based upon accurate accounts of history”, and this book is an attempt to provide such an account.