A nearly perfect marathon: the United States and the Baltic states’ accession to NATO

Kaarel Piirimäe

Journal of Baltic Studies, 2024, vol. 55, issue 3, 651-669

Abstract: Ron Asmus, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, liked to say that the Baltic states had to run a marathon to join NATO but could rely on the support of their American ‘coaches.’ Estonian diplomats have used the word ‘babysitter’ to describe their American colleagues. While it is true that the result of NATO enlargement was never inevitable, the uncertainties of the process were diminished by cooperation between candidate countries and the forces inside the US who pushed for enlargement. Without delving into their motives, this article traces the role of the US as ‘coaches’ and ‘babysitters’ in making the Baltic states’ ‘run’ toward NATO a nearly perfect marathon, despite all the pitfalls and doubts along the way.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01629778.2024.2370586 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rbalxx:v:55:y:2024:i:3:p:651-669

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rbal20

DOI: 10.1080/01629778.2024.2370586

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Baltic Studies is currently edited by Liisi Esse

More articles in Journal of Baltic Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().