Not too many months ago, George Will warned that Vladimir Putin wants to destroy NATO; and that he can accomplish this by forcing a showdown that NATO is simply unwilling to accept. In other words, by backing down NATO--thereby making it impotent and entirely irrelevant.
From
The Times of London:
:
President Putin is using the threat of a nuclear showdown over the Baltic states to force Nato to back away from Russia’s border, according to notes of a secret meeting between intelligence figures from Moscow and Washington.
Western security chiefs are braced for the Kremlin to begin a series of “destabilising actions” in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania that would directly challenge Nato’s mutual defence pledge.
These could involve civil disturbances involving local ethnic Russians, or a cyberattack that could not be definitely traced back to Moscow.
Here is the link:
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/europe/article4399758.ece