The Tories must commit to more defence spending in the next parliament

Nato is 65 years old this year; but there’s little cause for celebration. The Defence Select Committee’s latest report suggests that the populations of western Europe and North America are lukewarm about Nato’s collective defence guarantee – the principle that an attack on one Nato member is an attack on all. Paragraph 70 quotes research conducted in the aftermath of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Georgia in 2008; it found that less than 50 per cent of the populations of major Nato powers would support the defence of the Baltic States if they were attacked.

The report explains that the substantial Russian minorities in Latvia and Estonia, under the influence of invasive Russian media, are vulnerable to ‘information warfare’ and of ‘inciting disturbances that have caused such chaos in Ukraine.’ The report also notes that Lithuania is strategically attractive to Russia, as it would allow the Russian enclave at Kaliningrad to be linked to mainland Russia through Belarus.