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VILNIUS, LITHUANIA — There are few places where Donald Trump’s recent erratic musings – policy would be too strong a word – about America’s commitment to her NATO allies would cause more upset than here. Lithuania has been a NATO member since 2004. At the Warsaw summit this month, the military alliance committed troops to Poland and the Baltic states precisely to signal its commitment to collective security in the face of Russian aggression under President Vladimir Putin.

Having invaded and annexed Crimea, and invaded and fomented civil war in eastern Ukraine, Putin is moving troops in a menacing fashion along his border with Estonia and Latvia. Lithuania doesn’t share a border on the east with Russia – not that the buffer of Belarus offers much comfort, should Moscow choose an incursion – but one on the west, from Kalinigrad, a Russian exclave that serves more or less as a military base.

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The NATO decision to dispatch a modest number of American troops to Poland, British troops to Estonia, Canadian troops to Latvia and German troops to Lithuania is meant to dissuade Putin from any further misbehaviour. The NATO guarantee of collective security is essential to that, though few expect that America, Britain, Canada or Germany would do more than offer sharp words should Putin’s troops actually spill over the border. Still, the NATO guarantee, if NATO is to have any useful role whatsoever, must be maintained. Thus Trump’s wavering was both irresponsible and dangerous.