Latvia may come to regret playing host to Nato's summit - by Toby Helm
The flags of 26 Nato nations fluttered in the chilly Baltic breeze and you could feel the Latvian nation almost bursting with pride at joining the West.It is less than three years since this former Soviet satellite was admitted both to the EU and to Nato. Yesterday and today — as if in celebration — it is playing host to a gathering of the Western alliance at which issues affecting global defence and the war on terror will be played out.
Vaira Vike-Freiberga, the Latvian President, milked the moment, however, welcoming us by announcing the summit was "fitting recognition of the immense progress that Latvia and other former captive nations have made in the past 15 years". Never mind that Latvia has just 30 troops in the 31,000-strong Nato force in Afghanistan, compared with 11,800 from America and more than 6,000 from Britain: it has got its club membership and is enjoying it. The danger for Latvia, however, is that Riga 2006 could go down as a critical moment of failure for the Nato alliance it has just entered. Rather than highlighting transatlantic togetherness and European unity on defence, it threatens to do exactly the reverse.
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