Designing a military can be hard. Designing a military when your primary adversary is Russia is harder…and doing it with a defence budget that could fit within the scope of a single cost overrun on a Pentagon project is something else entirely. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are commonly referred to as the Baltic States, from 2004 until Finland’s accession to the organisation, sat relatively isolated on the Alliance’s Eastern flank.Today, we look at how these states perceive their environment, design their forces to counter the perceived threat – and why they have been some of the strongest advocates in both the EU and NATO for extensive support for Ukraine and a decisive defeat for the Russian Federation..