In the Baltics, Rearmament Clashes With Regressive Taxes

In the week that NATO met in Ankara, calls for rearmament are reshaping political life across Europe. In the Baltic states, where the Russian threat is felt as most immediate, governments are already fast pushing defense spending up toward 5 percent of GDP. Much has already been written about the morality of militarization and its effects on civil society. But looking at rearmament in Estonia and Latvia — two of the European Union countries devoting the biggest share of their budgets to the…