Russia is currently conducting massive military exercises in the Baltic country of Belarus, which, significantly, sits on the border of the Baltic states and Poland – countries Russia has overtly threatened in recent months.  The imagined scenario is to defend against foreign-backed extremists from invading. But some experts claim we've seen this before. Foreign Policy: Russian exercises have a habit of becoming real. The Kavkaz (“Caucasus”) maneuvers in 2008 were basically a dry run for the invasion of Georgia. The last version of Zapad in 2013 preceded Russian action against Ukraine. The most notorious exercise of all was in 1981, when massive maneuvers were used to intimidate Communist Poland into suppressing the Solidarity movement. The fear this time is that Russian troops might manufacture an excuse to stay behind. In which case, the same scenario of nationalist extremists could be used as an excuse to “save” Lukashenko or even...(Read Full Post)