I think it depends on the country. I would agree with the assessment that in the Baltics the fear of aggression is exaggerated. It does help to unify the countries and it does help—or tries—to unify NATO. At least for now, NATO remains a very strong organization. As long as NATO still remains strong and still shows its support for the far eastern flank of NATO, I think the Russians will realize that NATO membership does mean something. I think the Baltic states and Poland are in much better shape than some of the other former Soviet states.
On the plus side for other states in the former Soviet Union, as one of the previous members said, Russia is stretched thin militarily. It is in Ukraine and it is in Syria, so its ability to do something again is questionable, but I think that in certain places there is a greater threat. Small countries such as Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are pretty much are in Russia's pocket economically, so I don't see any huge switch. The transition in Uzbekistan so far has been going very smoothly, so I don't see that as a huge place....
The one place I'm a little concerned about is Kazakhstan. It shares a very long border with Russia. It does have a Russian-speaking population in the north. This is a country that has a very close alliance with Russia, and it's one that's very nervous. The people are nervous. When you go there, you hear concerns about the way in which the country is presented in the Russian media. If you watch Russian media, you can see that they talk about the threat, about the possibility of extremism coming right up to the Russian border. I'm not sure they would replicate the situation the same way that they did in Ukraine to defend Russian interests, but Kazakhstan also has uranium banks. It has a whole bunch of things that you want to make sure never get into the hands of terrorists.
I think that if there's ever an indication that Kazakhstan might look unstable, or if it's pivoting too close to the west, that's a time when Russia might do something and just to go in. I'm very impressed with mid-level Kazak government officials. Kazakhstan has invested a lot of money in sending its government officials for education to places such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Canada, the United States, and the U.K. When you meet these people, you find that they might be at the deputy minister level, and they really kind of “get it” the way that we would get it.
I think Russia is probably very terrified that one of these people would gain a lot of power. Kazakhstan, given the long border and given the Russian media narrative that it is possibly a place that could be unstable, I think is a place to be concerned about as well.