NewsTracker Answers for week of Apr 09, 2018

Q: Russia last week started a live-fire military exercise in the Baltic Sea, just outside of NATO territorial waters just a day after President Donald Trump met with leaders of the Baltic States. Where are the NATO nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea?

Circle the area on this map


Q: As members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Baltic States are allies of the United States and 25 other nations all pledged to defend each other from armed attacks. Which of these NATO members does NOT border the Baltic Sea?

A. Denmark

B. Germany

C. Poland

D. Norway


D. Norway is on the western and northern edges of the Scandinavian Peninsula and does not border the Baltic Sea on the east shore of the peninsula. Besides the NATO members Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Denmark, Germany and Poland, the Baltic Sea is bordered by Russia and the neutral nations of Sweden and Finland.


Q: The Baltic States have long felt themselves on the front line of conflict with Russia. The nations are celebrating the 100th anniversary of declaring independence from the Russian Empire. What other nation has dominated the Baltic States?

A. Germany

B. Poland

C. Sweden

D. All of the above


D. Through crusades and wars the Baltic States have fallen to other Northern European forces many times. After declaring independence during World War I, the Baltic States were occupied by the Russian-led Soviet Union during World War II. They regained independence in 1991 as the Soviet Union dissolved.


Q: After criticizing other NATO nations about defense spending, President Trump last year did commit to the alliance’s principle that an attack on one NATO nation is an attack on them all. What is the only nation that has ever been protected by that article of the NATO treaty?

A. Britain

B. France

C. Germany

D. United States


D. The September 11 attacks in the United States caused NATO to invoke the common defense Article 5 of the NATO Charter for the first time in the organization's history.


Q: During his presidential campaign, Trump called NATO “obsolete.” The alliance was formed in 1949 at the start of the Cold War with the Soviets. What military alliance did the Soviet Union and its “satellite” states form in 1955?

A. Communist Manifesto

B. Grand Alliance

C. Treaty of Moscow

D. Warsaw Pact


D. Several of today’s NATO nations were once members of the Warsaw Pact alliance as parts of the Soviet Union or the nations it dominated. Russian President Vladimir Putin, a former Soviet spy, has strongly opposed NATO expansion into those areas and said Russia could target NATO sites if it felt threatened.