"Putin has every incentive to stir up trouble in Estonia, because it is the point of maximum contradiction between the geopolitical idealism of NATO expansion, and the realpolitik factors by which world affairs are actually driven. As such, it is the point of maximum weakness for the alliance. NATO is obligated to fight for Narva or admit that Article Five is a lie, but NATO has no strategic or moral justification for doing so, and would be intervening to prevent a genuinely oppressed local population from exercising self-determination. In effect, then, NATO would become complicit in that oppression through its actions. Putin could ask for no better battlefield."