The main task of all military organizations is to be prepared for hostilities or to create the conditions to get the peace showing their strength. During the Cold War the “balance of terror” guaranteed five decades of stability to the world.

 WikiLeaks cables has revealed secret NATO plans to defend Baltics from Moscow. The decision to draft them was taken earlier this year at request of the United States and Germany at the Northern Atlantic Alliance headquarters. The White House also offered to beef up Polish security against Russia by deploying naval and air forces to the region.

 In those months Washington and Moscow were toughly negotiating the new START agreement and President Barack Obama was promoting a new approach to the former foes. The 21^st century challenges need new solutions and an agreement among the most developed countries is desirable. Negotiations with the Kremlin were successful at last, and Russia was later invited to join a section of the western security system at Lisbon’s summit in November.

 It would have been surprising whether the NATO had not prepared plans to protect its allies in Eastern Europe. In the cables it is written that this planning is an “internal process designed to make the Alliance as prepared as possible for future contingencies” and “it is not ‘aimed’ at any other country.” Relationships with Russia began to be strained after Saint Petersburg’s G8 summit in 2006. A cyber-attack on Estonia in 2007 was believed to have originated in Russia, and the war broke out in Georgia a year later. Russia’s foreign ministry said it was “bewildered” by revelations edited by the British newspaper The Guardian, but this kind of reaction is part of the game.