We recently traveled to the Netherlands and Norway on a Portland Best Practices trip and then Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania on our TenBridge Baltic Bike Ride. Finished up in Poland to visit family. During the trip, we met with public officials and public sector leaders in the Netherlands and Norway. We took tours of several beautiful and peaceful cities and had opportunities to share great food and beverages with many locals, and in general, absorb the land and the people. Even though people in the Baltics have a stern exterior, they bloom like flowers when you engage with them in conversation!
What it reminds me of, and we realized, is our relationship with these Scandinavian, Baltic, and European countries is forged on decades of cooperation born from common suffering, war, death, fighting, and common cause, not money. When we look at our friends and family across the Atlantic, and if we treat them like they are an economic transaction – whether in terms of trade or in terms of defense spending to maintain European security, we completely miss the point. This approach to our international relationships deeply hurts feelings that could take decades to repair.
Maybe we do have an unequal balance of trade. Maybe we do take on more burden in paying for mutual defense than some of our partners. But I would bet the feelings of respect and admiration are not so imbalanced, and we owe our friends a greater level of respect than we are giving them.
The three Baltic states are a little over 67,000 square miles; Oregon is over 98,000 square miles. There are 7.5 million people in the Baltics, and they have a GDP of around 169 billion. There are 4.2 million people in Oregon with a GDP of around 265 billion. You can’t even compare the two, but it certainly puts size and wealth into perspective.
When traveling in the Baltic region you can feel the scars and dark clouds of Nazi and especially Soviet occupation still today, even though they achieved independence from the Soviet Union in August of 1991. But hundreds of years of being occupied by someone are not easily erased in a little over 30 years. If Russia were to invade the Baltics, I have no doubt they would put up a massive fight, but they wouldn’t stand a chance.
Talking with local people you can feel a sense of betrayal and fear because their most admired family members, that’s us, have taken a stand against them, at least in rhetoric and words, they can’t explain. As one public official put it in Norway, “When it was said ‘if NATO members don’t pay, the USA won’t defend them’ you have no idea the shock wave that sent rippling through our country.”
The families, friends, and people across the Atlantic and along our borders are our allies, and they have always assumed we were theirs. Much like a wealthier relative or family member might pick up a little more than their share on the restaurant tab, so too the United States is one of the wealthiest most productive countries on the planet, and we might be somewhat gracious and pay a little more than our share. Most people don’t realize, the GDP of all Scandinavia, the European Union, UK, Canada and Mexico combined is roughly $27 trillion dollars, whereas the GDP of the United States is roughly $30 trillion.
I don’t get political, and I am not passionate about politics. It is a subject that truly bores me. We have many clients, family, and friends on both sides of the aisle and some on neither side. So, my appeal is to the broad base of our hundreds of listeners.
Please don’t forget the people I am talking about are our friends and our long-term allies; they are not an economic transaction.
I’d love to hear your thoughts and gain from your perspective.
My two cents or twenty, as you see fit.
From the desk of
Erik Lawrence CFP®
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