WAIT, THE BALTICS ARE EVEN FURTHER FROM THE BELTWAY!:

This is where Pence, who already tried to assuage European anxiety during the Munich Security Conference shortly after Trump's inauguration, comes in.   

"I think there is no question that Vice President Pence is meant to be the grown-up in the White House when it comes to European security and NATO policy," said Norman Naimark, professor of East European Studies, History and German Studies at Stanford University via email. "I think it is a very good move on the part of the White House, maybe encouraged by the State Department, to send Pence to these countries," he told DW.

The aim of the vice president's trip, said Mariya Omelicheva, a scholar of Eurasian security at the University of Kansas, is to "reiterate the US' continued commitment to Euro-Atlantic security, NATO, and the latter's collective defense principle. As a candidate and, now, the President, Trump made the East and Central European states, the former members of the Warsaw pact and republics of the Soviet Union, very nervous."

Pence, argued Naimark, due to his political background and his low-key style, is well positioned for what amounts to the vice president's second reassurance mission to Europe.

Drown out the Washington noise

"As a conservative Republican, he will also try to convince these nervous allies, who really do look to us for protection, that the incessant 'noise' in Washington about the Trump administration playing footsies with the Russians does not mean that the US will sacrifice their interests to a Moscow-Washington agreement," said Naimark, who also serves as fellow at the Hoover Institution.

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