It’s a long way from the Caribbean, the South China Sea and the Gulf but Venezuela, China and Iran landed marines on the Baltic coast this month for a round of war games hosted by Russia, which has fostered defence ties with all three countries. They showed off their stuff in the sand and water of a test range in the Kaliningrad region. Perhaps in order to indicate to Washington that a U.S. invasion against any of these four would be militarily responded to by all of the four.