Baltic States or Countries

Latvians too often are their own enemy because there are so many basic things that ought to be done to improve the prosperity of Latvia that have little to no cost to do them. One overt example is that Latvians refer to their country as a State and the region as the Baltic States. This is a problem because most English speaking people have an experience with States being a subsidiary of a country. Australia and the USA are examples of countries made up of States. So what country is the Latvia State a subsidiary of - Russia?
Considering that most English speaking people are not too familiar with Latvia they tend to think that Latvia is a breakaway state of the Soviet Union. They are not so aware that Latvia regained independence. Instead of attempting to educate the world it would be a much easier to remove disinformation and refer to ourselves in Latvia as a country.
An image of a country is a valuable asset for the people of that country. Many companies work at avoiding associations that damage their image. But Latvia is active in undermining its own image.