Publicly, the leaders of the Baltic nations say they cannot understand what the fuss is about over their wish to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Why should Russia be bothered, they ask with a self-assurance bordering on cockiness. Russia should be happy, they maintain with straight faces. Russia should want these three former Soviet republics to further align with the West and thus give the region more stability.
It is not working out that way.
Moscow has said, says now and by all accounts will continue to say that the admission of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania into the Western military alliance is unacceptable. Bad enough that Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary have gone NATO. (Admission of those nations, once part of the Warsaw Pact, still must be approved by the U.S. Senate.)
But the Baltics? Nyet, Moscow says, not Peter the Great’s window to the West.
Any Baltic entry into NATO remains a way off–three years, maybe more. The Baltics acknowledge that they are not even close to being ready militarily, yet the public-relations battle and the diplomatic wrangling are in full swing.
President Clinton and his Baltic counterparts signed a charter agreement in January that gives no defense guarantees but, among other things, sets up working groups on military and security issues. It was an important symbolic statement from an ally that provides Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania millions of dollars in military aid.
The Baltic desire for NATO protection is understandable. Though the peoples of all three nations suffered for centuries at the hands of German, Danish, Polish or Swedish invaders, most of the last 200 years have been spent under the Russian heel. That the Soviet Union has crumbled and the Russian Federation has become a democracy in the making does not wipe out a fear fostered over generations.
“The average Lithuanian is very concerned about . . . having such an unstable, big neighbor to the east,” said Egidijus Kuris, who directs the Institute of International Relations at the University of Vilnius. “The problem is that Russia is so unpredictable today.
“The crucial question is: Who after (President Boris) Yeltsin? What after Yeltsin? For many people, NATO will seem like a natural solution.”
This argument, that the Baltic nations and their 8 million inhabitants face a potential problem to the east, is soft-pedaled in Tallinn and the other capitals. The Baltic entry into NATO is painted cheerily as a kind of geopolitical win-win situation.
With an integrated Europe butting up to Russia, the argument goes, it would be more unstable if the Baltics form a kind of unaligned gray area–a vacuum, as one official said.
“If you start creating special conditions in some of these countries, that of course already means that you create different levels of integration, which already means less potential stability,” said Mart Laanemae of Estonia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry. “So from the point of view of having stable neighbors with whom you could deal, (NATO membership for the Baltics) is much better for Russia.”
NATO would not only help protect the Baltics from predators, the theory goes, it also would help ensure that they remain orderly and peaceful.
For Russia to appreciate this argument, some attitudes must change. Once Moscow accepts that NATO’s reason for being has evolved, that it is no longer the heavily armed bulwark against Soviet aggression, the Western alliance can be seen not as a threat but as a useful partner. This is the theory.
It also would help if Moscow, which accuses Estonia and Latvia of discriminating against ethnic Russians, could improve overall relations with its Baltic neighbors.
Aksel Kirch, a historian at the Center for European Research in Tallinn, said no one should expect Russia to acquiesce soon on NATO.
“Look where we are located,” Kirch said. “Estonia controls the Gulf of Finland. That’s a very important strategic channel for Russia. Besides, Estonia and Latvia have always been more European than Russia, very rich, very intelligent. They are a very important strategic and cultural bridge.
“Even more than that, it’s a symbol. The Russians have always thought of Latvia and Estonia as `Our West.’ “
The Lithuanians insist that Moscow is much closer to embracing the idea of a new NATO, a partner NATO, than the West, particularly the U.S., might assume.
Washington, the Lithuanians say while being careful not to criticize their ally, worries too much about the communists and ultranationalists in Russia who seek to exploit the NATO issue.
More than one Lithuanian official asserts that once NATO expansion in the Baltics becomes a reality, the Russians will shrug and move on.
This, more or less, was how Moscow reacted last year when NATO invited the Poles, the Czechs and the Hungarians to join.
“The Americans keep saying that the Russians are so sensitive to this and so sensitive to that,” said Jonas Kronkaitis, a vice minister of defense in Lithuania.
“Then the Russians say”–and here Kronkaitis raised his voice and threw up his hands in mock drama–” `Oh! How sensitive we are!’ “
If persuading the Russians that NATO expansion is good for them is one of the more unenviable diplomatic tasks of the post-Cold War world, then Kronkaitis and others like him across the Baltics have taken on military challenges that are no less daunting.
Kronkaitis, a Lithuanian-American who is a retired Army colonel, is charged with raising Lithuania’s armed forces to NATO standards. Among his hurdles are poor infrastructure, from barracks to boots; a lack of weaponry, from tanks to rifles; and an officer corps trained by the Soviets. Progress has been slow, and a realistic date for meeting Lithuania’s military goals has been pushed back to 2002.
Meanwhile, the diplomatic gamesmanship goes on.
