#6
Chicago Tribune
January 3, 2001
NATO, Russia maneuver as Baltics watch
By Colin McMahon

VILNIUS, Lithuania -- The latest dialogue between NATO and Russia has raised concerns about how much influence Moscow might gain in the Western military alliance, but it has done nothing to shake the confidence of Lithuania, a former Soviet republic that has become a leading candidate to join NATO.

Like its Baltic neighbors Estonia and Latvia, Lithuania has spent several years and hundreds of millions of dollars improving its armed forces. The three hope to be invited into NATO at the alliance summit this November in Prague.

But Russia opposes NATO's eastward expansion, particularly in the Baltics. And some analysts are asking questions: How much say will Moscow have under a new NATO-Russia partnership unofficially dubbed, "NATO at 20"? And how much are the United States and its NATO allies willing to bow to Russia's concerns to entice Moscow to broaden its relationship with the West.

Vilnius officials suggest it will not be much on either score.

No real changes seen

"There has been discussion more than anything else," said Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus. "But I don't see any real changes. Russia's attitude has not changed much."

Last month in Brussels, foreign ministers from NATO's 19 nations approved creation of a new NATO-Russia council. Intended to give Moscow more of a say in NATO policymaking, the council is supposed to be in place by the end of May.

The goal, alliance members say, is to foster cooperation with Moscow on such issues as terrorism, arms control and peacekeeping. But this expanded role, alliance members now insist, will not amount to a Russian veto over NATO decisions.

"The alliance will retain the right to act on any issue whether or not it has been discussed with Russia," U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said.

Adamkus went further. He said the proposal to significantly expand Russia's role on NATO policy from its current advisory one, first made in Moscow by NATO General Secretary Lord Robertson, was akin to a trial balloon.

"I believe this was more or less a political move to test the borders and to see what the reactions will be on both sides," Adamkus said.

So far, the reaction has been mixed, even within governments.

U.S. officials are split. Some view Russia as neither very trustworthy nor very relevant. Some want to reward Russian President Vladimir Putin for his efforts to integrate Russia into the West. Roughly, this places Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on one side and Powell on the other.

NATO's newest inductees, the former east bloc nations of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, are pushing for more expansion. They joined NATO in large part to ensure protection from Russia. The Cold War may be over, but the Poles, Czechs and Hungarians understand why the Baltic states might fear a revived Russia with a history of imperialism.

Lithuanian diplomats say the Scandinavian nations are clearly in their corner. Germany, long ambivalent on expansion into the Baltics, has offered more encouragement as well, said Rytis Paulauskas, who directs the department of multilateral relations in Lithuania's Foreign Ministry.

As for Britain and Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has been pushing NATO to open up to Russia, Lithuania insists it does expect London to turn its back.

Putin, meanwhile, has become more coy on NATO expansion. In a recent speech in Helsinki he acknowledged that independent states have a right to choose the groups to which they belong. Though that would seem self-evident to most people, in Russia and Eastern Europe, Putin's statement was greeted as more evidence of his modern thinking.

"If you analyze the Putin comments, you can see the changes," Paulauskas said. "How quickly will that filter down into the political and military elite is the big question."

Putin has floated the provocative if, for now, unrealistic idea of Russia entering NATO. He lobbies most consistently for a NATO "transformation"--a word Lithuania's Adamkus made a point of avoiding--in which the defense alliance would become a political organization. Few in NATO are keen on that.

If NATO does expand, particularly to include one or all of the Baltic states, Putin would come under strong pressure from Russia's military and diplomatic communities to make a stand. The Russian public would also consider NATO expansion another kick to the ribs.

But Putin swears that his efforts at partnership with the West are sincere.

"This new NATO-Russia partnership is mostly meaningless. It is for the benefit of the Russian public and for Putin," said Audrius Matonis, political editor for Baltic News Service in Vilnius. "For so many years Putin and others were telling Russia that NATO was bad. Now Putin has a reason to say why the attitudes have changed. He can say NATO is turning to a political group from a military group."

Moscow's concern

Russia's current argument against NATO expansion is basically this: If we are all friends now, why does a Western military organization feel compelled to advance right up to our border?

The Baltics answer this way: If we are all friends now, why should Russia care?

"The possibility of a real military conflict with Russia is very low," said Povilas Malakauskas, a vice minister of defense in Lithuania. "That is our evaluation. That is the evaluation of our Western partners. We hope it is the evaluation of Russia too."

The Lithuanians, like the Latvians and Estonians, argue that their membership in NATO would actually help Russia. The Baltic states and their military officers know better how to work with Russians, they say, so they can help Russia build links with its European neighbors.

The Baltic states also argue, though this strikes most Russian military officers as preposterous, that a NATO stretching across almost all of Europe would take away the last remaining threat of conflict with Russia. This would allow Russia to redeploy its stretched forces, funds and energies to the Caucasus and Central Asia.

"We cannot change our geography," said Malakauskas, who said Lithuania's building of an army almost from scratch has progressed even better than he thought possible. "Russia always was, is now and always will be our neighbor. The only way is to build a cooperative relationship."

Still, when Russian forces hold war games, they often have NATO in mind. A potential NATO attack on neighboring Belarus, an international pariah state but a close ally of Russia, was the theme of one training exercise last year. So, too, was a NATO blockade against the Russian Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad.

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