NATO made Western soldiers out of former Soviet officers

Lithuania focusing on rapid-deployment brigades instead of Navy

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By Kaius Niemi in Klaipeda and Vilnius
     
      Commander Arturas Andrusaitis from the Lithuanian Navy twists his finger against his temple. "If someone had told me twenty years ago that I will serve as a NATO officer in the Navy of an independent Lithuania, I would have considered them crazy", Andrusaitis says at the navy terminal in Klaipeda.
      Andrusaitis, a middle-aged officer who has served in the Soviet Navy in the Caspian and Baltic Seas, has been able to witness first-hand the rapid shifts in world history, as have many other officers in the Baltic states.
      From a naval academy in Azerbaijan, Andrusaitis wound up in the United States to learn more about his trade after the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
      Many aspects of the working environment have not actually changed that much, but the world around it has changed substantially. Many of the people who were responsible for the naval forces in the Baltic Sea region during the Cold War continue to hold their posts.
      "On the Black Sea and in Latvia, there are still familiar faces who served on the same ships with me during the Soviet days", Andrusaitis explains.
     
Klaipeda is located close to Kaliningrad, the small wedge of land squeezed between Poland and Lithuania that belongs to Russia. Swedish, German, and Russian occupying troops have marched through Klaipeda over the years.
      From the balcony of the theatre in the historic city centre, Adolf Hitler proclaimed in 1939 that the town belongs to Germany. Only a little over a decade ago, there was a statue of Lenin in downtown Klaipeda.
      During the morning rush hour on a cold dreary morning, no one's thoughts seem to go back to the Soviet statue, but the memories naturally affect everyday security thinking.
      "We live in the meeting point of the East and the West. It is important to us to grow closer to the West. Russia is not an everyday problem. The proximity is more of a psychological problem", observed Klaipeda resident Saulius Rudnickas.
     
Jolanta Junduliene, who works in a travel agency, points out that Lenin can be viewed nowadays in the exposition of Soviet statues in Grutas park in southern Lithuania by those "who want to be nostalgic about that time".
      "In NATO and the European Union we are safe from Russia. The fifty years under Soviet rule were not a good time. Now the relations between the countries are better", the middle-aged Junduliene says.
      However, it has been difficult for Russia to accept the fact that Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have joined NATO. Russian newspapers have published suspicions that the Baltic-wide radar system will be used to spy on Russia, and that the Lithuanian naval officers are seriously well informed about Russian vessels and their combat capabilities.
     
"The way we see it is that the knowledge is beneficial for us, because we know our neighbour a bit better. There is nothing more to it", explains Oleg Marinic, Chief of Staff of the Lithuanian Navy. He remarks that many of his colleagues have experience from Soviet submarines and the nuclear missiles that they carry.
      What will this information be worth in NATO? "No representatives of NATO have asked me anything, and I have not heard that anybody else would have been questioned either", Marinic says.
      The NATO membership will not lead to any dramatic changes for the Lithuanian Navy. In practice, when the operations started from scratch after independence in 1991, everything was designed with NATO in mind.
      The naval officers have been trained mostly in the United States, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Germany. At present, 24 Lithuanian naval officers are abroad studying.
     
According to Linas Linkevicius, the Lithuanian Minister of Defence, few investments have been made in the Navy and Air Force over the past few years due to the imminent NATO membership. The traditional, regional defence policies are moving to the sidelines.
      "We no longer speak about Lithuania's responsibility to defend her land - this task now concerns all of NATO", Linkevicius explains. "We are aiming to develop rapid-deployment brigades equipped for NATO operations by 2008."
      At the moment, there are around one hundred Lithuanian soldiers in Iraq. Lithuania is also participating in peace-keeping missions in Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Kosovo.
      Baltic airspace is now monitored by Belgian F-16 fighter jets. According to Chief of Staff Marinic, there are no plans to replace Lithuania's small Navy with more modern equipment from other NATO member states.
     
Two Russian-made light frigates and a minesweeper of German origin are docked at the Klaipeda naval base. The smaller patrolling vessels are off to the side. The total number of ships is ten.
      The minesweepers are the only vessels that Lithuania has allocated for joint NATO use. One of the ships is currently in Latvia on assignment. The weapons and communications systems of the Russian-built frigates are not sufficiently NATO-compatible, although they can participate in the alliance' s joint exercises on the Baltic Sea.
      War ships from numerous countries have recently visited the Klaipeda base, including a Norwegian and German submarine. Last year, two Russian minesweepers made an unofficial visit to Lithuania.
     
Raimundas Lopata, Director of the Institute of International Relations and Political Sciences at Vilnius University, feels that Russia continues to have a significant influence in the Baltic Sea region despite the NATO membership of the Baltic states.
      "At the moment, only Germany - just one country - has a stronger fleet than Russia has in Kaliningrad."
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 8.4.2004

More on this subject:
 Russia still sees NATO as threat in Baltic Sea region

KAIUS NIEMI / Helsingin Sanomat
kaius.niemi@hs.fi