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Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is quite a challenge to be speaking at the Royal United Services Institute, the oldest institute of its kind in the world. An institute which since its inception has been at the cutting edge of international defence and security. Therefore, I am pleased and honoured to share with you Lithuania’s views on the security context in the Baltic Sea area, with a special focus on the value-added of Lithuania in an enlarged NATO. I shall start with the ministerial meeting of Reykjavik last week. Let me mention but two points. First, the commitment - I quote the meeting’s joint communiqué - “to continue to work with the aspirants to help them make sufficient progress to be invited to begin accession negotiations at Prague”.Second, the creation – I quote again - “of the NATO-Russia Council, where NATO member states and Russia will work as equal partners in areas of common interest, while preserving NATO's prerogative to act independently”. These two points, not exactly new in themselves, are ground-breaking when combined together. Their success will define the future of European security as a whole. And of the Baltic Sea region in particular.Back in the year 1993, when the Alliance started opening up, Baltic membership was not seriously considered. The first round of enlargement was mainly designed for the so-called Visehrad countries, with a special emphasis on Poland. Today, few doubt Baltic NATO membership. We have come a long way indeed.An important landmark along that way was the historic speech of President Bush in Warsaw last summer, where a clear security blueprint for Central and Eastern Europe was put forward. No nation should be used as pawn in the security agendas of others, he said. All of European democracies that seek and are ready to share the responsibilities that NATO brings should be able to join it. The September 11th terrorist attacks against the U.S. reinforced the American determination to go ahead with the enlargement. Support for Baltic NATO membership has increased in Europe as well, including the positions of Germany, France and the UK, for that matter. Somewhat earlier, in the person of President Putin, Russia too, during the state visit of Lithuanian President Adamkus to Moscow in the spring last year recognised Lithuania’s right to choose its security alliances.Today, the changing situation in the world and, I believe, our consistent, cooperative and constructive good neighbourly policy have led even those Russian politicians who might have dreamt about a possible trade-off, that is, access to Afghanistan for a stop to NATO enlargement, to realise that the imperative of common action based on common values is more important than outdated geopolitical calculations. As NATO’s Secretary General remarked some time ago, Russia finally realised that after September 11th there are many more important issues than obsession with Baltic NATO membership. It is generally agreed that the most recent wave of NATO enlargement was quite successful. We believe that the next one will be even more so. We hope that Prague will bring about a robust enlargement, and that the period between the invitations and actual membership will be short. We are convinced that integration of the new allies will be a positive contribution to NATO’s new agenda.Already today the candidate countries, including Lithuania actively contribute in political, economic, and military terms to the implementation of NATO’s policies, by virtue of taking part in NATO’s cooperative outreach initiatives and NATO-led peace support operations. When NATO invoked Article 5 on September 12th, within hours of this historic decision the Vilnius Group issued a statement of solidarity. We acted as allies. In this act of solidarity we were one with the American people. And whatever new challenges ahead, we shall be one with the Alliance as a whole. Furthermore, due to the strong atlanticist sentiment of the candidate countries, their accession will contribute to the strengthening of the transatlantic link between Europe and North America. At the same time, the majority of NATO aspirants are also candidates to the European Union. Therefore, we believe our accession should contribute to a balanced development of the NATO-EU relations. The candidates will be entering an organization which is undergoing change. In fact, since its very beginning in 1949 the Alliance has been in continuous transformation. The emergence of new threats and new understandings today makes the issue particularly important and open to speculations. It is sufficient to take a look at article headlines to get an idea of the concerns behind the present transformation: “Transatlantic Alliance: Dissipated or Deepened?”, “NATO: Expanded or Disbanded”, “Heading Nowhere”, or “Whither NATO Could Become Wither NATO”. To join we want. But one thing is absolutely clear. We want to make part of a capable, operational and effective organization. We want a bigger and better NATO. A NATO confident of its mission and identity.It is important that NATO’s enlargement should bring positive changes without altering the foundation for which the candidates seek membership such as collective defence, political cohesion based on common values, out-of-area crisis management as well as partnership and cooperation with all the states in the Euro-Atlantic area.As international analysts are busy writing NATO doomsday stories, we bring in our faith in the future of the Organisation. In this, too, we believe that the new members will be an important asset to the Alliance. Indeed, when the Alliance invoked Article 5 immediately after September 11th, the U.S. failed to use NATO military assets during the campaign in Afghanistan. The Americans seemed to need Uzbekistan more than they needed France and Germany. But it is also true that because the Allies’ AWACS aircraft were patrolling the U.S. skies, the U.S. aircraft could concentrate on Afghanistan.Regarding the concerns that the enlargement may affect the Alliance’s efficiency by hampering its decision-making mechanisms we respond in the following way: the culture and practice of cooperation that the candidate countries developed within the Vilnius Group can be easily accommodated within the Alliance’s internal practices. And can be easily converted from tools of seeking membership into tools of allied action and policies.Moreover, active contributions by nearly all the candidate countries to the implementation of the decisions taken by the 19 Allies over the past few years make these fears groundless. Examples abound, from the position of the Vilnius Group countries during the Bosnian and Kosovo crises to the anti-terrorist campaign. The candidates’ integration into the Alliance’s working proceedings will require a minimum of time and effort, because they have all gone and will continue to go through the rigorous mechanisms of the Membership Action Plan and other practical steps. For example, Lithuanian defense planning proceeds under close consultations with the NATO allies. Our major parliamentary parties reached an agreement in May 2001 to allocate no less than two per cent of the gross domestic product to national defence needs. A commitment that we are implementing successfully, particularly in the light of overall economic recovery of the nation. We go on strengthening our military capabilities through various trilateral Baltic projects, the joint Lithuanian-Polish battalion, and continuous participation in peace-keeping operations. We are committed to building a small but modern and effective army commensurate with our size and means. One that both the Alliance and ourselves can count on. In this we have continuously relied upon the support of our Western partners, including that of the United Kingdom.In fact, after a third successful year of the Membership Action Plan, we have started serious considerations regarding which military area Lithuania should specialize inside NATO as well as our input in filling in the capabilities gap. Intellectually, we are looking forward to contributing to the on-going discussion about the Alliance’s future role, the strengthening of the transatlantic link, or the countering of new threats, such as terrorism, weapons of mass destruction in possession of terrorists, asymmetrical warfare etc. We can also contribute in various other ways, due to our unique experience in the areas of economic, political and defence reform, democratic practices, civilian control over the military, bilateral and regional co-operation. We, the Lithuanians, are ready to share our knowledge and experience in these areas with partner countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia.Our Russian experience will contribute to the success of the NATO-Russia Council. Lithuania’s accession to the Alliance will contribute to a better understanding of Russia, among other things, due to our expert knowledge of the Russian language and Russian political culture. We shall contribute to the Alliance by our constructive policy towards the Kaliningrad Region, by our prudent but successful balancing act with Belarus, by the newly emerging strategic relations with Ukraine.To sum it up, we, the candidates, don’t go about asking whither NATO or whether NATO. We are carefully planning our role and contribution to the future Alliance, an Organisation that has been a vehicle for the transformation of the political climate on the Continent, and a stimulus for reconciliation and far reaching reforms inside the aspirant nations. We shall work to keep that Organisation alive and active as a vehicle for security and reform where security and reform are still needed.Thank you.