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ABSTRACT
This article approaches the history of Baltic-US relations from the point of view of International Relations scholarship and, more specifically, from the vantage point of the concept of international society. It provides an account of the process of Estonia’s entry into international society with a particular focus on the role that the United States, as one of the great powers of the twentieth century, played in this process. Against this background, this article concludes that as a feature of the Baltic states’ memories of entry, the history of Baltic-US relations remains vital to understanding their contemporary foreign policy outlook.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. The concept of international society refers to ‘a group of states [that], conscious of certain common interests and common values, form a society in the sense that they conceive themselves to be bound by a common set of rules in their relations with one another, and share in the working of common institutions’ (Bull Citation[1977] 2002, 13).
2. By tracing the role that the United States played in the entry process of the Baltic states, the present study also responds to a recent call by Buzan (Citation2020) to study the role of the United States in, and for, international society during the twentieth century.
3. Regarding membership dynamics, the ascendency of the United States to great power status was perhaps most consequential in relation to the process of decolonization (Ryan and Pungong Citation2000). What has remained overlooked, however, is how the ascendancy of the United States also mattered for liberation struggles and struggles for membership in international society by peoples, like the Baltic nations, who, alongside other ‘captive nations,’ found themselves forcefully included in the Soviet empire.
4. Obviously, the United States was not the only great power that influenced the dynamics of Estonia’s entry into international society. Equally if not even more important, Russia (or, at other times, the Soviet Union) shaped the fate of Estonia’s quest for membership in international society. Similarly, in the first period of entry, in the direct aftermath of World War I, the victorious European powers, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy, at the time still commanding the status of great powers, played a decisive role in Estonia’s entry, perhaps even more so than the United States, which was yet to embrace its status as a great power.
5. These three phases are preceded by a period of exclusion, in the form of what Pearcey (Citation2015) describes as ‘exclusion by inclusion,’ which lasted for several centuries. Since the focus of this article is, however, on Estonia’s entry into international society, and more specifically on the role of the United States in this process, the story of this ‘pre-entry’ period will not be told here.
6. Estonia’s partial exclusion from international society in this period can also be seen in Estonia’s exclusion from central international organizations in international society, from the League of Nations during its final deliberations (see Made Citation2000, 278–282), and crucially also from the newly founded United Nations in the wake of World War II.
7. As Buzan and Zhang (Citation2014, 5) note, what is commonly referred to as a global international society ‘is more accurately understood as a core – periphery structure in which the West projects its own values as global, and this projection encounters varying degrees of acceptance and resistance in the periphery.’ As such, this global international society is perhaps best understood as ‘Western-centric’ or as a ‘Western-global international society’.
8. In practice, this meant that Estonia’s diplomatic representatives in the United States retained their accreditation and diplomatic status (though in a personal capacity) and continued their work in the United States (Piirimäe Citation2014, 7–18).
9. Estonia’s membership was truncated, or ‘virtual,’ insofar as Estonia’s membership did not cease as a consequence of the enduring de jure recognition by a majority of states. Yet, Estonia as a state was largely incapacitated to act and, in the absence of recognition of the Estonian government in exile, was unable to feature as a subject in international relations.
10. It is noteworthy that the role played by the United States in the first period, indicating its reluctance toward the initial entry of the Baltic states, has faded from the political memory of the Baltic states against the background of the role the United States subsequently played in the second and third period of their entry.
11. The close-to-unconditional support for this order leads to a paradox since, in the post-Cold War period, and especially in the context of the ‘War on Terror,’ the United States repeatedly acted in ways that were detrimental to this order. Moreover, the current transformation toward an increasingly less Western-centric international society and, a less US-centric international order, confronts the Baltic states with the challenge to define their place in this changing context.
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Thomas Linsenmaier
Thomas Linsenmaier is an analyst and PhD candidate at the Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies at the University of Tartu, where he is currently completing a dissertation on regions and inter-regional dynamics in international society. His wider research interests revolve around International Relations theory, the English School in particular, norms and norm dynamics in world politics, and the prospects for global governance in an increasingly fragmented world.