https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6631-9039
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ABSTRACT
The twenty-first century peacekeeping landscape is defined by the multiplicity of institutional frameworks under which international operations are deployed. Small states with limited resources cannot meet every demand for troop contributions and face the inevitable dilemma of choosing whose ‘flag’ to carry. For the first decade after joining NATO and the EU, the Baltic States gave a clear priority to NATO and U.S.-led military operations, but since the 2014 Ukrainian crisis gradually shifted their focus to the UN framework. Drawing on interviews with policy-makers in the three Baltic countries this article aims to explain this recent shift. It reviews the main theoretical assumptions about troop contributions to the UN peacekeeping operations and burden-sharing behaviour among NATO allies, and suggests that the recent troop deployment decisions of the Baltic States are best explained by a realist focus on national security concerns. The seemingly ‘internationalist’ context of UN peacekeeping operations simply happened to be most suitable for a bilateral exchange with their European allies, namely Germany and France, that in turn contributed troops to NATO's Baltic flank.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 According to SIPRI, only one in three peace operations active in 2018 were deployed under the auspices of the UN; three of the five largest peace operations worldwide were fully or partially run by regional organizations (SIPRI, “Global and Regional Trends.”). This phenomenon has been widely discussed in academic literature; for example, see Bellamy and Williams, “Who's Keeping the Peace?”; Bures, “Regional Peacekeeping Operations”; Barnett, “Partners in Peace?”
2 For more on this, see Frantzen, NATO and Peace Support; Missiroli, “The European Union.”
3 Park and Salmon, “Evolving Lithuanian Security Options,” 104; Galbreath, “Latvian Foreign Policy,” 451.
4 Sapronas, “Lithuanian Armed Forces,” 102–3.
5 Bush, “Speech at the University of Latvia.”
6 Asmus and Vondra, “The Origins of Atlanticism.”
7 In total 3 Estonian, 2 Latvian and 4 Lithuanian officials from the Ministries of Defence, Foreign Affairs and the General Staff of the Armed Forces were interviewed. All interviews were conducted in confidentiality, and the names of interviewees are withheld by mutual agreement.
8 On the topic of ‘Baltic Unity’ and trilateral policy coordination between the three Baltic States see Veemaa, “Contextualizing ‘Baltic Unity’”; Kratovits, “The Role of International Regimes.”
9 United Nations, “Troop and Police Contributors.”
10 It will be presented at length in the first section of this article (for a good overview, also see Bellamy and Williams, “Introduction”).
11 For example, see Rost and Greig, “Taking Matters”; Coleman, “Token Troop Contributions.”
12 It was actually Katharina Coleman who established the numerical threshold for a substantive (as opposed to token) troop contribution to a peacekeeping operation (see Coleman, “Token Troop Contributions”).
13 Hey, “Introducing Small State,” 5.
14 Steinmetz and Wivel. “Introduction,” 10; Rickli, “European Small States’ Military.”
15 For a range of alternative explanations, see Bobrow and Boyer, “Maintaining System Stability”; Kathman and Melin, “Who Keeps the Peace?”; Bove and Elia, “Supplying Peace”; Uzonyi, “Refugee Flows and State Contributions”; Sotomayor Velázquez, “Why Some States Participate.”
16 Bellamy and Williams, “Introduction,” 17–18.
17 Oma, “Explaining States’ Burden-sharing.”
18 For a range of possible explanations, see Bennett et al., “Burden-Sharing”; Cimbala and Forster, Multinational Military Intervention; Auerswald, “Explaining Wars of Choice”; Davidson, America's Allies and War.
19 Oma, “Explaining States’ Burden-sharing,” 565.
20 Hofmann, “Overlapping Institutions,” 45.
21 Buzan and Wæver, Regions and Powers, 34.
22 Brysk, Global Good Samaritans, 5.
23 Lebovic, “Uniting for Peace,” 912.
24 Williams and Neumann, “From Alliance to Security Community,” 361.
25 Epstein, “NATO Enlargement.”
26 Tadjbakhsh and Schoiswohl, “Playing with Fire.”
27 For more on this, see Herrmann et al., “Identities and Institutions.”
28 Berman, “The Security Council's Increasing Reliance,” 3–4.
29 Neack, “UN Peace-keeping.”
30 Oma and Petersson, “Exploring the Role of Dependence,” 3 (emphasis added).
31 Snyder, Alliance Politics, 183.
32 Bove and Elia, “Supplying Peace,” 707; Victor, “African Peacekeeping in Africa.” (Only recently the limits to this explanation were presented in Coleman and Nyblade, “Peacekeeping for Profit?”).
33 Sotomayor Velázquez, “Why Some States Participate.”
34 For example, see Gelpi et al., “Success Matters”; Burk, “Public Support for Peacekeeping.”
35 Kreps, “Elite Consensus.”
36 See UNSC Resolutions 1031 (1995) and 1244 (1999), adopted on 15 December 1995 and 10 June 1999 respectively.
37 Lithuania deployed an infantry platoon to UNPROFOR in autumn 1994 which was later followed by an Estonian platoon; both countries withdrew from Croatia by the end of 1995.
38 Budryte, “Lithuania's New (In)Security.”
39 Missiroli, “Central Europe,” 126.
40 Männik, “The Role of the ESDP,” 140–5; Ozalina, “European Security and Defence Policy,” 128; Miniotaite, “Lithuania's Evolving Security and Defence,” 165–70.
41 Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania, National Security Strategy 2005 (emphasis added).
42 Riigikogu of the Republic of Estonia, National Security Concept 2010 (emphasis added).
43 Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania, National Security Strategy 2005.
44 Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania, National Security Strategy 2017.
45 Saeima of the Republic of Latvia, National Defence Concept 2016.
46 Hedberg and Kasekamp, “Baltic States”; see also Ilves, “Speech at the Victory Day Celebration.”
47 Davidson, “Heading for the Exits.”
48 See NATO Summit declarations adopted on 20 November 2010 in Lisbon and 20 May 2012 in Chicago.
49 CRS, Coalition Contributions.
50 Théroux-Bénoni, “The Long Path to MINUSMA”; Novosseloff, “Expanded United Nations Interim Force.”
51 Brysk, Global Good Samaritans, 5–6 (emphasis added).
52 For example, see Ingebritsen, “Norm Entrepreneurs”; Björkdahl, “Swedish Norm Entrepreneurship.”
53 Brysk, Global Good Samaritans, 37–8 (emphasis added).
54 However, one Lithuanian official actually mentioned the lack of host government agreement as one of the reasons why Lithuania did not commit its ground troops to the Syrian theatre of operation ‘Inherent Resolve’, despite an explicit U.S. request (Author's interview at the Ministry of National Defence of Lithuania, Vilnius, June 2019.)
55 Mikulova and Simecka, “Norm Entrepreneurs,” 1199.
56 For example, see Mole, “Talking Security?”; Miniotaite, “Convergent Geography”; Kuus, “European Integration.”
57 Pressman, Warring Friends, 5 (emphasis added).
58 Bush, “Address to the Citizens of Vilnius.”
59 In addition to Šiauliai air base in Lithuania, which has been hosting NATO Baltic air police mission since 2004, a second air base in Ämari, Estonia was opened up for the allied aircraft from May 2014 and it has been operational ever since.
60 Allers, “Modern Deterrence,” 28.
61 CRS, Overseas Contingency Operations.
62 At the time of writing this artice, however, the U.S. Army Command announced the deployment of 500 American troops to Lithuania, albeit for a six-month period from October 2019 (Sytas, “U.S. to Deploy 500 Troops”).
63 Author's interview with mid-level official at the Ministry of Defence of Latvia, Riga, November 2019.
64 Author's interviews with mid- and high level officials at the Ministries of Defence of Estonia (January 2020), Latvia (November 2019), and Lithuania (June 2019 and February 2020).
65 Author's online interview with mid-level official at the Ministry of Defence of Estonia, January 2020.
66 Author's interview with high level official at the Ministry of National Defence of Lithuania, Vilnius, June 2019.
67 Médard, “France and Sub-Saharan Africa.”
68 Ayrault, “Speech at the Meeting with the Baltic Ministers.”
69 Author's interviews with officials at the Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Estonia, November 2019 and January 2020.
70 Author's online interview with official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Estonia, November 2019.
71 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania, “Lithuania at UN.”
72 Cottey, Edmunds and Forster, “Introduction,” 6.
73 Urbelis and Urbonas “The Challenges of Civil–Military Relations”; Viksne, “Democratic Control.”
74 Author's interviews with officials at the Ministries of Defence and Foreign Affairs of Estonia (January 2020), Latvia (November 2019), and Lithuania (June 2019 and February 2020), as well as officers at the National Defence Staff of Estonia (January 2020) and Lithuania (September 2019).
75 Author's interview with high level official at the Ministry of National Defence of Lithuania, Vilnius, June 2019.
76 United Nations, “Peacekeeping Fatalities.”
77 ICasualties.org, “Fatalities by Year and Country.”
78 Author's interviews with mid- and high-level officials at the Ministries of Defence of Estonia (January 2020) and Lithuania (June 2019).
79 For a good overview of the concept, see Tessman, “System Structure.”
80 Lim and Cooper “Reassessing Hedging”; Kuik, “How Do Weaker States Hedge?”
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Vytautas Isoda
Vytautas Isoda is Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science, General Jonas Zemaitis Military Academy of Lithuania. His research focuses on small state behaviour, international conflicts and peacekeeping, in particular, the role of European Union in international conflict management.