|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
Crisis in the Baltics: U.S. Policy Options
| Article
# : |
18550 |
|
|
Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
|
| Issue
Date : |
4 / 1991 |
2,695 Words |
| Author
: |
Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr.
Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr., is president of the Institute for
Foreign Policy Analysis and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of
International Security Studies at the Fletcher School of Law
and Diplomacy, Tufts University. |
In President Bush's words, the U.S. policy toward the Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania is "to help the Baltic peoples achieve their aspirations, not to punish the Soviet Union." Toward this end, the president said, "We will maintain our contact with the Soviet leadership to encourage continued commitment to democratization and reform." The meaning of this policy is clear: Although the United States favors independence in the Baltics, greater priority has been attached to the relationship with President Mikhail Gorbachev than to freeing the Baltic republics from Soviet domination.
Such a policy is based on the assumption that Gorbachev's survival represents for the Baltics, as for the other 12 republics comprising the Soviet Union, the best hope for gradual movement toward either full independence or a mutually acceptable form of autonomy or power devolution to the various republics. By the same token, according to such logic, Gorbachev's replacement in a military coup--with the accession of an old guard leadership--would effectively eliminate any prospect for peaceful resolution of the crisis and lead to substantially greater repression against independence movements in the Baltics and elsewhere in the decaying Soviet empire.
U.S. policy toward the Baltics is further complicated because U.S. attention has been focused on the Gulf War. The United States sought Soviet support in the broad but inherently fragile international coalition formed to oust Saddam Hussein's forces from Kuwait. The ability to maintain Soviet support, such as it is, for the anti-Saddam front was said to depend on Gorbachev's policies. Although there were reports of continuing Soviet military and intelligence assistance to Iraq in early 1991, even after the war broke out, Western policymakers remained reluctant to attribute any such assistance directly to Gorbachev. Similarly, the Soviet military crackdown in Lithuania on January 11 was traced more to the military leadership than to Gorbachev, who claimed not to have ordered such action.
A less than charitable interpretation of U.S.-Soviet relations would contend that, in exchange for Moscow's endorsement of a coalition and U.S. policy in the Gulf War, the United States at least tacitly gave Gorbachev a free hand in the Baltics. Although such an interpretation is both farfetched and implausible, the fact remains that the Soviet military crackdown coincided with escalation toward the use of force against Hussein.
The U.S. policy priorities revealed by the emphasis on Gorbachev's survival
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
