Recent Russian actions and declarations demonstrate the inconstancy and instability of Russian policy. In October 1992, President Yeltsin suspended the withdrawal of Russian troops from the Baltic states, just weeks after signing a treaty with Lithuania to withdraw them by 1993, and shortly after pledging to do so at Helsinki and the G-7 meetings. Yeltsin and the Ministry of Defense (MOD) linked this suspension to the shortage of housing for these officers and troops, and to allegedly discriminatory citizenship legislation against Russians in Estonia and Latvia. Yet the withdrawal continues because the Baltic states have barred deployment of new troops there. In addition, Russian commanders in the Baltic interpreted the suspension order as a call to accelerate preparations in Russia for the ultimate receipt of the withdrawing troops, not as an order to stand still. [5] Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) spokesmen claimed that the decree has no international significance and was merely an internal document for those planning the withdrawal, not a threat directed at the Baltic states. [6] Yet, at the same time, MFA officials conceded that the decree was occasioned by intense right-wing nationalist and military pressure. [7] At the December 1992 VII Congress of Deputies, Yeltsin offered his enemies the chance to nominate the Foreign and Defense Ministers if he could retain Gaidar and the economic reform policy, thereby demonstrating his readiness to sacrifice control over foreign and defense policies to save economic reforms. Yeltsin also, by his October declaration, seemed to yield to them on the Baltic issue since the defense of Russians in the Baltic is high on their agenda. Even these concessions did not satisfy his enemies, and, on December 10, 1992, Yeltsin called for a referendum on Russia's future policy, only to have to acquiesce, four days later, in Gaidar's fall. The referendum is supposed to take place in April 1993, but its outcome is by no means certain. A victory for the adherents of empire either in part or in toto cannot be ruled out. Already those forces have pushed Yeltsin into a more nationalist line. And whoever wins will likely be forced to hew more closely to a tough security policy line that already reflects increased military input into policy. Even Yeltsin recently attacked the MFA for insufficient defense of Russians abroad, demanded that this become more of a priority, and railed against failures to coordinate with the MOD. [8] High-ranking MOD figures have publicly attacked the MFA's competence to lead Russian foreign policy. [9] And the MOD-General Staff draft doctrine of May 1992 was recently accepted more or less intact. As published it openly stated; A violation of the rights of Russian citizens and of persons who identify themselves with Russia ethnically and culturally in the former USSR republics can be a serious source of conflicts. Russia will view the introduction of foreign troops on the territory of contiguous states as well as a buildup of army and naval force groupings at its borders as a direct military threat. In this case it reserves to itself the right to take steps necessary to guarantee its own security . [10] This programmatic statement explicitly links Baltic nationality policies to the prospect of intervention from Russia, as the MOD did in the January and August 1991 abortive coups. Neither this threat of intervention nor the assessment that mistreatment of Russians abroad is a threat to Russian security can be interpreted just as rhetoric merely to cover a humiliating retreat. Not surprisingly, prominent military off icials view the Baltic as Russia's sphere of influence which it must control and to which it must retain access. In many minds this sphere includes the Baltic, Belarus', and Ukraine. Recent military commentary argued that Russia's current domestic instability naturally has weakened its defense capability, a condition that necessarily imposes the need to retreat from previously gained international positions to gain time and ensure domestic stability. However, after that it will become possible to speak of a regrouping to control national interests, "including in regions where Russia's dominant positions have been forfeited." [11] Even the most liberal officials still see Russia exerting control over the Baltic states through its sheer economic weight, and are determined to restrict Baltic freedom of action abroad. [12] Accordingly the MFA's stiff negotiating terms demand that the Baltic states meet preconditions before withdrawal takes place and any treaty is signed. These preconditions are continued Russian access to key military installations; no Russian compensation for past misdeeds and, instead, Baltic compensation for housing for those departing. Most importantly, the MFA demands the right to supervise Baltic states' domestic legislation affecting Russians. [13] The MFA and the MOD have conceded that these are the military's terms and the MFA has since stepped up attacks on the Baltic states by taking charges against citizenship laws to the U.N. [14] Russia also disputes Estonia's and Latvia's border claims dating back to Stalin's reshuffling of their borders after 1940 and their mutual economic relations. Russian concerns about the Baltic are not groundless. In past wars, blockade of the Baltic and land, and/or sea based invasion were real and great threats. Today the Baltic is the main route by which sea-launched or air- launched platforms, widely regarded as the main conventional and/or nuclear wartime threat, could strike Russia. [15] Stalin converted Kaliningrad, the Baltic states, and Finland into a flank supporting Soviet forward deployment in Poland and the DDR. today that flank and deployment are gone. Lacking an effective buffer zone, Russia itself is the first line of defense and, as such, is vulnerable to devastating surprise strikes, e.g. from long-range SLCMs in wartime. Russian military and foreign policy spokesmen remain gripped by fears like those of Stalin in 1939 that the Baltic states will again become bases for hostile forces. They view those states as intrinsically hostile, place no faith in protestations of or aspirations to neutrality. Russian conservatives perceive a link (and thus a threat) between Baltic states' 'mistreatment' of Russians and the results of those states' participation in a European or Western led security system. [16] The true index of those fears and of Russian right- wingers' objectives to maintain 'a Monroe Doctrine,' if not the borders of 1945, can be found in Deputy Prime Minister Shumeyko's recent suggestion that NATO match any withdrawal of Russian troops in the Baltic by withdrawing in Central Europe, i.e. Germany. [17] Russian officials also express concern Kaliningrad Oblast, which is now cut off from landward connection to Russia, could come under economic (or worse) threats. For example, Lithuania controls its power grid and land access to it. Since Kaliningrad has for now expressed strong support for remaining in Russia, concern for its economic security along with exaggerated fears of a revived German Drang Nach Osten (Drive to the East) coexist in Russian political rhetoric. Because Kaliningrad has become a major transit point for troops returning from Poland and Germany, the large troop concentrations there are also of some concern to Poland and Lithuania. [18] The Baltic states, of course, reject any such conditions, demand that the troops be out by 1993, and claim that the citizenship laws issue is a 'concocted one.' [19] Evidence from reports by the Russian Foreign Ministry journal International Affairs, The New York Times, foreign and even Russian observers, and even the Russian press tend to confirm that the Baltic states are correct, but that there are potential grounds for future concern. [20] The Baltic states rightly regard Russian conditions as a threat to their sovereignty, on which they will not compromise. They reject concessions at home although they have accepted CSCE fact- finding missions. [21] They have correctly pointed out that Russia's effort to use the human rights issue as a means of securing a hegemonial influence over their security harbors dangerous similarities to Serbian justifications for aggression against Bosnia based on alleged mistreatment of Serbs there. The Russian charges, it must also be pointed out, bear strong resemblance to Hitler's and Stalin's use of violations of the human or ethnic rights of kinsmen abroad as cloaks for aggression and dismemberment of states in the 1930s. Indeed, Russian MFA officials openly urge using those claims to strip the Baltic states of their 'victim' status in the West. [22] This similarity of political tactics and of military threat assessments shows that little conceptual progress has occurred among key Russian military and, to some extent, political elites since Stalin who, in 1920, declared that the states on Russia's borderlands could only be Soviet republics or hostile bases against Russia. [23] Back to Table of Contents Russia and the Baltic Is There a Threat to European Security? Back to SSI List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1993 by US Army War College. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com