When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania succeeded in implementing their long-held desire for independence and sovereignty. However, at that time, thousands of Russian military forces were still on their soil and coastlines. Those forces grew as Russia withdrew its troops from Poland and Germany through Kaliningrad (formerly East Prussia but captured and retained in 1945) and the Baltic states. During 1991-92 the Baltic states intensified their demands upon Russia to commit itself to withdrawing those troops as soon as possible and for guarantees against actions like the coups of January and August 1991 in Vilnius and Moscow, respectively, which had ostensibly been undertaken to defend the interests of endangered Russian minorities in the Baltic. Russia has refused to negotiate such a schedule or guarantees, which led the Baltic states, in 1992, to internationalize the issue by appealing to the U.N. and CSCE to pressure Russia to withdraw. At the Helsinki CSCE conference in July 1992 Russia complied. But under pressure from the military and the right wing at home, Russia proclaimed a suspension of the withdrawal in October 1992. Russia has also raised counterclaims justifying the suspension by referring to Estonian and Latvian citizenship laws that it calls 'apartheid laws,' unfairly discriminating against Russians' civil and human rights. The Baltic states have rejected those charges and speak of their right to self-determination, free from threats of either foreign intervention or of domestic 'fifth columns.' At the end of 1992 the situation was at an impasse and although troop withdrawals continued, negotiations over a schedule for troop withdrawal and over the rights of Russians in the Baltic states had gone nowhere since Helsinki. This impasse has led the Scandinavian, Polish, and German states, as well as NATO, to express support for the Baltic states. That support indicates their sense that the security of the new Baltic states is intimately bound up with their own security. In other words, regional security across the Baltic Sea (including Russia) is ultimately indivisible from that of Europe as a whole. At the same time, domestic pressure from imperially-minded Russian hard-liners to retain forward-deployed forces in the Baltic states indicates that the direction of Russian domestic policy is a fundamental part of the European security process. But that direction remains uncertain given the acute instability of Russia's overall political process. 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