Abstract
The Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia declared their independence in 1990-91 and embarked on a long process of professionalisation of their armed forces. However, in contrast to other states in the central and eastern European region, Lithuania and her Baltic neighbours did not inherit armed forces from the Soviet period and have had to develop military structures from the bottom up. As a result, the challenges of creating modern professional armed forces faced by the Lithuanian political and military authorities have been different from the problems encountered in Poland, Hungary or the Czech Republic, and in many ways have been more similar to those of Slovenia and Croatia.
The arguments and views expressed in this chapter are a personal reflection of the author based on the experience of working in the Lithuanian Ministry of National Defence since 1995, and do not represent official opinion of either it or the Lithuanian government.
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Notes
RFE/RL Daily Brief (25 June 1993). For a detailed account of Russian policies related to troop withdrawal from the Baltic states, see S. G. Simonsen, ‘Compatriot Games: Explaining the “Diaspora Linkage” in Russia’s Military Withdrawal from the Baltic States’ (July 2001) at http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m3955/5_53/77615870/p1/article.html.
See, for example, the special report by Ingrid Rasmussen to the North Atlantic Assembly, ‘La multinationalité dans les opérations de réponse aux crises’ (28 March 2000), http://www.naa.be/publications/comrep/2000/at-103-f.html.
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© 2002 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Sapronas, R. (2002). Lithuanian Armed Forces: Re-Establishment, Professionalisation and Integration. In: Forster, A., Edmunds, T., Cottey, A. (eds) The Challenge of Military Reform in Postcommunist Europe. One Europe or Several?. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403914293_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403914293_7
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