Vytautas Sinica is a PhD of Political Theory in Vilnius University
Lithuanian Foreign Minister and chairman of the largest ruling party, Gabrielius Landsbergis, has publicly announced that the geopolitical situation has fundamentally changed. Lithuania needs to change its approach to defence and Russian aggression against Lithuania is only a matter of time. He was right. Basically everything in his speech was true.
The Minister of National Defence, A. Anušauskas, who was nominated by the same party, and President Nausėda, both very popular politicians, publicly condemned such speeches as unnecessary scaremongering. They stress that nothing has fundamentally changed now. And they are right too. The situation has not changed.
The problem is that Landsberg has told the whole truth, but it is not new. As Foreign Minister, he has had a duty to talk about this since at least the beginning of the war in Ukraine. Preferably from the beginning of his term in office. As the leader of the largest ruling party, he had a duty to initiate funding and budgetary decisions that would allow Lithuania to move in step with that new geopolitical reality, in which Russian aggression is only a matter of time. Many people in Lithuania talked about it for years. Even if the likelihood is small, a politician who is concerned about the country must calculate the worst-case scenario and prepare for it, just as the military does. However, nothing of the sort has happened. Landsbergis was the voice accompanying the lullabies of public reassurance. He changed his mind at the start of an upcoming elections.
There is a big problem here. Even if Landsberg is telling the truth, he can do harm because now many won’t believe him. People rightly do not believe that a minister who has been silent for two years and has said nothing of the sort has magically come to his senses. They associate this talk with the elections, with the desire to rally supporters behind him as the only one who can lead the way to meet this threat. That is certainly the intention. And many people do not believe it. It is more pleasant to listen to reassurances from the highest-ranking politicians. Landsbergis has had a full term in office to lead the way to meet the Russian threat. He looked elsewhere.
Over the past few years, Lithuania has distinguished itself in the world with its „values-based foreign policy”. This is a strange new concept. It means that Lithuania selectively defends democracy and human rights around the world, globally. To do this, Lithuania has chosen Taiwan and Belarus. In the first case, it got angry with China and did not make friends with Taiwan. In the second case, it has pushed Belarus deep into the arms of Russia. In both cases, it was done with the good intentions, but by absurd means. The gauntlet was thrown down to China without any coordination with the EU and other partners. China is the West’s greatest challenge and it is self-deception to be friends with it. However, that is precisely why the conflict with it requires a united Euro-Atlantic front, not a stand-off. No one has taken Lithuania’s side. It seemed that the country’s economy would pay the price for the Minister’s attempt to 'write history’. But to avoid losses, some Lithuanian businesses simply re-registered in Poland and other countries to continue trading. Taxes moved out too. Recently, Mr Landsbergis also unexpectedly announced that we are normalising relations with China. Why? We do not know.
In Belarus, after a series of fraudulent elections and repression of peaceful protesters, Lithuania declared Mrs Cichanouskaja the winner and accepted her to be president-elect in exile. We did not seek out and nurture a pro-Western, anti-Kremlin and genuinely popular opponent to Lukashenko in Belarusian society. We supported anyone. We closed all trade with Belarus, we instigated protests, we clamped down on the Lukashenko regime until it finally gave in completely to Putin in return for helping to stabilise the situation. In this sense, the northern front from Belarus of the war in Ukraine was not opened without Lithuania’s help. Everyone knows that Lukashenko is a geopolitical prostitute looking for someone to sell his regime’s support to. Lithuania has become a key player in the final surrender of Belarus to the Kremlin and the end of its flirtation with the EU. Ironically, today Lithuania has completely liberalised migration from Belarus, accepting more than 50 000 economic migrants a year (less than one percent of those are refugees). Lithuania’s „values-based foreign policy” has been a formula of „shout loud, do nothing”.
The same warnings as proclaimed by Landsbergis are echoed in Germany. Johann Wadephul of the CDU said that the Bundeswehr is a two-day army, that the country makes loud slogans about defence but does nothing, that arms orders are placed but do not reach the military, that the military equipment that is handed over to Ukraine is not compensated. Germany has an army trained for special missions, suitable for Afghanistan, but not for national defence. The German division promised to NATO partners will not be adequately staffed and equipped, he said. Germany needs to return to compulsory military service, which was suspended in 2011.
The crucial difference is that in Germany, it is not the leader of the ruling party who is saying this, but a member of the opposition. It is their job to criticise that nothing has been done. In Lithuania, it is the ruling party at the end of its term in office that criticises that nothing has been done. It doesn’t get stranger than this.
I am no expert on the state of the German military. But everything that has been said about Germany applies to Lithuania. Lithuania talks a great deal about the threat of war, about the need to prepare. However, the only essential work of preparation is a larger defence budget and the purchases made from it. Purchases such as tanks batallion, according to experts, are highly questionable in terms of Lithuania’s specific needs and priorities, and alternative uses of these funds could lead to a greater combat defence potential. Purchases from Germany in particular raise doubts about long delivery times and delays. However, more things are simply not happening. There is no general conscription, no army reserve is created. An army without a reserve is an army of one battle. Mobilisation plans and armament logistics are not in place, and the volunteer national defence forces and other structures are not equipped enought. The army does not even want a mass conscription, because there is a shortage of sergeants and other officers needed for training. There has been a shortage for a decade, and everybody knows that as long as there is no political order nobody is doing anything. There is no investment in drones, no investment in Lithuanian and regional military industry, no shelters, no evacuations, no fortifications on the Belarusian border.
Lithuania is not preparing for war, and Russia certainly sees and knows it. Worse still, the US, the main guarantor of the defence of NATO members, sees and knows it. NATO will defend if a country defends itself. Article 5 of NATO only works in conjunction with Article 4. Russia knows it too. The less prepared Lithuania is, the less likely it is to get help from the West, the more daring Russia is to try its luck. The vicious circle closes. The eternal paradox of war: to avoid occupation, one must prepare for it.
Who was preparing? Poland was preparing. After the recent elections in Poland, which PiS won and has no one to form a new government with, there were cries of joy that a potential Tusk government is good for democracy and good for Europe. A Tusk government would bring a submissive calm to relations between Warsaw, Brussels and Berlin, but it is hardly a Europe-strengthening calm. The PiS government has been the strongest regional voice in favour of strengthening defence capabilities. Under its rule, Poland has not only spoken clearly about the Russian threat, aid to Ukraine and the need for armaments. It was also preparing itself. No country in Europe has made so much progress during the years of war in strengthening its army, in increasing its defence budget, in making real preparations for a possible war. Poland under PiS was a reliable partner for Lithuania. One does not see a future, but it was much more difficult for Lithuania to get along with Tusk’s and Sikorski’s Poland.
Even Latvia is taking it somewhat seriously: it is setting up a state-owned military-industrial company and will build an artillery ammunition factory together with other countries. One of the lessons of the Ukrainian war was to be as self-sufficient as possible in the field of armaments and to develop a military industry. Small countries will not produce tanks and 'Patriot’ systems. But many of the relevant items can be produced, and even more can be produced together with regional partners. Those partners need to be sought out and such projects developed. This is already clearly understood and in progress in Ukraine.
Lithuania is a small country on Russian border. Vilnius is the easternmost capital of a NATO country. Russia is an aggressive country by its imperial nature and, unfortunately, our neighbour. It does not need to be provoked in any way; it occupies without provocation. Its aim is to restore the USSR, to correct 'the gravest mistake’ in Putin’s words, 'to return to centuries old imperial borders’. Russian society is being gradually prepared for this, just as it was for the war with Ukraine, which is now almost universally supported. That is not foru s to change. During the Interwar period, Lithuania was naively neutral and got devoured by both Nazis and Soviets. Today, Lithuania is a member of NATO, but NATO solidarity is far from assured and Russia knows it. Russia sees it in the reactions to the war in Ukraine. Lithuania must fully prepare for possible aggression, but for the time being it is only saying the right things. We call Russia a 'terrorist state’, but we do not act as if we live next door to a terrorist. 'Values-based foreign policy’ appears to be the geopolitics of loud shouting.
Vytautas Sinica (1990) is a political scientist, publisher and politician of Lithuania. He has co-founded the National Alliance political party and is now a member of council of Vilnius, capital of Lithuania. In 2022, he defended his dissertation on political philosophy „Theoretical Foundations of European Unification” at the Faculty of Philosophy of Vilnius University. In 2019 he published a book „Do We Still Need a State of Lithuania?”
