Major General Jonas Kronkaitis
Commander of the Lithuanian Armed Forces
Address delivered at the Chicago Athletic Association on September 28, 2001 sponsored by the Lithuanian American Council and the Consulate of the Republic of Lithuania.

September 11 was a day of tragedy to the United States of America and to all the civilized world. I bring a message of sympathy, friendship and consolation from the people of Lithuania to all Americans, for all Americans have been affected by these tragic events. The world will never be the same after this fanatic attack on peaceful civilians, who threatened no one. Strategic thinking has been permanently changed by this act of terror and a whole new concept of world security has to be developed and developed quickly.

September 11 was not only a day of tragedy, but also a day when a new alliance was born, an alliance of nations which abhor and reject terrorism. This new alliance embraces most nations of the world. The leader of this new alliance is the United States, there can be no doubt about it. Because this alliance embraces many nation states, there will inevitably be differences of opinion about some actions that the leaders of the alliance will wish to take and in this respect the core of the alliance will be of supreme importance. This core is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization -- NATO. According to NATO treaty Article 5 an attack on one member country is an attack on all other member countries. Lithuania has a long history and tradition of close ties with the United States of America. American values of civilization are also Lithuanian values. Ever since Lithuania has by peaceful means regained its independence, it has wanted to join the NATO alliance. It wants to join it as soon as possible. We wish to join NATO not only because that is the only certain means to ensure our security, but also because of Lithuania' s deep friendship with the leader of NATO, the United States of America. I am here to tell you what Lithuania has done to prepare its military forces for the day when it will be accepted in the alliance.

Total Defense Policy
Lithuania is located on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. It has common borders with Latvia to the North, Belarus to the East and Poland and Russia -- the Kaliningrad oblast -- to the South. It is a small country, but in territory it is equivalent to Belgium and the Netherlands put together. Their combined population is 26 million, while Lithuania' s is only 3.7 million. Lithuania, having regained independence from Russia in 1918, created a strong economy, democratic government and by 1938 had a well-equipped, well-organized military force to respond to potential threats. However, political miscalculation in 1940 did not allow that force to defend its country, and as a result, Lithuania lost one third of its population. This harsh lesson has caused us to adopt the "total defense" concept which will prepare our citizens to defend our country unconditionally, mobilizing all national resources for that task. After regaining our independence in 1990, we began rebuilding our defense capability as best as we could, with the resources we had. In our active military forces today, we have over 10,000 personnel, along with 12,000 in the National Defense Voluntary Forces, similar to your National Guard. Our reserve consists of 37 ,000 personnel who have served a period of 12 months in the Lithuanian active forces as conscripts. Our Navy and Air Force are very small and NATO negotiators agree with us that we should not put our scarce resources into capability that NA TO is a leader in.

Over the last five years the security environment for Lithuania has changed in a positive direction. Steps toward integration into NATO, stable political environment, as well as an improving economic situation, have only strengthened the stability of Lithuania. We do not envision any direct military threats to Lithuania today, and we cooperate with almost every country in both the Euro-Atlantic and Baltic regions.

Integration of Lithuania's Forces with those of Neighboring States
Lithuania's security depends not only on military factors, but also on non-military threats, sometimes unpredictable, as in the case of the events of September 11th here, in the United States. We have all earned that terrorism is a real threat, which can affect the state of the world, and we must fight it with every means available. The Lithuanian Armed Forces are prepared to stand shoulder to shoulder with those of the United States in fighting terrorism in whatever form it takes and wherever it may appear. We have communicated a specific offer of support to the United States government.

Lithuania views NATO as the primary institution guaranteeing the security and stability of its member states. In building a system of national security, our first step is to build and develop our own Armed Forces. At the same time, we are making our Armed Forces interoperable with those of other countries, especially the NATO Allies. This is essential, particularly when our soldiers have to operate effectively with soldiers from other countries. Since 1994, Lithuania has participated in the UN and NATO-led international operations: UNPROFOR in Croatia in 1994-95, IFOR and SFOR in Bosnia-Herzegovina since 1996, KFOR in Kosovo since 1999, and AFOR in Albania in 1999. “The participation in NATO-led and EU international operations, and crisis and conflict prevention, will remain a priority for Lithuania in the future,“ states the agreement on the defense policy for the years 2001-2004 signed by the leaders of the main twelve Parliamentary parties of Lithuania on May 23rd, 2001. The parties agreed on the essential directions and priorities for the development of the National Defense System, and on prerequisites, including financial, necessary for the implementation of development plans for the Armed Forces and of the NATO Membership Action Plan. That means that no matter which parties come to power, the essential principles in the defense policy will remain the same through 2004.

Commitment to Fulfill NATO Membership Requirements
To underscore Lithuania' s determination to fulfill all NATO requirements the parties have agreed to allocate 2 percent of GDP for years 2002 through 2004 for defense and the planned force structure. Lithuania formally applied for NATO membership in January 1994. We were the second country to enter the Partnership for Peace program and have fully and enthusiastically participated in its activities. The parliamentary parties are convinced that the current security and defense policy, along with integration into NATO and the EU will ensure the independence, security, and social stability of the State of Lithuania, and create favorable conditions for economic growth and development, and the well-being of all our citizens. Early in 1997, we recognized the need for a long-term development plan to reform our armed forces. In 1998, a law was passed to serve as a legal basis for this military reform. Potential threat was visualized in scope and time, military strategy was conceptualized, force structure designed and the development of a target force was time phased. The reform is thorough and large in scope; it encompasses all spheres of the military.

The economic state of our country, after 50 years of communist devastation, is a constraint that we have to take into account. Resources going to the defense have to be adequate to support our ten-year plan, and the plan has to be realistic in terms of what the economy can withstand. Priorities had to be established in order to maximize the end result. Should we buy high technology weapons today to assure maximum force capability now, and be forced to buy new weapons in 5 to 10 years, because they are out of date? Or should we take a calculated risk, and invest in our future capability? In a balanced way, we chose the latter. Therefore, we build the infrastructure, train and take care of our soldiers, acquire NATO compatible communications, and modernize our weapons, in that priority.

Training and Doctrine Command
ln our ten-year plan, we have put the people programs: education, training, housing, infrastructure facilities, medical care, etc., at the top of our list. Training and education of our officers and soldiers to assume their responsibilities are critical components of preparedness. Therefore, we have created the Training and Doctrine Command, which assumes the responsibility for planning all aspects of military education and training to assure that resources are most effectively used to develop qualified officers and soldiers. A large number of our officers receive training and education in the West. Several of our officers have graduated from United States military academies. At the present, we have cadets at the Air Force, Naval, and Coast Guard Academies and two cadets at West Point. I want to share with you a moment which made me proud to be an American and at the same time the Commander of the Lithuanian Armed Forces. A Lithuanian lieutenant who recently graduated from the Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs, was questioned by a newspaper reporter if he had lost patriotism for his own country because he wore an American uniform and saluted the American flag for four years. The lieutenant replied, "No, I studied for four years with people who respect very much their flag and their institutions, I have learned that their values are like mine, and I have learned to respect my country as well." Those were words of a young Lithuanian lieutenant, who went on to describe how Americans show respect for their country.

We have established a basic Training Regiment, which trains our recruits for the first 11 weeks, and began to function in the first part of 1999. It is a tremendous success. It provides us a means to make a clean break with the past. British Royal Marine instructors trained Lithuanian instructors, who had no burden of the Soviet past, using Western methodology and Western leadership principles and we adopted the British program. We concentrate the best training aids in one location and recruits get the same standard training. Battalions receive soldiers who have already mastered basic military skills for unit training. It also raises the combat readiness of our battalions, since they get a readily trained soldier. The response both from parents and from recruits has been great, and the training is very rigorous. I must add that our Basic Training center has become a show case and model it has been visited not only by most NATO country representatives, but also by Russian as well as Chinese military personnel. Our Non-Commissioned-Office school has just finished a complete reform. Instructors had undergone four-month retraining by the British, and the facilities were completely renovated and remodeled. We have also reformed our 4-year military academy to assure that our officers will get high quality civilian education and western military training. Year 2000 began with an excellent response from the youth. For l40 cadet spaces we had 452 applications. The intelligence level of candidates had a dramatic jump from the previous years. The year 2000 was also marked by additional innovation in the Lithuanian Military Academy. For the first time in Lithuanian military history, women were admitted. Last year, 9 women were admitted out of 62 candidates. This year we had l5 women admitted out of 84 candidates. The reform was started three years ago with British officers and NCO's conducting three-month leadership training of first year cadets, and at the same time our instructors were also trained to take over in 200l.

Making reforms in almost every sphere of the military, we are building a defense force to protect Lithuania. The defense of our sovereignty is unconditional. Our force can easily integrate into the NATO military structure. When we become accepted into the North Atlantic Alliance, we will do our share and live up to the responsibilities of a member state. Lithuanians will defend Lithuania, but to minimize the likelihood of conflict in our region we need NATO membership. We are demonstrating our commitment to NATO by contributing our forces to SFOR and KFOR, and one of our aircraft is part of the NATO airlift force in Naples, Italy. We have only four transport aircraft, but we have committed one of them to NATO operations.

Advantages of NATO Membership
The end of bipolarization has great advantages, but it also has introduced new challenges which the world is experiencing: emerging international crime cartels, reemergence of ultra nationalism, large scale migration as a consequence of significant differences in economic condition in different of countries and of course international terrorism. These challenges are best solved collectively. Therefore, we support all processes and mechanisms which can contribute to our security. NATO membership is the most effective instrument, because it is based on the principle of a collective defense, and has developed a capacity for crisis management. NATO's values are Lithuania's values, and today more than ever is clear that like-minded countries, large and small, must unite to protect those values and share the burden.

Lithuanian decision to aim for NATO membership has political advantages for the region and implications for our internal decisions in building our defense capability. First, let me mention the three important political advantages:

l. The accession of Lithuania and the other two Baltic States to the Alliance will enlarge the area of stability in Europe.
2. NATO integration helps to guarantee internal political stability and provides confidence for economic development for democracies such as Lithuania.
3. Even the anticipation of NATO membership has improved relations between states in Central and Eastern Europe. For instance: since 1994, significant progress has been made in the Polish-Lithuanian relationship. Poland and Lithuania now view each other as strategic partners and have created a combined Lithuanian-Polish peacekeeping battalion. Lithuanian and Polish soldiers-soldiers from NATO and Partner nations are training together, overcoming the challenges of interoperability. Last month, Lithuania hosted the largest In the Spirit of Partnership for Peace exercise in Europe this year, with l4 countries, including a contingent of the Pennsylvania National Guard participating.

Apart from the political issues, Lithuania also has several military benefits to offer:

• The country' s military commitment to democratic ideals and its determination to defend them. Lithuanians will defend Lithuania.
• An ice-free port, a good road network, and excellent east-west, north-south highways.
• Three strategic air bases. One of our bases has a runway over 3 km long, one --3.5 km. One base has 49 earth-covered hangers to accommodate 33-ft. wing span aircraft. NATO AWACS has already landed there. And there are two other air bases with strategic potentia1.
• Lithuania, with the help of the U.S. and Norway, has built a Regional Air Surveillance Coordination Center. It has the capability to provide information to other countries, as well as to the NATO Allied Early Warning System.
• Lithuania can provide information to the shared intelligence data systems.
• We also have human resources: gifted and intelligent personnel -- specialists in different spheres -- who would be able to assume responsibilities in NATO activities.

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