The Development of military cultures
ENThe three Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – started to build up their armed forces after re-gaining their independence in 1991. The international situation of the 1990s was substantially different from that of the previous decade. The Cold War had ended and the world found itself in a new security environment without a clearly visible polarisation between great powers; this new stage in international systems is often called the post modern society. Nevertheless, the understandings that had accompanied previous international systems, in particular the Cold War, did not disappear very easily, and the emerging military cultures of the Baltic states, even if they were shaped under the circumstances of a new security environment, were influenced by the traditions and beliefs of these previous systems. [...] Similar concerns in security and defence matters have effectively forced political and military cooperation between the Baltic countries since the 1990s, although the individual responses of the three states – how Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have chosen to manage their national defences – have produced conceptually different military cultures. This chapter examines why countries with such similar security concerns and extensive military cooperation, supported by multinational security- and defence-related projects, have chosen different ways to build up their armed forces. In it, I establish two competing basic models of military culture, on the basis of which the three states’ national models are examined. The ‘Nordic model’ stresses national solidarity in defence matters expressed through total defence and compulsory military service for male citizens. The ‘European model’ stems from the requirements of the postmodern security environment and relies on smaller, professional and deployable forces.As well as studying the development of military cultures in the three states, this chapter also pays attention to the specific role of western military advice and of BALTSEA in providing military support to the Baltic states, especially before Baltic involvement in NATO’s Membership Action Plan (MAP) process, which began in 1999. As the Baltic states built up their military societies from scratch, it is important to acknowledge this outside influence on the development of their military cultures, and the role of donor states in shaping military thinking in the three Baltic states will thus be examined. Denmark was particularly active in the 1990s in assisting the build-up of the Baltic defence systems and encouraging their interoperability with NATO. Of the three nations, only Latvia did not have a particular donor state to strongly influence its defence establishment. The Finnish influence on Estonian military culture and Polish influence on Lithuanian military culture, derived from their linguistic, cultural and historical ties, will also be analysed. [p. 85-86].
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