I would like to thank you and the Vilnius University Institute of International Relations and Political Science for this opportunity to review U.S.-Lithuanian relations and discuss future directions.  The time is right to take stock of our relationship and explore how we can take it forward.  This is an excellent forum to generate new ideas.  I look forward to offering you some thoughts today, and hearing yours as well.  

Let me start by giving you the United States’ view on our relationship.  The United States considers Lithuania to be one of its strongest friends and allies in this region, and indeed, in the world.  We have close, cooperative, productive and mutually beneficial relations.  There are well-founded reasons for this friendship.  Most importantly, our relations are firmly rooted in shared values as well as mutual respect and shared interests. 

Both our nations were born in struggle against oppression, a struggle fueled by commitment to freedom, democratic principles and values and human rights.  We have been partners in defending and advancing those values for years.  Sumner Welles, then U.S. Under Secretary of State, announced on July 23, 1940 U.S. rejection of the forcible incorporation of the Baltic States into the Soviet Union.  The United States stood firmly by this policy of non-recognition, and continued to support the Baltic countries’ independence, for fifty-one years. 

The United States’ steadfast opposition to the oppression of the Soviet Union through the long years of the Cold War — perhaps best epitomized by Ronald Reagan’s demand to Soviet General Secretary  Gorbachev in 1987 to “tear down this wall” — helped create the conditions that allowed courageous Lithuanian patriots to be the first to reclaim their freedom, and to show others the way.

Americans rejoiced with Lithuanians when you regained your independence.  The United States then strongly supported your efforts to secure this freedom for all future generations through accession to the EU and NATO, the bulwarks of European security, stability and prosperity.  Lithuania this year celebrates 20 years as a sovereign and independent nation, once again, and over half a decade as an increasingly influential member of NATO and the EU.  This is a great achievement, and as partners in making it a reality, we can both take pride in it.   

As much as some hoped that the end of the Cold War would represent “the end of history,” and introduce a new era of peace, in fact, the international environment today is once again complex and challenging.  We are in a new era of transnational, multi-polar threats, and the emergence of these new threats demands new approaches to ensure our security.  On the economic front, we are just beginning to emerge from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, with a great deal of work still to do to promote and sustain recovery and make it real in people’s lives, both at home and globally.  The hard work of securing freedom and democratic values throughout Europe is not yet complete.  New vision and energy are required to sustain and expand the spectacular progress Europe achieved in the post-war period.  The EU itself is undergoing historic, transformative changes.  We support these changes, which we believe will make Europe an even stronger partner for the U.S., but they will require us both to adapt.            

At home, in both Lithuania and the United States, new leaders are developing and implementing their policies to meet the new challenges.  New generations of young people who do not have direct, personal experience of the Cold War are moving towards leadership positions in both our countries.  The goals that guided our cooperation under the Baltic Charter after Lithuania re-gained independence — to support Lithuania and the other Baltic countries’ path to full Euro-Atlantic integration — have largely been achieved.  So bilaterally, as well, we have moved into an important new phase in our relations — a phase in which, as Vice President Biden stated in Bucharest last fall, the question for the U.S. and our democratic partners in this region, like Lithuania, is no longer what the U.S. can do “for you,” but what we can do “with you” — as full partners ready to meet common challenges.

So how, in this new era, should we further deepen and widen our cooperation?  What new vision should guide us?  I will offer you my ideas in three key areas of our relations — our security and political partnership, strengthening ties, including commercial ties, between our people and our joint commitment to promoting democracy and human rights at home and abroad.  Then, I look forward to a good discussion.      

Let me begin with the fundamental issue of security, since security is often the issue that arises first in discussions with Lithuanian colleagues about relations with the U.S.  I would like to be very clear.  The United States is committed to Lithuania’s defense.  We have a superb security partnership, bilaterally and as close NATO allies.  We are committed to maintaining and strengthening that partnership.  As Secretary Clinton stated recently before the Atlantic Council, “I want to reaffirm as strongly as I can the United States’ commitment to honor Article 5 of the NATO Treaty.  No ally — or adversary — should ever question our determination on this point.  It is the bedrock of the alliance and an obligation that time will not erode.” 

The United States backs up those words not only with our strong national commitment to maintain defense forces second to none, but in our drive to strengthen NATO itself.  President Obama set out U.S. policy in Strasbourg-Kehl last April, stating that “we must ensure that NATO is equipped and capable of facing down the threats and challenges of this new era.”   Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in Washington on February 23 of this year elaborated, calling for serious operational and institutional reform of NATO and significantly enhanced resources for NATO, reminding NATO Strategic Concept Seminar attendees that “NATO is not now nor should it ever be a talk shop…it is a military alliance with real world obligations that have life or death consequences” and NATO must have the means to back up its commitments.  Secretary Gates underscored that the new NATO Strategic Concept, to be completed this year, “must be clear that Article 5 means what it says:  an attack on one is an attack on all.  The concept also must go further, to strengthen Article 5’s credibility with a firm commitment to enhance deterrence through appropriate contingency planning, military exercises and force development.” 

It is in the context of this shared effort to enhance deterrence that the United States proposed a new phased and adaptive approach to missile defense last summer.  Using proven technology and mobile platforms, this new approach will provide significant defensive capabilities against the current threat in a much shorter period of time, over a much broader geographic area, than the previous plan.  It is a tangible U.S. contribution to NATO’s mission of collective defense, and a concrete manifestation of our commitment to fulfill our Article 5 obligations.

And Lithuania takes seriously NATO’s commitment to collective defense, as you have demonstrated so clearly in Afghanistan.  As a proportion of population and GDP, Lithuania’s contribution in Afghanistan is one of the most impressive in NATO.  We thank all Lithuanians for your country’s significant contribution to restoring peace and securing freedom there.  I was honored to visit Afghanistan with a Lithuanian team early in my tenure here, and to see for myself the contribution you are making.  I was pleased to see that U.S. personnel, both military and civilian, serve side by side with Lithuanian forces in the Ghor PRT.  And we are strengthening our partnership in Ghor.  We have assigned a new USG agriculture expert to the PRT, and under our Partnership Program between the Pennsylvania National Guard and Lithuanian military, we are preparing a joint U.S.-Lithuanian police training team to deploy to Ghor.  Going forward, we will look for additional ways to strengthen our cooperation on Afghanistan in support of our common goals.

The U.S. also strongly supports the continuation of NATO’s Baltic Air Policing mission for as lon g as necessary, another concrete manifestation of NATO’s commitment to Lithuanian and Baltic security..  The third U.S. fighter rotation in the mission will take place next September through December.

We are strong bilateral partners on security, as well as in NATO.  We engage with Lithuania in a range of regional and bilateral training events and exercises.  There will be four major exercises coming up this year alone, known as Baltic Host, Baltops, Saber Strike, Jackal Stone.  The U.S. has provided over $75 million in U.S.-funded equipment and training, and sales of advanced weapons systems, including Javelin antitank and Stinger antiaircraft systems, to Lithuania.  And our ships — the frigates USS Doyle and USS Hall, Maritime Prepositioning Ship USNS Bobo, and the 6^th Fleet Flagship USS Mt. Whitney in 2009 — regularly enjoy excellent visits to Klaipeda port.

We maintain active dialogue among our military leadership with, for example, visits to Lithuania by the Commanders of U.S. Army Europe, the Special Operations Command Europe, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Affairs and others just in the past year.  The Lithuanian Defense Minister and Chief of Defense met their counterparts for comprehensive discussions in Washington in 2009 and 2010.  Bilaterally as well as in NATO, we are committed to maintaining our strong security ties.  We expect to announce additional senior visitors and ship visits for this year very soon.

These are tangible contributions the U.S. is making and will continue to make to ensure Lithuania’s security.   

When discussing security with Lithuanian colleagues, I am often asked about the Obama administration’s approach to relations with Russia, so let me say a word about that. 

As President Obama made clear in his Inaugural address, and Secretary Clinton elaborated in July to the Council on Foreign Relations, the United States is committed to engagement with all states, including states with whom we disagree.  We believe engagement advances our interests and puts us in a better position to lead, globally, on the many issues where our leadership is essential.  It is important to understand, however, that we do not see engagement as an end in itself, but as a means to an end:   to achieve concrete results in areas in which our joint efforts will benefit our countries, and the world.  And equally important, engagement will not be at the expense of our principles or our allies. 

We are carrying out our “reset” with Russia in this context.  Engaging with Russia, including  through our Bilateral Presidential Commission, we are working more effectively today to further important global goals:  to promote disarmament and strengthen nuclear security, to fight trafficking in drugs and people, to support operations in Afghanistan and to confront the Iranian threat.  And we are seeking to establish a NATO-Russia relationship that produces concrete results and draws NATO and Russia closer together, including on missile defense and arms control.

At the same time, we are realistic.  Given our different histories, experiences and perspectives, U.S. and Russian interests do not always overlap.  We will not always agree.  We have real differences with Russia on important matters of principle.  For example, we support the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states and reject the notion of spheres of influence.  We will continue to press Russia to live up to its commitments on Georgia.  Russia’s new military doctrine states that NATO’s enlargement and global actions constitute a military danger to Russia.  On the contrary, we strongly believe that the enlargement of both the EU and NATO — extending peace, stability and prosperity across the European continent — has increased Russia’s security and prosperity, as well.  Moreover, all states have the right to determine their own future and decide which alliances to join, and NATO’s door remains open to those who are willing and able to meet its conditions. We believe the Treaty of Conventional Forces in Europe, the CFE, has been a cornerstone of conventional arms control, transparency and confidence- building, and we should work to ensure it remains so in the future.

With respect to Russia’s proposals on European security, we believe they contain constructive ideas, and we are prepared to engage seriously with Russia on this important topic — but in the fora which exist for that purpose, the OSCE and the NATO-Russia Council.  New treaties, in our view, are not needed.  And, we want Russia to live up to the principles and values on human rights and individual liberties which Russia  committed to uphold in accepting the NATO-Russia Founding Act.

It is clear from these few examples that we have important differences with Russia.  But we are committed to engaging for results and to managing differences constructively where we disagree, while not conceding on our principles.       

I am also often asked how Lithuania’s growing stature as an active and influential member of the European Union affects the U.S.-Lithuanian partnership.  That’s easy to answer.  Lithuania’s membership in the EU enhances our relations.  The European Union is a key global partner for the U.S.  We share history, common values, the richest network of commercial ties and people-to-people connections of any two entities on earth, and we want to strengthen those relations as much as possible.  Working together, we share enormous power to act globally for good.  Lithuania’s presence enriches the EU and makes it a better partner for the U.S.  We engage more intensively now than ever with representatives of Lithuania — not only on matters of bilateral concern to Washington and Vilnius, but on the full range of issues on the agenda between the U.S. and the EU in Brussels and Strasbourg.       

This new level of engagement between the U.S. and Lithuania provides a host of new opportunities to bring Americans and Lithuanians together.  It also presents new challenges in maintaining the historically strong links we have already established.  So this brings me to my second topic:  how to strengthen the ties between Lithuanians and Americans. 

The opportunities I noted come in part from easier travel to the U.S. by Lithuanians.  I was delighted that Lithuania joined the U.S. Visa Waiver Program in 2008.  With this important step, travel to the U.S. for business and tourism, promoting stronger connections between our people, has boomed, growing by 40 percent last year alone.  I look forward to seeing even more Lithuanians travel to the U.S. as our economies recover. 

The U.S. has also sought to build closer people-to-people ties through programs for studying in the U.S. and through teacher exchanges, including the prestigious Fulbright program, and through university partnerships.  Twenty years after independence, these important programs deserve to be reviewed, revitalized and expanded, to bring them up to the level we enjoy with other key EU partners.  University partnerships can only be effective through committed efforts by citizens and faculty, but the dividends they pay when successful — in increased exchanges, joint research and long-term relationships is invaluable.  We will work to build these partnerships and also cooperate  with interested Lithuanians to build a strong network of alumni of U.S. exchange programs in Lithuania. 

On exchanges, there is one area, in particular, where I want to focus my first efforts — and that is on student exchanges at the high school level.  One of the best investments we can make in the long term health of our bilateral relationship, and a proven way to build lasting cooperation between U.S. and Lithuanian schools, communities and a generation of young people in both countries, is to increase the number of high school age students studying in each other’s country.   Exchange experiences during the high school years have the highest positive, long-term impact in terms of promoting mutual understanding and common values, changing lives for participants in remarkable and fundamental ways. 

I speak from personal experience, having gone abroad for the first time at the age of sixteen to France, to live with a wonderful French family and study French , through a high school exchange program.  That extraordinary experience broadened my knowledge, perspective and skills, and led me to a career of service to my country as a diplomat.  I am now exploring some promising avenues to increase high school student exchanges.  I will soon seek assistance in  expanding exchange programs from U.S. and Lithuanian partners who share my belief and who are willing to support  increased high school exchanges is an important investment in the future of our relationship.

And what about commercial ties, as we begin to see signs of hope that we are emerging from the global economic crisis?  The U.S. and Lithuania are both working hard to recover.  We have both recently launched important new programs to boost investment, exports, growth and jobs, and to reform and transform our economies in fundamental ways for the 21^st century.  These programs present significant new commercial opportunities.

As longstanding strategic partners, we will work together, proactively, to explore how we can increase trade and investment, binding our economies and our people more closely together.  Working with my counterparts in Vilnius and Washington, we will identify promising new commercial prospects, bring them to the attention of our companies and facilitate businesses’ and entrepreneurs’ efforts to increase bilateral trade and investment.  Prime Minister Kubilius launched this process with his visit to the United States this fall, and I am eager to follow up.  We will have an important opportunity to do so when U.S. Department of Commerce Deputy Assistant Secretary Juan Verde, responsible for U.S. commercial relations with Europe and Eurasia, visits Vilnius April 15-16.  I am confident he will be impressed with the opportunities  he sees here.

When our new bilateral Science and Technology Agreement is ratified by the Seimas, it will provide a new framework to strengthen our research, education and commercial cooperation.

I would like to end my talk today where it began — on the third and most fundamental point — namely, the shared values of democracy and human rights that bind us together now and for the future.  The United States’ strongest relationships are with those countries with which we share not only interests, but values.  And Lithuania’s love of liberty makes it the perfect example of this.  

Everyone here has heard Winston Churchill’s famous quote — that democracy is the worst form of government, except for every other.  He was right — democracy is often a messy, slow, fractious, difficult way to govern.  But because democracy reflects the people’s will, is based on the rule of law, not on the whims of fallible human beings, and because democracy requires leaders to be accountable to the people, it is the best guarantor of individual freedom that exists. 

Democracy is a demanding form of government for another reason, as well.  Democratic values and respect for human rights are not naturally occurring phenomena.  The work of sustaining them, even in mature democracies, is never done.  To succeed, democracy requires strong, enlightened leaders in government and society and informed citizens to engage every day to support and expand democratic values and human rights.  Democratic values must regularly be taught at school and reinforced at home, and supported by a strong legal framework and strong democratic institutions.  Democratic governments and societies must work actively to fulfill the promise of human rights, of equal rights, for everyone.

In this regard, today is an important day in American history.  On March 25, 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King,Jr.  led a march of thousands of people in support of civil rights in Montgomery, Alabama.   The events of March 1965 marked the culmination of the American civil rights movement, resulting in passage of the historic Voting Rights Act.  In America,  we worked for years to correct one of the darkest stains on America’s democracy — our legacy of slavery and racism.  Many Americans committed to freedom, like Dr. King, worked , from the founding of our nation to correct this wrong.  Others stood against them.  Our nation and society were torn apart for many decades on this issue.  The struggle was sometimes violent, and Americans died because of it — and not just in our Civil War.  But through the steady work of ordinary citizens and the principled stands taken by leaders they elected, in the end, we succeeded.  On the night he was elected in 2008 as our first African-American President, Barack Obama said, “If there is anyone who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer…that is the true genius of America…America can change.  Our union can be perfected.”

We are proud, as a nation, of this historic step.  But we are under no illusions that the work of perfecting our democracy is complete.  We continue our efforts at home to make real the promise of human rights, of equal rights, for everyone.  And we want to work closely with democratic  partners like Lithuania to expand the benefits of freedom abroad as well.

For example, in both our foreign and domestic affairs, President Obama and Secretary Clinton,, have put women’s rights — to education and health, equal employment and pay, lives free from fear, discrimination and violence, including at home — high on our agenda.  Empowering women and girls to develop and employ their potential is crucial for the future of both our countries.  We know that the countries that succeed are the countries that make full use of the talents of all their citizens — women and girls, as well as men and boys.  I’ve had the honor of meeting with representatives of women’s organizations from throughout Lithuania who are doing crucial work in this regard, and I look forward to working with them in the future. 

The United States is also honored that Lithuania, as the current chair of the Community of Democracies, has asked us to co-chair an important new working group on gender equality and women’s rights.  The United States first Ambassador at Large for Global Women’s Issues, Melanne Verveer, will visit Vilnius in April to help launch the working group.

President Obama has also highlighted the importance of progress to fulfill the promise of human rights for everyone for America’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, as well.  In 2009,  proclaiming June to be Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride month in the United States, President Obama called on all Americans to “work together to promote equal rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity…and to turn back prejudice and discrimination, wherever it exists.”

President Obama took this step recognizing that social, religious and other issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity are sensitive issues in our country and society, as they are in Lithuania.  Reasonable people hold differing views.  But as modern democracies, we can all agree that every citizen has the right to choose his or her own path, and to live free from harassment, discrimination and violence.  Every citizen has the right to peacefully associate and assemble, and express his or her views, although others may not agree with them.  For this reason, we applaud the decision by the Vilnius municipality to approve a permit for the Baltic Pride Parade this year.  This decision is a notable illustration of respect for tolerance, diversity and human rights. 

The United States and Lithuania are also partners in the fight against anti-Semitism and in efforts to address the legacy of the Holocaust.  Through our countries’ engagement in the International Task Force on the Holocaust, and in the process launched by the 1997 London Conference on Nazi Gold, we are working to fulfill our commitments on restitution and compensation, as well as on research, education and remembrance, to ensure that future generations understand the terrible consequences of intolerance and hate and guarantee such a tragedy never occurs again.  I hope to intensify our joint efforts in this area, particularly on Holocaust Education, and am grateful to the Ministry of Education, the International Commission, the Jewish Community and the Tolerance Center for their support in developing new initiatives.  The United States Special Envoy for Combating Anti-Semitism, Hannah Rosenthal, will visit Lithuania in April, to explore further cooperation.   

Finally, Lithuania is well recognized globally for the importance it gives to questions of fundamental human rights in its foreign policy.  Lithuania has been steadfast in its support of those seeking freedom and democracy in the Eastern neighborhood, including in Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova, and Belarus.  Lithuania is making a commendable effort to give new momentum to the Community of Democracies, including establishing a new Parliamentary Assembly for the organization. The United States will continue to support Lithuania’s efforts, and looks forward to progress on human rights and democracy, at home and abroad, as Lithuania assumes important positions of international leadership in coming years —  the Community of Democracies 2009-2011, the OSCE in 2011, and the Presidency of the EU in 2013.  

You have heard me illustrate today, I hope, what a valuable relationship we share.  You have heard some of our ideas on how we should work to make it even stronger in the future.  Now, I turn to you.  I look forward to hearing your comments and answering your questions, and welcome your ideas on next steps in U.S.-Lithuanian relations.

Thank you.

Ambassador Anne E. Derse
Institute of International Relations and Political Science
Vilnius University
Vilnius, Lithuania

March 25, 2010