There is justification to the claim that ever since it gained its independence in 1991, Lithuania’s foreign policy agenda has been crafted in Washington. It provided troops in support of America’s invasion of Iraq and it did the same thing in helping deny the Taliban a return to power in Afghanistan. Lithuania also supported Washington’s drive to expand the zone of democracy in Europe; indeed, under the influence of neo-conservative supporters of the Bush White House, it adopted a high profile in this campaign.

Critics within Lithuania note that while there is justification for sending its troops to Afghanistan to deny those who harbored the fanatics responsible for 9/11 a return to power, support for the Bush administration’s ill considered invasion of Iraq was unjustified. Furthermore, while Lithuania’s commitment to expanding the zone of democracy in the former Soviet space is a noble undertaking, does such an ambitious enterprise make sense given its domestic problems and foreign policy challenges?  Of course, it must adhere to its principles but it must also acknowledge its vulnerabilities and proceed with caution. As every freshman university student knows: “politics is the art of the possible.” What is more, democracy cannot be exported; it must evolve out of a country’s history, culture and current political matrix.

There is, of course, a simple retort to those who criticize Lithuania for embracing the American narrative of what is best for Eastern and Central Europe. How could Lithuania refuse any request for help from the country that has done more than any other one to achieve its foreign policy priorities: for example, making NATO membership possible and encouraging Brussels to open the EU’s door to it as well? How could it refuse any request from the U.S. that alone possesses the military might to protect it in event of an attack from the east–no matter how unlikely an armed threat from that quarter may be?

But now the people responsible for the Iraq disaster have left office and their neo-conservative supporters of imprudent American unilateralism have been discredited, so the time has come for Lithuania to adopt policies that do not originate in Washington. It is not a matter, as some fear, that the administration of President Barack Obama is any less supportive of Lithuania than was true of his predecessor. He has indicated categorically that he remains committed to the security of all of NATO’s members. Indeed, his pledge to honor Article 5 should be enhanced by the fact that he has help burnish America’s image in the eyes of the international community. Also at Tallinn, his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has pledged that the U.S. has no intention of withdrawing it nuclear weapons from Europe at this time. A policy favored by leaders in Central and Eastern Europe along with most of them in the Western half of the Continent as well.

Meanwhile, Lithuania must look to the EU to help it address its foreign policy challenges; a major question being how to reconcile Lithuanian-Russian friction. Given its size, enormous economic and political power, the EU certainly can provide help on this vital matter. But there is a big question mark here: will the EU operate like a truly united union and confront Russia with a single EU policy on a host of matters vital to Lithuania’s welfare such as energy security? The answer to date is a resounding: “No!”

Indeed, there is disturbing evidence that the larger members of the EU are moving along a path that is marked by bi-lateral and not multi-lateral policies in their dealings with Russia. In the process, they have dismissed expressions of concern on the part of member states that once were part of, or associated with the former Soviet Union. This is curious since the leaders of France and Germany have long complained with justification that their counter-parts in Washington have ignored their interests and have rejected their inputs in matters that profoundly concern them. Yet they are guilty of precisely the same thing when it comes to the smaller members of the EU.

Clearly then it is a major foreign policy goal of Lithuania to secure close and harmonious relations with neighboring states that understand why the Baltic democracies are worried about their vulnerability to those in Moscow who have used Russia’s energy assets to compromise their sovereignty and political influence to isolate them. Poland and the Nordic States fit that category, consequently Lithuania’s leaders have indicated on many occasions that close and harmonious relations with both entities represent a priority for them. But at the same time, many commentators have observed that Lithuanian domestic politics threaten to compromise relations with the Poles and the Nordic countries.

Two days before his plane crashed in Smolensk, Polish president Lech Kasczynski met with his Lithuanian counter-part Dalia Grybauskaite and said that he hoped the dispute over how Polish names were spelled would be resolved. The Polish media had blistered the Lithuanian Seimas for endorsing a law that would proscribe Poles from using characters common to the Polish language that were not found in Lithuanian. The law, its supporters contended, would protect the Lithuanian language from being corrupted by outside influences. Both Grybauskaite and Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius indicated that they also hoped that the Seimas would pass a law with which Lithuanian Poles could live. Kubilius asked: is the Lithuanian language so weak that it cannot allow its Polish citizens to use the names that their parents gave them?

Indeed, one of Lithuania’s most celebrated values over the centuries has been its tolerance for minority peoples living within its borders. At the same time, there is a compelling practical reason for Lithuania to have good relations with a neighbor almost ten times it size; an ally that is likewise a member of the EU and NATO and a country that has been applauded for its successful economic policies and new promising foreign policy initiatives. On this last matter, the government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk has received high marks for reconciling differences with Germany, and allied observers have expressed hope that a reconciliation of Polish-Russian relations is in the works as well.

The tragic death of the Polish president has created a truly historic prospect: the end of Polish-Russian enmity that has characterized relations between the two peoples for centuries. Even bitter critics of the Kremlin, like The Economist’s Edward Lucas has praised Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for his sincere display of remorse after the president and his entourage crashed in Smolensk. They were on their way to a commemeration of the Katyn forest massacre of 20,000 Polish military personnel at the hands of Stalin’s agents. Foreign commentators expressed amazement after Putin first conceded that the Soviets and not the Nazis were responsible for the massacre, and then agreed to commemorate the evil deed at a ceremony attended by high-level Polish and Russian officials.

It is especially noteworthy that Zbigniew Brzezinski, a man whose name does not bring smiles to the faces of the Kremlin overlords, has joined the chorus of those Western analysts who have had high praise for Putin and sees this expression of harmony between Warsaw and Moscow as a possible huge resetting of relations between these ancient adversaries. “I do not think that this is a game on the part of Russia,” he wrote in Time Magazine, “this is something sincere and very new.” The former national security advisor of President Jimmy Carter and a man with influence in the Obama administration concludes that if this is evidence of reconciliation on the part of Poland and Russia, “it will be geo-politically potentially equal to the importance of German-Polish reconciliation.”

Only time will tell whether this outcome takes place but should it occur it could have huge potentially positive implications for Lithuania’s relations with Moscow. Consequently, it is imperative that any differences between Lithuania and Poland be reconciled.

Turning to close relations with the Nordic States, a recent Swedish graduate of Vilnius University has written a provocative but balanced assessment of a major barrier to those relations. In the English language portal, the Lithuanian Tribune, Fredrik Rydström has observed that the Nordic countries did not pay much attention to Lithuania until the summer of 2009, “when information about the ‘law on the protection of minors’ first hit the newsstands. Thus Lithuania went from being perceived of as a nonentity to a nation of homophobes virtually overnight. Consequently, despite all efforts to promote a positive image of Lithuania abroad, what finally has struck is the conceptualization of a nation which strives to institutionalize homophobia.”

These are tough words and Rydström warns Scandinavian critics to be careful not to be self-righteous in their criticism of Lithuania. In his experience, most Lithuanians do not dwell on homosexuality and it is irresponsible for foreign commentators to exaggerate its importance to them. But he himself strikes a further blow when he makes the following observation. “…when Lithuanian authorities assert that Lithuania has its own values as opposed to those espoused by the EU, the phraseology is not without importance. This is the case since there is another country in Europe which recurrently has invoked similar explanations when trying to justify its circumvention or sheer neglect of human rights, namely Russia.”

In its quest to join the EU and NATO, Lithuania has pledged to embrace the democratic values of both organizations. Without dismissing real concerns that a small country like Lithuania has about the sanctity of its language and values, it is clear that it must honor that pledge. The truth is that in today’s world, there cannot be a dramatic disconnect between a country’s domestic practices and its international commitments.

Dick Krickus is professor emeritus at the University of Mary Washington and has held the H. L. Oppenheimer Chair for Warfighting Strategy at the U.S. Marine Corps University.