Baltic Geopolitics Network panel: Re-emergence of the Baltic states in great power strategy after 1991

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

This panel deals with the factor of the Baltic states in great power politics, in the period ranging from independence movements of the Perestroika, to Baltic states' NATO accession in 2004. A new generation of scholars present their research of newly available materials.

Short Bio

Dr. Andris Banka is a senior researcher at the University of Greifswald, Germany. His work has been featured in peer-reviewed journals such as Security Studies, The Washington Quarterly, Journal of Transatlantic Studies, and European Security, among others. He holds a PhD in Politics and International Relations from the University of Birmingham, UK.

Jack Ellis is a PhD student at the University of Cambridge in the Department of Politics and International Studies. His research focuses on post-Cold War history, European geopolitics, and Ango-American foreign policy. He has previously worked at the U.S. National War College, George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, and the Marathon Initiative. He holds an MPhil with distinction from the University of Cambridge and a BA from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Dr. Donatas Kupciunas is a Baltic Fellow at the Centre for Geopolitics, and a Research Fellow at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge. He holds a DPhil in History at the University of Oxford and a Master of Laws in Public International Law at Leiden University. His research interests include modern international history, relations between East/Central and Western Europe in the interwar period, cultural and intellectual history of diplomacy, geopolitics of the Baltic sea region, international law of global security and contemporary Russian foreign policy. Dr. Kupciunas forthcoming book `The Vilnius conflict in European diplomacy, 1919-1923` is forthcoming with Oxford University Press. He current project deals with the history of NATO expansion in the Baltic.

Jokubas Pukenas is a PhD candidate in History at Vilnius University/Lithuanian Institute of History. His PhD thesis deals with the Baltic states in British public opinion and political strategy. Fields of interest: post-Cold war history, history of international relations, geopolitics.

Sub Unit

• International Relations and Regional Security

Chair

• Andres Kasekamp, University of Toronto

Individual Presentations

• Navigating Dilemmas: Western Strategies, Baltic Aspirations, and the Evolution of the Post-Cold War European Order - Jack C. Ellis, Cambridge University

• British public opinion towards Baltic popular movements (1988-1991) - Jokubas Pukenas, Vilnius University

• Bill Clinton and the art of getting Russian troops out of the Baltics - Andris Banka, Greifswald University

• Why did Russia acquiesce to NATO expansion in the Baltic? - Donatas Kupčiūnas, Cambridge University