Sweden Foreign Policy

The Baltic Sea had no Homer to chronicle its ancient wars and tempests. In modern times, it is often dismissed as the backwater of Northern Europe. But historic dramas on the Continent have always washed up on its shores, and with fateful consequences. Today, the political and economic convulsions shaking the Soviet Union have provided an opportunity for Lithuania, one of the three Baltic states absorbed by the Soviets in 1940, to declare its independence.

The Baltic Sea had no Homer to chronicle its ancient wars and tempests. In modern times, it is often dismissed as the backwater of Northern Europe. But historic dramas on the Continent have always washed up on its shores, and with fateful consequences. Today, the political and economic convulsions shaking the Soviet Union have provided an opportunity for Lithuania, one of the three Baltic states absorbed by the Soviets in 1940, to declare its independence.