Kritiniai pamąstymai apie Lietuvos užsienio politiką
Critical reflections on Lithuanian foreign policy

Summary/Abstract: The article deals with the fundamentals of Lithuanian foreign policy. It is an attempt to evaluate its understructure, principles, advantages and shortcomings. The article proceeds to exploring a rather strenuous question: are the tensions between Lithuanian and Russia caused solely by the Russian misbehavior as Lithuanian politicians mostly claim or is the Lithuanian foreign policy also to blame. The crucial idea of the “new Lithuanian foreign policy”, that of the center or leader of an unnamed and undefined region, presumably of the Eastern Europe or at least a part of it, is put under scrutiny. The author claims that (1) for a small country such a role is utterly unrealistic, (2) attempts to play that role have nothing to do with national interests the foreign policy has serve, (3) playing the chosen role complicates relations both with other EU countries and with Russia. The article ends with the conclusion that the foundation of the Lithuanian foreign policy must be its Western, not Eastern policy.

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