Historian Briefs U.S. Military Advisors Bound for Baltic Countries

Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to travel to Fort Carson, Colorado, to brief units of the 4th Security Force Assistance Brigade (SFAB) prior to their deployment later this summer to the Baltics. These are highly tactical Army leaders whose mission on deployment is to assess, support, liaise, and advise operations with military forces and with civil and political leaders in the three Baltic countries of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.

As someone who has studied, visited, and written about these countries for over three decades, I was recommended to the Army for this role by the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies (AABS). The University of New Haven collaborated with this organization last year in hosting an international conference on Baltic Studies in New Haven.

Security Force Assistance Brigades are specialized, highly selective Army units formed first in 2017 to assist and accompany foreign nation military partners throughout the world. The 4th Security Force Assistance Brigade, stationed at Fort Carson, Colorado, sends military advisors to countries in the Baltic, Balkan, Black Sea, and Caucasus regions, in addition to Central and Eastern Europe.

I had the chance to be one of a small group of regional experts who briefed SFAB troops at Fort Carson in the framework of a military operational planning conference.

As part of my time in Fort Carson, I spoke before the entire 4th Security Force Assistance Brigade, presenting an hour-long overview of the peoples of the Baltic region, their history, and their security situation. I emphasized that all three Baltic countries are vibrant, healthy democracies, and that the peoples of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are determined to continue to build and strengthen their productive, confident, and optimistic societies.

Throughout their history the Balts have often been oppressed by larger neighbors. They gained their independence from the Russian Empire in the course of World War I, only to be seized by the USSR in 1940, occupied by Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1944, then occupied by the USSR until 1991, when their independence was regained.

Today, all three countries have significant ethnic minority groups, mainly Russian speakers – largely a remnant of Soviet occupation. In sharing this history, I told the SFAB troops that the Baltic peoples will refuse to go back to not being in control of their own homelands. All three countries as NATO members are working with U.S. and European allies to protect against all future threats to the region.

On the other days of the conference, I met separately with the teams of SFAB military advisors to help them in answering their questions and providing more context as they prepared reports on their projected tasks upon deployment in the Baltic in all the areas of SFAB’s work, including military operations, maneuvering, communications, logistics, and others.

In all, this was an experience I was proud to be part of and one that I will not soon forget.

Bradley Woodworth, Ph.D., is a Professor of History. As a student and journalist in the early 1990s, he lived in the Baltic region of the USSR.