ABSTRACT

The twenty-first century peacekeeping landscape is defined by the multiplicity of institutional frameworks under which international operations are deployed. Small states with limited resources cannot meet every demand for troop contributions and face the inevitable dilemma of choosing whose ‘flag’ to carry. For the first decade after joining NATO and the EU, the Baltic States gave a clear priority to NATO and U.S.-led military operations, but since the 2014 Ukrainian crisis gradually shifted their focus to the UN framework. Drawing on interviews with policy-makers in the three Baltic countries this article aims to explain this recent shift. It reviews the main theoretical assumptions about troop contributions to the UN peacekeeping operations and burden-sharing behaviour among NATO allies, and suggests that the recent troop deployment decisions of the Baltic States are best explained by a realist focus on national security concerns. The seemingly ‘internationalist’ context of UN peacekeeping operations simply happened to be most suitable for a bilateral exchange with their European allies, namely Germany and France, that in turn contributed troops to NATO's Baltic flank.

摘要

21 世纪的维和格局是由部署国际行动的多种体制框架决定的。资源有限的小国无法满足所有的增兵需求，不可避免地面临着选择谁的“旗帜”的困境。加入北约和欧盟后的头十年，波罗的海国家明确优先考虑以北约和美国为首的军事行动，但自 2014 年乌克兰危机以来，其重点逐渐转向联合国框架。本文通过对三个波罗的海国家政策制定者的采访，旨在解释这一最近的转变。它回顾了关于部队对联合国维和行动的贡献和北约盟国之间分担行为的主要理论假设，并认为波罗的海国家最近的部队部署决定最好用对国家安全问题的现实主义关注来解释。联合国维和行动看似“国际主义”的背景恰好最适合与其欧洲盟友（即德国和法国）进行双边交流，而这反过来又向北约的波罗的海侧翼派遣部队。