Baltic Air Defense After 1994

The Modern Air Control of Lithuania Latvia and Estonia

Nov 4, 2009

When the Soviets left in 1994, the three Baltic countries immediately began building an air defense organization.

In 1994 as the last Russian troops were leaving the three again independent Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia thought was began to discuss an integrated air surveillance and defense system to protect their combined airspace. Each of the three countries has fledgling land defense units and coastal patrols but their air defense was non-existent.

First Steps to Air Surveillance

By 1998 a program dubbed BALTNET was outlined to form coverage of their collective airspace. Progress was slow but by January 2001 each country had tied together a patchwork system of air traffic control radars, IFF transponder receivers and a few small military radars into coverage net for each of the Baltic States. They had also tied the three national networks together in a joint Regional Air Surveillance Co-ordination Center (RASCC) established at Kellavere, Estonia to share information. In November 2002 the Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were invited to start accession negotiations with NATO.

Air defence of the Baltic States took its first steps when the RASCC was renamed the joint Control and Reporting Centre (CRC) on April 13, 2003. The center of the CRC was the US-provided AN/TPS-77, an L-Band, phased array, all solid-state radar. The modern military air search radar provided 360 degree azimuth coverage on all targets at ranges up to 250 nautical miles and elevations up to 100,000 feet. This effectively covered the airspace from the Gulf of Finland to the Polish frontier and well into Russia itself. In April 2004, just a month after the Baltic States controversial addition to NATO, the CRC was tied to the NATO Integrated Air Defence System (NATINADS). This step promised that NATO interceptors would be scrambled to protect the countries in the event of an air incursion.

Moving into Baltic Air Policing through NATO

The interceptors in question were another problem. The Baltic States had small air units comprising a few helicopters and a handful of L-39 jet trainers, but no combat fighter aircraft. On March 26, 2004 NATO extended the offer of a quartet of fighters from a volunteer member's air force to protect the Baltic airspace from a local base to be provided by Lithuania. The huge former Soviet air base at Zokniai outside of the city of Šiauliai was staged to accept the fighters once the instruments of treaty ratification were delivered on March 29. The next day, on March 30th, a group of Belgian Air Force F-16AMs landed at Zokniai and began the Baltic Air Policing Operation that continues to this day. It was the first armed air defense that the countries had possessed since 1939.

The Baltic States are expecting to have their own operational air interceptors by 2018.

Sources:

German Air Force to conduct once more NATO Air Policing over Baltic States German Air Force Press Release Cologne 8/24/2009

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