The minister of defense of Lithuania recently paid a visit to Fort Indiantown Gap and met with officials on the local base.
Minister Laurynas Kasciunas, who is the equivalent of the U.S. secretary of defense in Lithuania, was on the base on July 8. He met with the Pennsylvania Adjutant General, Major Gen. Mark Schindler, as well as other Pennsylvania National Guard senior leaders at Joint Force Headquarters and toured the Eastern Army National Guard Aviation Training Site.
The Pennsylvania National Guard and Lithuania have been partners through the National Guard’s State Partnership Program since 1993, according to a press release from Brad Rhen, deputy state public affairs officer for the Pennsylvania National Guard.
The PA National Guard has previously hosted Lithuanian personnel and participated in U.S. European Command, U.S. Army Europe and NATO exercises through the security cooperation program.
According to the release, past participation has included support to the International Security Forces in Afghanistan, a National Training Center rotation in California with the Pennsylvania Army National Guard, a visit from the sitting Lithuanian president to FTIG, and a visit by the Pennsylvania governor to Lithuania and Poland. Also, a PA National Guard member serves as the bilateral affairs officer in Lithuania to coordinate security cooperation events for the Guard, multiple other service components, the geographic combatant command and the Lithuanian Armed Forces.
The Pennsylvania State Partnership Program executes joint security cooperation engagements with the Republic of Lithuania “in support of U.S. European Command objectives and the Department of State initiatives facilitating unity of effort in order to sustain the enduring relationship, build capacity, improve interoperability, and deter potential adversaries furthering the defense of Lithuania’s sovereign borders, Euro-Atlantic security, and the homeland, the press release explains.
The Republic of Lithuania is located at the geographical center of Europe, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and southeast, Poland and the Kaliningrad region of Russia to the southwest, and a 43-mile coastline along the Baltic Sea to the west. Slightly larger than West Virginia, the population of Lithuania is approximately 3.7 million.
The State Partnership Program has been successfully building relations for more than 30 years and now includes 96 partnerships with 106 nations around the globe. The program is administered by the National Guard Bureau, guided by State Department foreign policy goals, and executed by the state adjutants general in support of combatant commander and U.S. Chief of Mission security cooperation objectives and Department of Defense policy goals.
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