NATO's regional defence plans will take centre stage at the Vilnius Summit next week, with the updated documents aiming to concentrate forces on the eastern flank and streamline decision-making. However, questions remain about whether the additional troops should be based permanently in the Baltic states.
Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, NATO defence plans have moved from the concept of deterrence to defence, whereby all allied territory has to be defended from day one. This spelt good news for the Baltic states, where NATO previously offered only a trip-wire defence with the currently stationed forward battalions.
"They [the defence plans] are not on paper only, the transition period is now, we have adapted the former plans to the current situation," said Lithuania’s Chief of Defence Valdemaras Rupšys.
The updated 1,500-page regional defence plans aim to have some 400,000 troops ready to respond to the Russian threat. However, the reality is less optimistic.
"After the end of the Cold War, all armies were decimated and the recovery, the growth started only after the annexation of Crimea and very slowly," said Giedrimas Jeglinskas, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.
Although the growth of NATO militaries is now expected to accelerate, the industry is unable to meet demand.
"Procurement is stagnating everywhere, because the defence industry is simply not able to produce enough,” said Vaidotas Urbelis, director of policy at Lithuania’s Defence Ministry.
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Previously, NATO was criticised for its sluggish reaction to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, which first began in 2014. NATO deployed forward battalions to its eastern member states only three years after Russia annexed Crimea.
The new brigade-strength units were also assigned to the Baltics only a year and a half following the February 24 invasion last year.
Earlier this week, Berlin unexpectedly announced the permanent deployment of 4,000 troops to Lithuania. But some NATO generals and defence experts remain sceptical about the need for a permanent presence.
"If you have seven brigades in seven countries, when the enemy comes, six of them will turn out to be in the wrong place,” said Paul Taylor, senior fellow at the Friends of Europe think tank.
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According to Admiral Rob Bauer, chief of the NATO military committee, the forces should remain flexible and not fixed in place.
“It is much better to have the right reception infrastructure, pre-deployment capabilities and units assigned to your country, Estonia, Latvia, all the way down to Bulgaria and Romania," he told LRT in Brussels.
He welcomed Germany’s commitment to station 4,000 troops in Lithuania, but said it would be a mistake to base all NATO forces in Eastern Europe.
Referring to NATO deployments in Germany during the Cold War, Bauer said “it was a good idea to have forces there on the frontline”.
“Today, the front is much longer and NATO has expanded,” he added. “The threats are not only on land, they are in five areas. So we need to be more flexible.”
According to the admiral, having pre-position equipment and supplies and allocating a force that may arrive quickly would be enough. It is also something that was agreed in the Madrid summit last year.
"In Madrid, it was decided to have eight battlegroups, with a minimum size of a battalion, prepositioning reserves and capabilities, which could be increased to brigades if intelligence shows that this is necessary,” he said.
“This solution remains, nothing changes. If Germany and Lithuania agree to have more, it will never be a problem," Bauer added.
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