The NATO summit in Vilnius was supposed to be an uneventful transition event between the other key meetings. However, Moscow's invasion of Ukraine changed the plans, forcing NATO to think – again – about a potential war with Russia.
“The decisions taken in Vilnius will define NATO's strategies for the next two or three years," Bruno Lété, Senior Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMFUS), told LRT.lt.
The focus will be on Eastern Europe and Ukraine, he added. "Let's be honest, the [summit] will be about the eastern flank,” Lété said.
Most of the decisions and wording will be agreed upon before the meeting at the Litexpo exhibition centre in Vilnius and will simply be endorsed by the leaders there. But there is still a chance that the leaders will be able to persuade their counterparts and NATO will reach historic decisions.
For the Baltic states and the other countries on NATO's so-called eastern flank, the most important issue is new regional defence plans. Allies agree that the threat of Moscow's aggression is not going away in the future and that the Kremlin's defeat in Ukraine may lead to even greater revanchism. The unpredictable situation in Belarus is also worrying, and the recent “march” of Yevgeny Prigozhin showed NATO how unpredictable the situation can quickly become.
NATO faced the need to transform its deterrence and defence principles as early as 2014, but the invasion of February 24, 2022, forced an urgent and radical change, seen as the end of the post-Cold War era.
Over the past three decades, NATO has moved away from large deployments at the border towards lower readiness levels and smaller units to respond to crises outside NATO territories.
However, Russian aggression has forced a return to larger rotational forces on the eastern flank that act as a “tripwire” to activate allied defences.
The Vilnius summit will be an important first step in assessing the implementation of NATO's new long-term force model.
Last year in Madrid, NATO decided to prepare a force of 300,000 high-readiness troops. However, the allies have recently struggled to build up a smaller high-readiness force, so there is still much scepticism. It is also unlikely that the new force will become a reality this year as promised.
At the same time, NATO is working to implement the new Deterrence and Defence Concept announced in Madrid last year. Defence plans, especially regional ones, are a key part of it.
For the first time since the end of the Cold War, they foresee that specific units should defend pre-assigned territories, allowing for a rapid redeployment of military equipment and reinforcements. It is these plans that NATO has to approve at the Vilnius summit.
After the meeting, an analysis will be made of which countries can offer which capabilities, what equipment is needed, and where it should be deployed.
The plans for the defence of the region are important, [...] but NATO’s new approach to planning adds a lot more,” said Tony Lawrence, head of the defence policy and strategy programme at the Estonian International Centre for Security and Defence (ICDS).
"Individual forces will understand their wartime roles and be able to prepare for them. SACEUR [Supreme Allied Commander Europe] will be able to demand improvements in units that are not up to scratch," hea added. "Any shortfalls in capability will be identified and rectified through the NATO defence planning process. The whole approach makes NATO’s defence more credible and so strengthens deterrence."
The plans also underline a change in NATO's approach – from now on, the joint goal will be to prevent Russia from invading, rather than mobilising to liberate the territory later on.
The Vilnius summit may also agree to increase the size of the allied forces deployed on the eastern flank to brigade size and to establish a divisional headquarters to coordinate them and the cooperation with host nation forces.
Lithuania has already received a promise from Berlin that a German brigade will be deployed on its territory in the future. Vilnius is now seeking to have the pledge included in NATO documents and become a written commitment from Berlin.
"On the eastern flank. we see that plans are in the making to send more troops, strengthen air defences, etc. But NATO has to deliver on this," said Lété from the German Marshall Fund. "Once the summit makes once the declaration is published, it's very important to start implementing those military plans."
“Although some countries have already committed troops, [for example] to the Baltic states, there is no timeline. [...] So this really has to be worked out," he added.
What to do with Ukraine?
The critical question for the Baltic states remains the question of Ukraine’s NATO membership.
The eastern flank countries have been urging NATO allies to make it clear at the summit that Ukraine will inevitably join the alliance in the future and to outline the next steps that Kyiv should take to receive a formal invitation to join.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Monday that NATO had agreed to exempt Ukraine from the Membership Action Plan (MAP), which would require a set of reforms to be completed before considering Kyiv’s application to join the alliance.
The Vilnius summit will also announce the creation of a NATO-Ukraine Council, as was previously the case with Russia. Ukraine will be able to convene special meetings, as well as cooperate and exchange information more easily with NATO member states.
However, some analysts criticise this format as an empty promise to cover up the reluctance to give Kyiv a clear path to the alliance.
NATO allies and Ukraine should probably also discuss long-term strategic objectives – is it the complete defeat and withdrawal of Russian forces from all Ukrainian territory or something else?
At the same time, a consensus will have to be found on the message to Moscow – some Western countries still believe that Russia should be involved in the future European security architecture.
“I do believe that the Western European countries are coming closer to the stance of the Baltic countries, Poland. I wouldn't say it's a shift to become hawkish [vis-à-vis Russia], but we see that even Western European nations that usually were more conservative started to realise it's time to do something," Lété said.
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