A deal on new regional defence plans was reached in Vilnius on Monday evening. It is a major achievement of the NATO summit that kicks off on Tuesday, commented Deividas Matulionis, Lithuania’s ambassador to the alliance.
In the previous plan, the approach was that the Baltic countries should try to hold off a hypothetical Russian offensive until allied reinforcements can arrive to help them. The new plans, approved on the eve of the summit, aim to ensure that NATO is ready to fight back immediately.
Moreover, allies should commit more troops under the direct control of NATO’s top military command. This would reduce the risk of delays in political decisions on troop allocations.
Germany would play a key role in Lithuania’s defence plans.
“The plans provide for the alliance’s possible reaction, deterrence and defence not from the beginning of an act of aggression, but from the moment a crisis begins to brew, when there are signs that an act of aggression is being planned,” Lithuanina MP Laurynas Kasčiūnas, chairman of the Committee on National Security and Defence, wrote on Facebook on Monday night.
“It is a great result of the Vilnius summit that regional plans have been approved,” Lithuanian Ambassador to NATO Matulionis told the radio Žinių Radijas, adding that “sometimes we do not fully appreciate the importance” of the plans.
The ambassador described it as a “fundamental shift” from the post-1990 approach that “a period of peace dividends would bring peace”.
“We are now going back to a true defence policy based on forward defence, that is, defence from the very first minute with all available military capabilities,” he said.
According to Lithuania’s chief of defence General Valdemaras Rupšys, “if Russia sets foot here, it will be pushed out”.
In his words, the new regional defence plans now require work to implement them.
“Tactical plans differ from operational plans in that the operational plan is an idea of how we do it, and it also defines the capabilities, and then we agree on where those capabilities come from and how we will wage war on the ground. Now we have to wait for those tactical plans,” Rupšys said.
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