Unable to buy enough air defence systems, Lithuania must insist on NATO air defence exercises in the region, Lieutenant General (Ret.) Ben Hodges, former Commanding General of US Army Europe, said at the Vilnius Security Forum on Friday.
“Do we have enough air missile defence [here]? I don’t think so. I don’t mean Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia now have to go and buy more and more systems, you can’t afford them, they are too expensive, but what Lithuania should be doing is demanding that NATO conduct air missile defence exercises, find out where the gaps and the problems are,” he told a press conference at the Lithuanian parliament, Seimas.
On the eve of the second anniversary of the war in Ukraine, Hodges stressed that Russia’s conduct so far shows that if it decided to attack a NATO country, it would target civilian population and infrastructure. Countries need to be prepared to defend themselves for up to two weeks before NATO forces can arrive, he said.
“Once Russia attacks a NATO country, it could be two weeks until reinforcement arrives in Lithuania, so that means if you think about total defence, are Lithuanians prepared for maybe the worst case, two weeks without additional forces arriving. You have to be prepared I would say at least two weeks before additional resources and reinforcement arrive,” Hodges, who currently serves as NATO Senior Mentor for Logistics, underlined.
“Everybody knows Article 5, an armed attack on one shall be considered an armed attack on all. Article 3 comes before Article 5 and Article 3 says you are responsible for your own defence and also having enough to help others, and I can see and feel Lithuania is carrying out this Article 3 preparations as it should,” the retired lieutenant general said.
Laurynas Kasčiūnas, head of the Seimas Committee on National Security and Defence, said that “Lithuania must become a geopolitical and defensive hedgehog that would be difficult for the Russian bear to swallow, even if it’s much stronger”.
“It is a matter of regular strong forces, a Lithuanian division, a military reserve, and public involvement in defence plans to make it too costly for the bear to even try to swallow the hedgehog,” Kasčiūnas said. “Given that we are dealing with an enemy that can fight an exhausting long-term war, you cannot leave everything to the regular forces, you have to involve the public as well. Besides, the reinforcement will certainly come, but you have to be ready, you have to have the muscle and the strength to resist on your own.”
Also attending the Vilnius Security Forum, Marshall Billingslea, a former assistant secretary for terrorist financing at the US Department of the Treasury and under-secretary of state for arms control and international security affairs, says the US and the EU have failed to grind the Russian economy to a halt with sanctions.
“What we have done and what we failed to do with respect to grinding the Russian economy to a halt, with respect to stopping the flow of revenue that is keeping the Russian war machine going as they replenish equipment,” he said.
As Russia continues its war against Ukraine, the Lithuanian parliament is hosting the 9th Vilnius Security Forum to discuss deterrence and defence strategies, organised by the Seimas Committee on National Security and Defence in cooperation with the Defense Support Foundation. This year, the focus is on NATO’s common deterrence strategy.
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