British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace put it bluntly: “You don’t have 60 days to take your tanks to Estonia. Because there will be no Estonia until this stage, given what the Russians have done in Ukraine.
Speaking on the sidelines of last week’s NATO summit in Brussels, Wallace did not behave lightly. The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – the north-eastern flank of the transatlantic alliance – have long warned of a potential Russian attack before Moscow’s offensive against Ukraine begins in February.
Now that Russia is stepping up its threats against the Baltic states – including access to its Kaliningrad exclave – and days before the organisation’s annual summit in Madrid, the debate over the kind of support NATO allies must provide has intensified.
Germany announced last week that it would deploy 3,500 additional troops to defend Lithuania, but would keep most of them at home.
Berlin’s approach has support among other Western allies: Concerned about the cost of long-term deployment and the possibility of provoking Moscow, they say pre-positioning equipment and flying troops in the short term is a smarter move. But vulnerable allies, such as Lithuania, say they need thousands of NATO troops, fully armed and equipped, to respond immediately to any Russian attack.
Margarita Seseljgite, director of the Institute for International Relations and Political Science at Vilnius University, said the German approach “is not a good message for us”.
“With regard to our security, [pre-positioned defence forces] must. We lack strategic depth, “she said. “Ukraine was and is able to defend itself because of this. . . The Baltic states can generally be taken over by Russian forces within a week.
Permanent bases, such as those set up by the United States in Germany after World War II, are expensive. Troops travel with their families, which requires extensive housing and school complexes.
Instead, NATO’s “increased presence” of foreign-led battlegroups in eastern countries, established in 2017 and expanded this spring, relies on “unaccompanied” troops on temporary rotation, in other words, sometimes living in tents, such as extended military exercise.
“I think this is the way forward,” said Kaisa Olongren, the Dutch defense minister. “We agree with the German approach, which I think is in line with the strategy we need to have for NATO’s entire eastern flank, which means a stronger position, but it is also flexible.
“It’s also more sustainable because you don’t have to have everything and everyone in place, but you have to react very quickly and have the strength ready,” she added.
The Netherlands is providing troops to the German-led NATO battle group in Lithuania. The United Kingdom leads the battle group in Estonia, Canada in Latvia and the United States in Poland.
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Many NATO capitals argue that a more agile approach, with the ability to deploy quickly where needed, is a better deterrent than the fixed defenses that any potential invader could plan to avoid.
But it relies on vulnerable border states that believe their allies will be deployed quickly enough and with enough force to repel a concentrated attack.
The US 82nd Airborne Air Force boasted its ability to deploy anywhere on the planet within 18 hours. But few, if any, other combat units with their size and competence can equate to this.
Ahead of Russia’s renewed invasion of Ukraine in February, NATO is talking about a tripwire strategy in which several thousand troops in eastern countries will serve as an initial deterrent to an attack before serious reinforcements arrive.
This is no longer considered durable. In the early hours of Putin’s attack in February, Western intelligence officials warned that Kyiv was likely to fall in three days, given the scale of the attack.
In fact, a combination of Russian strategic mistakes and successful Ukrainian counterattacks halted the initial attack. The Baltics are worried that if Putin has learned from this failure, NATO cavalry will arrive too late to prevent the fall of their capitals.
“[The eastern allies] won the argument that the tripwire strategy did not actually correspond to what we saw happening in Ukraine, “Wallace said. “The first battle is the most important battle.”
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