(Viitna) Airborne assault of American troops, night landing of British Marines, parachuting of French commandos: in Estonia, on the eastern flank of NATO, the countries of the Alliance are training in the shadow of the war waged by Russia against Ukraine.
The message is clear. “It indicates that we can deploy very quickly in a very short time,” explains Lieutenant-Colonel Edouard Bros, commander of the French deployment in Estonia, whose forces are participating in the “Spring storm” exercise.
Fifteen months after the start of the war against Ukraine, and just over a month before the NATO leaders’ summit in Vilnius, the Alliance is strengthening its defenses and revamping protection plans for all its members.
“This change should make the alliance fit for large-scale operations to defend every inch of its territory,” US General Christopher Cavoli, NATO’s supreme commander in Europe, said this month.
“Collective defense has again become the most important task and we need to get in order,” says Kristjan Mae, head of the policy planning department at the Estonian Ministry of Defence.
Battle groups and brigades
In response to the invasion of Ukraine, the alliance deployed four new “battlegroups” in Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. Four had been formed in Poland and the three Baltic states after Russia seized Crimea in 2014.
NATO members are now considering increasing deployments in the Baltics and Poland to brigade size, which would mean adding thousands more troops “where and when needed”.
Military equipment, which is long and complicated to transport, is prepositioned in the east as part of this plan. Exercises like “Spring storm” are intensified to help allied forces communicate better, work together and know the terrain.
Concretely, Great Britain, which leads the NATO battle group in Estonia, will keep troops on standby in their home bases to reinforce the approximately 1,000 British and French soldiers present on the ground.
“This is an essential change: an additional layer of capabilities to reinforce the force in place before the outbreak of conflict,” said British Brigadier General Giles Harris, NATO Deployment Commander in Estonia.
While Estonia seems happy with this model, its neighbour, Lithuania, wants to have additional troops permanently on the ground and is still discussing with its main partner, Germany, how to obtain them.
These deployments reinforce the armies of the frontline countries and form the tip of NATO’s forward defense.
Finland’s – and eventually Sweden’s – membership will help strengthen its eastern flank.
More detailed plans must be approved by leaders in Vilnius. They specify how the alliance would defend each region in the event of an attack, with the number of forces, the countries of origin and the duty stations.
NATO wants to have a force of 300,000 troops ready for deployment within 30 days.
From paper to practice
All these new deployments will inevitably require money, resources and forces. The question is whether the allies are ready to put their hands in their pockets.
Ahead of Vilnius, NATO members are negotiating a new pledge to increase defense spending as a percentage of gross domestic product.
Only seven members of the alliance have reached the 2% target set for 2024 and the minimum target for Vilnius will be to turn this 2% into a floor rather than a ceiling.
Estonia, which has never ceased to regard Russia as an existential threat, wants to see its allies commit to spending 2.5% of their GDP on defense and wants the new defense strategies to become operational as soon as possible.
“One thing is to have good plans on paper. Another is to make them executable and achievable,” Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said during the “Spring Storm” exercise. “That’s the challenge for all of us.”