TAPA MILITARY BASE, Estonia. — Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have been calling for their region to receive the biggest build-up of combat-ready NATO forces in Europe since the end of the Cold War, to be agreed at a summit on June 28-30 in Madrid.
It will not happen, interviews with seven senior diplomats and officials from leading NATO allies show.
This is partly because the proposals come as the NATO alliance faces a slew of demands not seen in decades: from countering Russia and China in the Arctic to quelling Islamic insurgencies in the Sahel, and tackling new frontiers in space.
Since Russia invaded, the US Congress has approved extra funds and the Pentagon sent F-35 stealth fighters, as well as attack helicopters, to Estonia; Britain doubled its force presence at Estonia’s Tapa military base to around 1,700 personnel.
But for many people in the region, which has been occupied by both Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany and which lies within striking distance of a Russian garrison at St. Petersburg, that is not enough. For instance, 84.6% of Latvian respondents to a Benu Aptiekas/Gemius poll in May said they were highly anxious about Russia’s invasion.
“The fact that we could be in danger, it’s been on the table all the time,” said Dzintra Bungs, 82, head of the Latvian Occupation Museum Association in Riga. “It is very important that we have woken up, and that all Europe awakes.”
The Baltics, with a combined population of just over six million, want the alliance to boost its pre-Ukraine invasion presence of around 5,000 multinational soldiers by as much as tenfold, as well as adding air and maritime defenses.
Many of NATO’s 30 allies in Europe and the United States support the calls for a bigger force in principle, but in reality say allies can only commit to maintaining higher troop levels, pre-positioning more equipment, weapons and ammunition in the region and promising rapid reinforcements.
The broad outline for leaders to agree at the summit, the diplomats and NATO officials said, is a model of larger multinational NATO battlegroups in the Baltics, with a commitment to quickly reinforce if Russia were about to invade. Planning for new air and maritime defenses will come later.
Many members, including Britain and the United States, do not favor permanent new bases in the Baltics, three of the diplomats told Reuters. They said it would cost billions and be hard to sustain: The states may not have enough troops and weaponry, and a permanent presence would be highly provocative for Moscow.
“The Baltic states will not each get enough NATO troops to create a division,” a NATO diplomat said, referring to their request for up to 15,000 troops across the region, as well as more on stand-by in allied countries to complement national forces. “Whatever is decided must be sustainable.”
Instead, allied intelligence will help NATO act if Moscow looks set to invade. During informal discussions at NATO headquarters and in capitals, that view has won over the majority, the diplomats and officials said — the plans will need more work after the summit.
The Latvian government declined to comment. Lithuania’s presidential office also declined to comment, but an advisor to the president said the country would continue to insist, in the run-up to the summit, on the need for more NATO troops. The office of Estonia’s prime minister said it and allies were working out the details of how to strengthen the allied presence.
A senior US defense official at NATO declined to comment. A British defense ministry spokesperson declined to go into details, saying it was “working closely with our friends and partners to explore how we can strengthen the alliance’s defensive posture.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin says his “special military operation” in Ukraine is essential to ensuring Russia’s security. Ukraine and its Western allies call this a baseless pretext for an invasion which has raised fears of wider conflict in Europe.
Next in line?
For the Baltics, the issue is clear: They could be next.
NATO currently rotates a multinational troop presence through the region, but the Baltic states say that leaves them vulnerable.
“After the war – I don’t think Russia will be defeated – they will still have huge military capabilities remaining,” Valdemaras Rupsys, Lithuania’s Chief of Defense, told Reuters.
“After some time … they will try to threaten us by military means. You will see.”
Since Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, the Baltics have been warning about a Russian threat that many NATO allies considered overblown. Now, looking at Moscow’s playbook in Georgia and Ukraine of capturing a small portion of territory from which to build, Baltic states want NATO to change its approach to their region, a strategically crucial gateway to a busy commercial shipping route linking Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany and Denmark.
Tuuli Duneton, undersecretary for Defense Policy at the Estonian Ministry of Defense, told Reuters Russia has been preparing for the last 20 years for large-scale military confrontation with NATO while the alliance’s focus was partly elsewhere, particularly in Afghanistan.
