During the NATO summit in Poland this week NATO leaders unveiled a plan to station a battalion to each Baltic nation and Poland.
Specifically, the U.S. will send a full strength battalion of soldiers, armour, and associated equipment to Poland, totaling over 1,000 soldiers. Britain will send A 500-strong battalion to Estonia and 150 troops will go to Poland, Germany will lead a battalion in Lithuania, and Canada will do the same but in Latvia.
To keep the deployment in line with a 1997 treaty in Russia that prohibits “additional permanent stationing of substantial combat forces in Eastern Europe” the US will rotate its battalion size force but will keep the heavy equipment in Poland.
It’s surprising that Germany is participating this deeply in NATO maneuvering, last month its Foreign Minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, chastised NATO for holding large exercises near its borders with Russia ““The one thing we shouldn’t do now is inflame the situation with loud sabre-rattling and warmongering,.” Maybe they got a bit of a push from Obama who has made his opinion known that he’s not happy with weak European defense spending.
Knowing how the Russians react to NATO strategic maneuvering we should see a significant response on from them in the coming months.