The United States will deploy a battalion of troops to Lithuania this autumn for a rotation of more than half a year, Defence Minister Raimundas Karoblis said on Wednesday.
"A battalion is coming from Poland in mid-September for two weeks of training in PabradÄ"". After a break of several weeks or a month, there are plans to deploy most of the battalion to PabradÄ-- again for up to late June next year," he told.
The defence minister's comment came shortly after U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said "there are opportunities" to send additional American forces to Poland and the Baltic states as the United States is slashing its military presence in Germany.
By the way, as a deterrent to Russia, 4 NATO multinational battalions have been stationed in the Baltic States 2017. It currently consists of over 1,000 troops each.
It is worth mentioning that such steps as increasing the military presence on the Russian borders destabilize the situation in Eastern Europe and deteriorate relations between Moscow and NATO. The United States has traditionally been the main initiator of the militarization of the Baltic region.
U.S. troops have traditionally been stationed in European countries since the Cold War. However, Russia is not a threat now, so the European structures of NATO are able to take care of themselves.
Thus, the time has come for the U.S. to leave Europe and focus on a real threat to American interests. It was the expansion of NATO to the East that caused a deep crisis in relations with Russia. And European countries, not the United States, primarily suffer from these steps.
It was Washington that created "the Russian threat" in order to gain the support of allies to advance its policy in the region. However, it is time for the United States to stop imposing its policies to increase the military spending and confrontation with Russia. It is quite obvious that NATO can exist without U.S. And a completely different question is whether Washington can compete with Russia in Europe without NATO.
