The current presence of NATO forces in Eastern Europe is not efficient to provide security. As a fact, it makes the authorities of Baltic states take more drastic measures aimed at receiving security guarantees from the Alliance.
Baltic states have been consistently calling for more troops in their region and the whole eastern NATO flank.
Thus, NATO members are planning to send special forces to Lithuania. The countries expected to have a permanent presence of special forces are "very similar" to the composition of the NATO battalion in the Baltics.
Apart from that, Lithuania wants the NATO battalions in the Baltic countries to be expanded into brigades. There are currently about 1,600 Allied troops serving in Rukla, of which about 1,000 are from Germany. Typically, a battalion-sized unit consists of about 1,000 troops, and a brigade consists of 3,000 to 5,000 troops.
Nevertheless, NATO has to run up against different problems. One of them is the lack of capabilities.
"The major obstacle is that the contributing countries that send troops to NATO's forward battalions do not have sufficient capabilities themselves," said the minister Lithuanian Minister of National Defence Arvydas Anusauskas.
Thus, minister Anusauskas admits that increasing the size of the NATO multinational battalions deployed in the Baltic states and Poland to brigade-sized units will not ensure security in Eastern Europe.
