The sighting of enemy tanks coming from the north puts the 41st Mechanized Infantry Brigade on alert, which has moved within 72 hours from Germany to the eastern tip of Lithuania. They are less than 20 kilometers from Belarus, the “last dictatorship in Europe”, a vassal state of Moscow that was instrumental in attacking Ukraine and the destination of the unexpected exile of Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the Wagners .
The adversary seems to want to gain control of the Pabrad? maneuver field and take positions to launch a large-scale invasion of the country. “I can say with certainty that we know what we have to do to protect our Alliance”, says a command of the German army, which works integrated with the Lithuanian armed forces. What is appreciated is a demonstration of military power and interoperability capacity through the deployment of dozens of Keiler, Fennek and Leopard tanks to carry out reconnaissance activities, fortify positions and respond to the enemy until he is defeated.
The outcome of this “high intensity war” is known in advance. It is the script of the Griffin Storm maneuvers that are taking place these days in the east of Vilnius, one of the largest military exercises that NATO plans to do this year to test the force model agreed at the Madrid summit, when it was decided to raise from 40,000 to 300,000 the number of highly available troops that must be ready to move and protect “to the last inch of allied territory”, as its leader, Jens, likes to say Stoltenberg.
The German Government undertook a year ago to reserve a brigade of 5,000 troops to protect Lithuania. Without installing them in the country, as requested by the Baltic countries, but continuously trained to be able to move them with almost no notice. Thus, the first part of the maneuvers, which began on June 21 and will last until July 7, consisted of moving 1,000 troops and 320 armored vehicles from Neubrandenburg to Lithuania, to test the mobility of the troops.
They got there by air, land and sea. In three days, they were in Pabrad?. Troop movements in Europe often run into barriers at customs or encounter roads unsuitable for transporting heavy equipment (the EU is allocating funds for this purpose), but the operation developed without a hitch. “Only 0.6% of the vehicles had problems”, such as broken wheels, explains German lieutenant colonel Benedikt Hoff.
The long-term plan is to have equipment pre-stationed in Lithuania (or the country assigned to protect each ally, as NATO will agree at the Vilnius summit in July), but now the German army has taken it everything above: provisions, ammunition, spare parts… It’s not ideal, admits Brigadier General Christian Nawrat: “Getting here in a couple of days but not having stored material or personnel is not very useful”. Many challenges remain (harmonizing orders and procedures, improving communications…) but the commitment of the military is total. “Neither for me nor for my men, there is no difference between defending Lithuania and defending Germany. This is NATO territory and we are prepared to return there, if necessary,” says Moritz, head of a division of the brigade.
Although it is a fictitious scenario, the starting point of these maneuvers, an attack from the other side of the border, is not a hypothetical situation for the Lithuanians but a frighteningly plausible one. Since gaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1990, Lithuania has always felt vulnerable due to its geographical situation. The country (2.8 million inhabitants) faces the enclave of Kaliningrad (Russia) to the south and shares 679 kilometers of border to the east with Belarus, as well as, with Poland, the 65 kilometers of the Suwalki Strait , the possible weak flank of NATO (occupying this space, the three Baltic republics would be isolated).
Since annexing Crimea in 2014, Vilnius has soared its defense spending (currently 2.3% of GDP), struck deals with the US to strengthen its military presence on the ground, and has one of the battalions multinationals, led by Germany, created by NATO to reinforce its eastern flank, where there are already 40,000 troops on rotation.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine prompted NATO’s biggest military build-up since the Cold War, but Baltic governments have made no secret of their displeasure with the rapid deployment model agreed in Madrid, which they believe it would not be enough to repel a Russian attack and they insist on calling for permanent deployments. Paradoxically, on Monday, the same day that the German army sought to demonstrate to Stoltenberg and the Lithuanian authorities that the model works, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius appeared to prove them right by announcing that he will send a brigade of 4,000 cash permanently as soon as they can accommodate her. As a model, it seems difficult to expand. “It’s not just about having a presence but the ability to have early warning indicators to react quickly if necessary and these maneuvers demonstrate” that it can be done, Stoltenberg defended. The allied leaders will decide, in July, on possible adaptations to the force model.
