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International Internet Magazine. Baltic States news & analytics Tuesday, 19.03.2024, 05:54

Great Britain supports deployment of permanent NATO forces in Baltics

BC, Riga, 08.10.2015.Print version

Britain is to join Germany and the US in committing to long-term troop deployments in the Baltic states to deter Russian aggression and shore up NATO’s eastern borders, the Financial Times newspaper writes.

 

Michael Fallon, the UK defense secretary, will announce the commitment on Thursday when he meets other NATO defense ministers in Brussels for the alliance’s quarterly ministerial council, reports LETA.

 

The length of the troop deployment will be open-ended but on a rotational basis – a formulation that will allow the US, Britain and Germany to avoid accusations that they are breaching agreements struck with Moscow after the end of the cold war over permanent troop placements in former eastern bloc nations.

 

The move is almost certain to raise hackles in Moscow. Russia has long accused NATO of encroaching on its sphere of influence and attempting to militarize territories along its border.

Though modest – Ministry of Defense officials said the contingent would initially comprise a single company of troops or about 100 troops – the deployment is still a marked change in Britain’s posture, the article points out.

 

The previous UK parliament saw Britain scale back the number of troops it had positioned abroad. Amid cuts to the size of the army – from 102,000 to 80,000, its smallest since the Napoleonic wars – the government took the decision to close permanently the UK’s bases in Germany, bringing home about 20,000 troops.

 

Fallon is to tell fellow defense ministers that Britain is “committed to supporting the sovereignty of the democratic nations of eastern Europe”, said an MoD source familiar with his prepared remarks.

 

“We are already deploying RAF jets to the Baltics and providing crucial training to the Ukrainian armed forces,” Fallon plans to say. “Now we will have a more regular drumbeat of troops deploying in the Baltics and Poland.”

 

The defense secretary will also announce further details of plans to scale up Britain’s current training mission for Ukrainian armed forces.

 

There are currently about 75 British military trainers in western Ukraine, running a program that has so far worked with 1,600 Ukrainian troops. Fallon announced plans in August to double the capabilities of the project.

 

The British Baltic deployment will, meanwhile, form part of a US-German plan agreed in June, known as the Transatlantic Capability Enhancement and Training initiative. The plan is designed to increase training and command-and-control exercises between Germany, the US and less militarily capable European allies.

 

The 100 troops Britain will send to the Baltic will train regularly with Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian forces to improve their skills and links with NATO forces.

 

Britain has already committed to significant troop deployments in Europe as part of NATO’s plan for bigger and more frequent war-games, the Financial Times points out.

 

British troops participated in Estonia’s biggest-ever military drills in May, which saw 13,000 troops – 7,000 of them Estonian conscripts – repelling a simulated invasion by a large foreign aggressor.

 

From 2017, Britain will also take command as lead nation of NATO’s new “spearhead” rapid reaction force, created at the 2014 Wales summit. The commitment will see at least 1,000 British troops put on call for 48-hour deployment to deal with crises threatening any NATO member.





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