Bundeswehr on the eastern flank: how Lithuania should be defended

Germany's security is also being defended in Lithuania.

For the past five years, the Bundeswehr has had a high level of responsibility for the Baltic States.

There she leads one of NATO's multinational battlegroups.

She does this to protect Lithuania, but even more so to deter Russia.

The deployment as part of the "enhanced Forward Presence (eFP)" mission has - like so many of the Bundeswehr before it - been under the radar of most Germans.

Lorenz Hemicker

Editor in Politics

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Reinhard Veser

Editor in Politics.

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That has changed since Russia invaded Ukraine.

Concerns that the Kremlin could risk an attack on the Baltic states have grown by leaps and bounds.

Lithuania is now considered a frontline state, like its neighbors.

At the end of June, NATO adopted a new strategic concept that names Russia as the greatest threat and formulates the claim to “defend every centimeter of alliance territory” – including every patch of land in Lithuania.

The challenges that this task entails are enormous - for NATO as well as for Lithuania itself. Lithuania has around 2.8 million inhabitants and, with an area roughly the size of Bavaria, is the largest of the three Baltic states.

But that's tiny compared to Russia.

In addition, the country is in a hinge position.

To the southwest it borders the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, to the east Belarus, Moscow's closest ally, on whose territory Russian forces are de facto free to move and whose armies regularly conduct joint maneuvers.

The Lithuanian capital Vilnius would be directly threatened in the event of an attack, its center is only about 30 kilometers from the border.

Strategically even more significant is the Suwalki Gap, which Lithuania borders to the south.

It is a strip of Polish territory just 65 kilometers wide that separates the Kaliningrad exclave from Belarus.

And it's the only land route through which NATO can roll supplies to the Baltic States.

The Russian General Staff knows that too.

The alliance is the linchpin of Lithuania's own defense doctrine.

After regaining independence in 1991, joining NATO, which was completed in 2004, was the country's most important foreign policy goal - and one of the very few issues on which there was a cross-party consensus in the very polarized political landscape at the time.

Back then, protection against Moscow's desire for revenge was the most important reason for membership - at a time when Russia was still described in NATO documents as a "partner" of the alliance, which posed no threat.

For a long time, from NATO's point of view, Lithuania's defense was primarily based on the principle of political deterrence.

After Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and started the war in eastern Ukraine, the NATO countries, at the urgent request of the Baltic states, agreed to send troops as an "enhanced forward presence".

The multinational NATO task force has been stationed under German leadership in the small town of Rukla since 2017.

The now around 1,600 soldiers of the eFP battalion, whose members rotate, include around 1,000 Germans as well as soldiers from the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, the Czech Republic, Luxembourg and Iceland.

Should Russian President Vladimir Putin consider attacking Lithuania, he would also attack these NATO member states.

For a long time, this was the calculus, especially outside the Baltic capitals, that he would not dare - especially since the NATO battle group does not stand for itself, but with the "Iron Wulf" brigade strengthens the most efficient part of the Lithuanian armed forces.