NATO Plan to Bulk Up Military Presence on Eastern Flank Faces 'Serious Problems'
© AP Photo / Roman Koksarov
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Spain's President Pedro Sanchez announced at the recent NATO summit in Vilnius that his country would send 700 troops to Slovakia and set aside another 250 military personnel for dispatch to Romania - two countries bordering on Ukraine - as part of an effort to bolster the alliance's eastern flank.
NATO's plan to beef up its military presence in Eastern Europe will face "serious" problems because almost no country can muster troops in significant numbers, with Spain no exception, military analyst Juan A. Aguilar told Sputnik.
Spain would be able to send only a meagre number of soldiers to reinforce the NATO flank in Slovakia and Romania, he added. In fact, the media impact of the announcement recently made by the country's President is far greater than the actual size of the forces to be sent on the ground, remarked the director of the strategic research portal Geoestrategia.es.
Pedro Sanchez had revealed during the recent NATO summit in Vilnius that Spain will deploy 700 troops in Slovakia and reinforce its presence in Romania by 250 military personnel.
"As a committed member, Spain is going to announce the deployment of Spanish forces in Slovakia to reinforce the eastern front and we are going to reinforce our presence in Romania with a greater number of troops," Sanchez said, adding that his country would "continue to contribute to the alliance's effort to achieve the just and lasting peace."
Although the details have not yet been officially specified, Juan A. Aguilar weighed in on the announcement, saying:
"I don't think that more than 300 soldiers can be deployed in three annual rotations, about 1,000 in total, a battalion... There are no more, unless they withdraw from other areas," said the military analyst.
He recalled that although Spain has on paper "some 150,000 troops", far from all of them are available to be posted to Eastern Europe.
"Out of the 150,000 we have to subtract those integrated into Common Corps, Headquarters, Logistics, the Navy and the Air Force... Then, those of the special units (NBC, UME, Anti-aircraft) and, of course, the garrison troops deployed in the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla", Aguilar explained.
"What's left?" queried the military analyst, and speculated:
"Three light brigades and three armored-mechanized brigades, not at full strength, numbering about 18,000 soldiers. You have to leave a garrison for the country's capital... There are troops deployed in Lebanon, Iraq, Mali, Turkey, the Baltic countries... And there are at least three rotations a year".
NATO has been bulking up its military footprint along the alliance's eastern flank, in countries that share a land border with Ukraine, where Russia is conducting its special military operation. NATO’s multinational battlegroups are currently stationed in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. US President Joe Biden on Thursday approved an executive order authorizing 3,000 US military reserve personnel to augment Operation Atlantic Resolve, which provides rotational deployment of combat-credible forces to Europe as part of the United States’ commitment to NATO.
Following decisions made at the NATO summit in Vilnius, allies that have been sending tens of billions of dollars in weapons to the regime in Kiev vowed to maintain up to 300,000 troops in a "state of high readiness", as part of the NATO Response Force. However, this comes as many of the afore-mentioned bloc members are worried about their own insufficient ammunition stocks, drained by the US-spearheaded Western proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. Major European NATO powers like Germany, Italy and the UK have all conceded that after splurging on Ukraine, their own military had been “hollowed out” by arms shipments.
Moscow has warned repeatedly about the consequences of these actions for regional and global security, only serving to fan the flames of the Ukraine conflagration. As for military manpower along the eastern NATO flank, Juan A. Aguilar told Sputnik:
"NATO wants to deploy 300,000 men in Eastern Europe. The US would put up 100,000, but the rest of the countries have to provide a total of 200,000. If they make four rotations a year, 800,000 troops are needed. These are numbers that, unless they announce an all-out mobilization, cannot be provided.
10 July 2023, 19:58 GMT
