Recent news reports broke the story that NATO is planning to increase the preparedness of its Armed Forces in the face of the recent tensions between the Alliance and Russia. According to media outlets the NATO alliance is taking in consideration to place no less of 300.000 troops on a heightened state of preparedness, reducing the time of mobilisation from 6 months to only 2 months.
Facts and fiction
These media reports so far failed to make the distinction between what is currently proposed and what is planned or in the process of being planned. NATO defence secretary Jens Stoltenberg refused to give any number concerning this new mobilisation plan. The number of 300.000 troops was placed forward by Britain’s on-going NATO representation Sir Adam Thomson. ‘Sir Adam Thomson said that the aim was to mobilise the troops within two months, instead of the typical time of around six months.’ This citation appeared in the Independent newspaper on November 7th.
The Independent also cited that this proposition was discussed by the NATO defence ministers at a conference in Brussels on 26 and 27 October.
These statements are so far the only ones that we can take for granted. It is no secret that NATO has been looking to increase its preparedness in recent years. The annexation of the Crimea in February 2014 and the subsequent war in Donbass has caught the alliance unprepared to respond to sudden outbursts of war and conflict.
Russia has been working in recent years to increase its mobilisation plans. Large scale exercises in the form of snap drills have transformed the Russian Armed Forces. These snap drills have made the Russian Armed Forces capable to mobilise large parts of their armies in a time frame of about eight hours. Each Russian unit has been working hard in learning how to mobilise at least a fully combat capable battalion sized unit that is ready to deploy within eight hours after a warning signal has been given. This allows Russia to mobilise and deploy vast quantities of manpower and material in a very short time period. This fast mobilisation and readiness to execute orders allowed Russia to annex the Crimea before the world had a clear picture of what was truly going on.
The annexation of the Crimea in February 2014 has thus become an important point in time for it was during this event that NATO realised that it was incapable to respond effective to a swift and short military campaign. Before NATO was even capable to establish a picture and respond the annexation a total Russian control over the Crimea was already established.
NATO has since that event been looking on how to increase its readiness to respond to sudden crisis’s that could threaten the alliance. The first response was the creation of the very high readiness joint task force (VJTF) This task force should be capable to mobilise and have boots on the ground within 48 hours. While this time frame is still longer then the eight hours that has been the target pursued by the Russian Armed Forces, it is nonetheless a starting point. The VJTF only consists of troops that can be deployed fast and are easy to transport. This limits their role to that of light infantry that can be deployed by air together with all or most of its equipment.
The VJTF is only a stop-gap measure because on its own it can only have a real impact on the development of events in conflicts located on the lower spectrum of intensity. Once faced with the higher spectrum of combat intensity the VJTF needs to be supported by more heavily armed forces that take longer to mobilise and deploy to the theatre of conflict. It is in this reality that the current proposition of a mobilisation scheme of two months is proposed.
NATO needs to be able to react in force fast enough to prevent a serious escalation of a conflict, either an on-going or a beginning one. Russia is a challenge when it comes to a fast mobilisation as it has been able to mobilise its armed forces in a short amount of time. NATO’s mobilisation of its main armed forces in a period of six months makes sense in a relative stable world where conflicts take time to develop and need time to become a serious threat, allow the alliance to take its time and build up its forces in reaction. In the current fast evolving world this time frame is too long and needs to be brought down. The mobilisation of the main armed forces in the NATO alliance to only two months allows the alliance to be closer in touch with today’s reality. While even a two month long mobilisation would still fall short of Russia’s mobilisations scheme it is nevertheless a significant reduction in the time of response the Alliance would possess.
Scale of the plans
The proposed figure of 300.000 ground troops is a very high estimate even for the alliance. If we look at where this rapid mobilisation capability is most needed within the territory of the NATO alliance then one geographic region comes to mind and this is Eastern Europe. The figure of 300.000 men would include the mobilisation of the land forces of Poland (77.000 troops), Estonia (6.400), Latvia (5.000 plus 8.000 national guards), Lithuania (8.100 troops), Germany (59.500 troops), Romania (43.000 ground troops), Hungary (20.000 troops), Czech Republic (22.000), Denmark (12.500) and Norway (11.600). The combination of those countries would make a total of about 273.100 troops.
It is short-sighted to expect NATO to focus on the complete mobilisation of entire countries and previous numbers just serve to give an idea of the scope of forces involved when looking only to the European continent. Most likely the NATO will look for a system that is evenly distributed between its member states with each country being able to rapidly mobilize parts of an army. The sum total should then be centred on 300.000 ground troops drawn from across the alliance.
Another important fact is that this NATO plan speaks only of ground forces while air and naval forces are so far left out of the proposed new mobilisation plan. It is uncertain if NATO will start to include these forces in the final plan or that similar plans will be put in place for Air and Naval Forces across the NATO alliance.
Implications for the Baltic Region
Earlier statements by the Czech General Petr Pavel and confirmation by war-games held by the RAND cooperation in December 2015 have put forward the theory that Russia has the capability to invade and annex Estonia and Latvia between 36 and 60 hours with an average mean of around 48 hours. In short, this means that Russia, if it is able to mobilise without being noticed, is able to annex two NATO members before even the VJTF can arrive on the scene to intervene.
The RAND cooperation war-game “Reinforcing deterrence on NATO’s Eastern Flank” assumed a more realistic scenario where NATO was able to detect Russia’s mobilisation between 7 and 10 days before an invasion scenario took place. If we take this as a general mean then NATO has a indeed a short time to mobilise and even the plan to mobilise in two months falls far short when the Alliance is caught completely unprepared.
Even under the new mobilisation plan there is little chance that the Russian invasion scenario that has been put forward by the RAND cooperation will be adverted. That job now falls on the four NATO battalions deployed in Poland and the three Baltic States as well as the VJTF, depending on how fast element of the VJTF can be deployed. What the new mobilisation plan will accomplish is NATO being able to organise a counter offensive to retake the Baltic States much sooner that is will be capable under the current six months mobilisation plan. As such it will be an increase in the deterrence value the alliance can generate against Russia. In the case of the invasion scenario it would leave Russia with less time to organise a defence in the Baltic States against a NATO counteroffensive to liberate these countries after a Russian invasion.
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