Ukraine Crisis in Mind, Lithuania Establishes a Rapid Reaction Force By RICK LYMANDEC. 19, 2014 RUKLA, Lithuania — Maj. Linas Pakutka walked back and forth behind the line of soldiers lying in the snow-crusted field, a row of distant pines forming a jagged horizon in the twilight sky. His command to fire was barely audible in the fierce wind. The assault rifles, German-made G36s, crackled to life, punching invisible holes in a row of targets almost lost in the gloom. “If something happens tomorrow, we are ready,” said Maj. Ernest Gaigalas as he watched the training exercise. “If something really bad happens, we are good to go.” Major Pakutka leads the two main units in Lithuania’s brand-new rapid-reaction force. It is the first of its kind along NATO’s eastern flank, intended to address exactly the kind of hybrid, insurgent warfare that has characterized the conflict in eastern Ukraine. “One thing is clear now, we have to be ready,” said Brig. Gen. Vilmantas Tamosaitis, leader of the joint staff that commands the force from the Ministry of Defense in Vilnius, the capital. “We have the same neighbors that Ukraine has.” Photo Brig. Gen. Vilmantas Tamosaitis of the Ministry of Defense said, “we need to counter these emerging threats, this new kind of hybrid war.” Credit Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York Times With a population of about three million and an active military of 8,000, Lithuania is unlikely to put up much of a fight against Russia, a neighbor whose military alone is more than a million strong. But the conflict in Ukraine, which is also a former Soviet republic, has this Baltic nation’s attention. At the NATO summit meeting in Wales in September, the alliance’s leaders — pushed by Lithuania, Poland and other eastern flank nations to take a more forceful stand against Russian aggression in Ukraine — opted to create a Very High Readiness Joint Task Force to be made up of troops from several NATO member nations. “The idea is to have a capability that could react to developments on the ground in the Baltic States or Poland, or perhaps Romania, if you had something like the Ukraine scenario develop,” said Marcin Zaborowski, the director of the Polish Institute of International Affairs. The first prototype unit in this new force, an “interim spearhead force” made up of 3,000 to 4,000 German, Dutch and Norwegian troops, will be operational by next year, NATO officials said this month, but a permanent force will not be up and running until at least 2016. Continue reading the main story Lithuania, however, decided it could not wait that long. “The situation in the region has changed,” General Tamosaitis said. “And we need to counter these emerging threats, this new kind of hybrid war.”
Posted on: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 08:23:10 +0000
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