The Pentagon is poised to store battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and other heavy weapons for as many as 5,000 troops in several Baltic and Eastern European countries to deter any possible further Russian aggression in Europe, The New York Times reported on Saturday.
Citing US and allied officials, the newspaper said that if approved the proposal would mark the first time since the Cold War that Washington has stationed heavy military equipment in the newer NATO member states in Eastern Europe that were once part of the Soviet sphere of influence.
"It's like taking NATO back to the future," Julianne Smith, a former defense and White House official who is now a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a vice president at the consulting firm Beacon Global Strategies, told The Times.
The proposal calls for enough equipment for about 150 soldiers to be stored in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, and enough for about 750 soldiers to be stored in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and possibly Hungary, according to The Times.
Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and the White House still have to approve the proposal, which will likely encounter significant political hurdles, The Times reports, primarily the hesitance to provoke Russia with a military buildup.
"This is a very meaningful shift in policy," James G. Stavridis, a retired admiral and the former supreme allied commander of NATO, told the newspaper. "It provides a reasonable level of reassurance to jittery allies, although nothing is as good as troops stationed full-time on the ground, of course."
Despite not calling for boots on the ground in the Baltics, experts say the plan would be effective nonetheless.
"Tanks on the ground, even if they haven't people in them, make for a significant marker," Mark Galeotti, a professor at New York University and expert on Russia's military and security services, told The Times.
After Russia invaded Crimea last year, the US Army promised to expand the amount of military equipment it stored at the Grafenwöhr training range in southeastern Germany. NATO also adopted temporary plans to increase air patrolling and training exercises in Eastern Europe.
Recognizing that Russia's aggression in Ukraine is unlikely to diminish anytime soon, however, NATO has proposed a more permanent plan in the hopes of sending a stronger message to the Kremlin.
"This is essentially about politics," Professor Galeotti said. "This is about telling Russia that you're getting closer to a real red line."
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