North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

Lockheed Martin

NATO's Eastern Priority Tilt, And Task

Last updated 07:22 AM EDT • Read time: 3m

Lockheed Martin

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At the NATO summit in Washington this week, rather than just a birthday celebration, the alliance should commit to strengthening its front-line conventional deterrence credibility.

The record number of NATO allies meeting the 2% defense spending target is a significant achievement. It highlights the alliance’s unity and commitment to collective defense, as well as the impressive response to Russia’s 10-year rolling invasion of Ukraine.

It is also a big political win for both U.S. presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

As NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said, the increase in defense spending “demonstrates that European Allies are stepping up and taking their share of the common responsibility to protect all of us in the NATO Alliance.”

The 2024 NATO summit is a good time to recognize the growing tilt of the Atlantic alliance to the East, with Poland leading the way. Whatever the outcome is in Ukraine, the conventional forces being built up in Poland, including significant rotational American forces, are impressive. Poland may soon be spending 4% of its GDP on defense, and is cementing relations with new NATO members Sweden and Finland. The Polish military is dove-tailing nicely with U.S. Army modernization efforts, including ambitious purchases of main battle tanks, air defense, and attack helicopters. They are even setting up “service centers” for key weapons systems to enhance readiness for Polish, American and regional alliance forces along the Russian frontier. Those repair centers will mitigate the need to send so much heavy equipment back across the ocean to the United States for maintenance.

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Romania is also purchasing American air defense and heavy tanks, and taking steps to extend NATO’s reach in the Black Sea littoral. Both Romania and Poland have excellent F-16 fighter fleets, and Poland is buying stealthy F-35s. Finland has an excellent fleet of U.S. F-18 fighters and is also buying F-35s. Finland is in the market for land-based equipment, and could be a customer for American armored vehicles and air defense. The Finns have a long, tough history dealing with the Russians and are a battle-hardened addition to the NATO alliance along the northern Baltic Sea.

Interoperability between U.S. and East European forces is an important but under-appreciated necessity for keeping the peace. Many East European civilian and military leaders I speak with doubt the Russians will ever attack a NATO country. Russia does not want a war with America. Current U.S. Army leaders recognize the central role their military service is playing in deterring Russia and have been ambitiously pushing foreign military sales (FMS) as a force multiplier. Dozens of countries from every continent are lining up to buy U.S. military technology and equipment, and Eastern European nations are understandably frustrated with the pace of American FMS sales and ought to be given priority whenever possible. That could be an excellent unilateral goal for President Biden to announce this week at the Washington summit.

Merrick Carey is CEO and founder of the Lexington Institute, a public policy think tank based in Arlington, Virginia.

This article appeared originally at Lexington Institute.

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