Is NATO ready to take real steps to defend the Baltics from Russia?
In response to intensifying Russian activity along NATO's eastern flank, the US Congress recently approved $200 million in security assistance for Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
By preserving the US Baltic Security Initiative despite earlier efforts within the Pentagon to eliminate it, the new measure (signed into law on February 3) underscores congressional concern about NATO’s eastern border.
Read more in the column by Agnia Grigas of the Atlantic Council: A test for NATO: is the Alliance ready to defend Lithuania and Poland from a Russian Attack.
The author notes that even the most recent US National Defense Strategy states plainly that "Russia will remain a persistent but manageable threat to NATO’s eastern members for the foreseeable future," placing greater responsibility on European allies.
In her view, if NATO is serious about managing the Russian threat identified in its own strategy documents, it must focus its efforts where deterrence is most fragile.
"Few regions will test NATO’s resolve more severely than southern Lithuania," Agnia Grigas warns.
She is referring to the narrow land corridor connecting Poland with the Baltic states. It is known as the Suwałki Corridor, named after the nearby Polish town of Suwałki.
The Suwałki corridor is NATO’s only land route linking Poland to Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Roughly 40 miles wide, it sits between Russia’s heavily militarized Kaliningrad Oblast and Belarus, which, since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, has become a de facto forward-operating platform for the Russian military.
"In a crisis, control of the corridor would determine whether NATO could reinforce the Baltic states by land, or whether these allies would be cut off. For years, it has featured prominently in alliance planning precisely because it combines strategic importance with geographic vulnerability," the Atlantic Council senior fellow writes.
Lithuania’s planned training site near Kapčiamiestis reflects this reality.
Of course, Lithuania’s decision has sparked debate at home – as expected in a democratic society.
Agnia Grigas emphasises that this tension between democratic processes and strategic urgency is not unique to Lithuania. The challenge, then, is to ensure that openness and debate do not become vulnerabilities that adversaries can exploit.
"In this context, allied recognition may matter as much as allied resources. Visible NATO engagement – particularly a US acknowledgment of the site’s strategic importance – would reinforce deterrence, signal unity, and help situate the project within a broader alliance framework," the author notes.
In her view, the greatest risk along NATO's eastern flank is ambiguity. Deterrence does not erode when defences are visible, but when preparation lags behind threat recognition, and when political resolve appears uncertain.
"The Kapčiamiestis polygon is not merely a local training ground. It is a measure of whether the alliance can turn commitments into capability, and align strategy with geography, before a crisis forces its hand," the Atlantic Council senior fellow concludes.