The message from the West Wing was clear: President Biden has been “at the forefront” as NATO has been planning for a scaled up readiness and force posture along the alliance’s eastern flank, the need for which the commander-in-chief recognized “even before” the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The remarks were made by the coordinator for strategic communications at the National Security Council, John Kirby, during a White House press call yesterday. He was joined by the assistant secretary for defense, Celeste Wallander. 

The call came as the NATO summit was unfolding in Madrid and against the backdrop of the ongoing war in Ukraine. NATO announced plans to increase by almost eightfold the size of its rapid reaction force, to 300,000 troops from 40,000, by next year. 

That increase is under way: Since the invasion began, Mr. Biden has “ordered the deployment or extension of over 20,000 additional forces to Europe,” bringing the total to more than 100,000 service members, Mr. Kirby said.

His remarks hinted that the White House has been taking a proactive stance on strategic tweaks to NATO’s postures in Europe well ahead of the summit, which concludes today. Ms. Wallander said that the posture decisions Mr Biden announced  “were reflective of the United States government’s recognition that the security environment has changed and … that the eastern flank countries are facing a heightened threat of a Russian leadership that has shown itself willing and capable of launching military attacks on bordering countries.” 

Yet the readiness of NATO forces, wherever they are deployed in Europe and in whatever capacity, do not rely on Washington alone, and as one British newspaper reported from Madrid, the new “pledge of a 300,000-strong fighting unit could crumble as alliance members refuse to commit soldiers to the project.”

The Telegraph reported that at the end of the second day of the NATO confab, the alliance’s secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, said that the plan required allies to “contribute the forces they have promised to contribute.” He refused to provide a country-by-country breakdown amid what could be growing scrutiny of his pledge. More troublingly, unnamed officials qualified the force enlargement as “just a concept,” with the size and scale of the rapid response force still up for discussion among NATO allies, the report said. 

For now, though, NATO can at least count on maximum American support. “The decision to keep a rotational Army brigade combat team in Poland and to now headquarter a Army brigade combat team in Romania creates the capability for the United States to sustain our rotational heel-to-toe presence in the eastern flank countries and in particular but not exclusively in the three Baltic countries: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania,” Ms. Wallander said.

In a separate announcement yesterday, the Pentagon stated that Washington’s response to the “European security crisis” brought on by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has included “dispersing forces already in Europe to bolster NATO’s Eastern Flank, to include the deployment of: attack aviation from Germany to Lithuania; an airborne infantry battalion from Italy to Latvia; elements of a Stryker Brigade Combat Team from Germany dispersed to Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary; Patriot batteries from Germany to Slovakia and Poland; and F-15s from the UK to Poland.” 

The Pentagon announcement spelled out in detail the long-term commitments to NATO that Mr. Biden announced at Madrid, with references to force posture adjustments and materiel enhancements in the Baltic region, Romania, Poland, Spain, Italy, Germany, and the United Kingdom. 

Behind NATO’s revitalized military muscle there is also much American money: For the rest of this fiscal year, the Department of Defense said that it “continues to execute $3.8 billion in European Deterrence Initiative funding (with another $4.2 billion requested in FY23) for rotational forces, exercises, infrastructure … and prepositioned equipment.” The department’s “robust exercise program also complements our forces that are forward-stationed or rotating through the theater, and serves to increase our presence while building interoperability with NATO allies.”

Mr. Kirby pressed home that there is “no requirement to inform the Russians” of force posture changes. 

“The presence will stay persistent, but it won’t always be the same brigade combat team for years and years and years or — or any other aircraft squadron,” Mr. Kirby said. “We’re setting this up in such a way that we can rotationally deploy at higher levels in Europe than we had before the invasion.”