At a Thursday meeting, the defense ministers of the Visegrad Four (V4) - a loose regional grouping of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia - decided to create a battle group. The decision is significant but expected. It's significant because it shows that the V4 states are willing to upgrade their loose alliance to the security and military level. It's expected because STRATFOR has long forecast that they would be forced to take security matters into their own hands by NATO's lack of focus on the singular issue that concerns them: Russian resurgence in the post-Soviet sphere.
Germany's virtual non-aggression pact with Russia doesn't help either, if you worry about Russia.
This isn't much of a military force. A "battle group" is a battalion-sized combined arms unit (we'd call it a "task force") so it is really a tripwire that if deployed would signal to Russia that attacking would bring in all four countries (and hopefully drag in the rest of NATO).
What Poland and the other eastern NATO members need is the capability of American forces to rapidly reinforce the east. I've suggested that we put Army brigade sets in southern Poland with assists from Britain and Germany so that we can quickly fly in the troops to man them:
In addition to maintaining sufficient forces deployed in Europe able to move east to reinforce the eastern European NATO frontline states, we should establish American, British, and German equipment depots for additional heavy brigades in southern Poland. If we can fly in troops to man these forces, in a return of forces to Poland (REFORPOL) concept, we'd enhance deterrence without forward deploying powerful NATO offensive units that would scare the Russians in reality instead of their faux fear of Georgians and Latvians. Those units could swing north or south or stay put once manned and fielded.
So far, counting on a benign Russia that is a strategic partner, we've extended NATO membership east without extending NATO military strength east in any significant fashion. It is time to correct that mistake. Russia has shown they'll strike at gaps in our defenses. Fill those gaps.
The V4 nations are trying to fill that gap. But they can only fill it symbolically. Only the heavy hitters of the alliance (and yes, as the biggest state, Germany has to count here--but maybe France should be added in these days) can fill in the gaps in defense.
