Each year, at the Munich Security Conference, a report is published to highlight the key points of global security. This year's report, as always very rich, focuses in particular on the evaluation of the military means that NATO members would actually have at their disposal if the United States were to withdraw, in the event of Russian military aggression against certain countries Baltics and Poland. And the conclusions attest to a flagrant gap between the means available in Europe and those deemed necessary by the integrated command of the Atlantic Alliance.
Land forces are, as might be expected, very exposed to this capability deficit. Thus, that the 33 armored or mechanized brigades necessary to defend the theater of operations, the Europeans would only be able to field 26, while the 20 mobilizable 155mm artillery battalions represent only 60% of the 36 battalions required . The biggest weakness of European land forces is, unsurprisingly, in the area of anti-aircraft defense. Indeed, according to NATO, it will not have any anti-aircraft defense battalions, creating a deficit of 26 battalions equipped with long-range missiles (PAtriot, Aster), and 36 battalions equipped with short-range missiles. In other words, the 26 brigades available to NATO would not benefit from any anti-aircraft defense other than shoulder-mounted missiles like the Stinger or the Mistral.
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