Germany's deployment of 5,000 troops to Lithuania in question

There is a question mark over one of Germany’s most ambitious plans — the stationing of a 5,000-man brigade in Lithuania that will be the country’s first permanent foreign deployment since the Second World War.

Experts say it is still unclear how it will be formed. Potential recruits have no sense yet of where their families will be accommodated, where their children will go to school or where their partners can work, the Financial Times reports.

“You can’t fulfil your promise of sending an operational armoured brigade . . . to Lithuania without additional personnel and material,” Markus Grübel, a CDU MP, told Pistorius in a parliamentary debate last month. “The brigade is so far not backed up with sufficient money. This promise, too, risks being broken.”

That goes to the heart of one of Pistorius’ biggest challenges — personnel. Germany’s defence ministry plans to expand the army from 183,000 active servicemen and women to 203,000 by 2031. But that will be a gargantuan task, especially considering Germany’s ageing population and deepening shortage of skilled workers.

Even now, 20,000 vacancies must be filled every year as professional soldiers and voluntary conscripts leave the service or long-serving officers retire. Statistics show the number of applicants for jobs in the armed forces is declining.