NATO will ask Germany to provide seven additional brigades (around 40,000 men) for the defense of the North Atlantic Alliance, Reuters and Bloomberg reported, citing sources.
According to a senior military official, the alliance plans to substantially increase its forces under new targets for weapons and troop numbers to be agreed by NATO defence ministers next week. A Reuters source says NATO wants to increase the total number of brigades from allies to 120-130 from the current 80. A NATO spokesman in a comment to reporters described the new goals as ‘ambitious’ but did not quantify them.
In 2021, Reuters recalls, Germany agreed in 2021 to provide 10 brigades (units typically comprising about five thousand troops) by 2030. So far Germany has eight brigades, with a ninth being formed in Lithuania – it will be ready by 2027. However, providing another 40,000 troops would be a big challenge for Berlin, Reuters notes.
