BUDAPEST — The Obama administration’s plans to quadruple military spending in Central and Eastern Europe, largely in response to recent aggression in Ukraine and elsewhere by President Vladimir Putin of Russia, was greeted warmly but warily in the region Tuesday.
“It is not only the right decision, it is necessary to protect Central Europe from Putin’s expansionistic lust,’’ said Radko Hokovsky, executive director of European Values, a research organization in Prague.
Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and his continued support for pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine — along with provocative incursions into Ukraine’s airspace, increased submarine patrols, and large-scale military maneuvers near its western borders — have unsettled many of the former Communist states in the region and have led to increasing demands for a concrete Western response.
There was little immediate reaction from government officials in the region — or in Russia — to the news from Washington, with press officers in the Baltics, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and elsewhere saying that their governments needed time to review the details of the proposal before providing a response.
The news was expected to draw a harsh reaction from the Kremlin and to prompt Putin to respond with a buildup of his own, although analysts doubted that it would inspire a new arms race.
“Russia will not welcome the strengthening of the American contingent in Europe, at the time when, regardless of the overall political difficulties, there is no risk of a direct military confrontation with NATO,’’ said Igor Korotchenko, editor-in-chief of the Russian magazine National Defense. “This will make the system in Europe more unbalanced. It is one thing when the Americans deploy their forces in Spain, but it is very different when they deploy them in Poland, Romania, or the Baltic states.’’
Still, Korotchenko added, “the response will not be hysteric.’’
Some action along these lines had been expected since Western officials revealed at a NATO meeting in Wales last summer plans to build military supply bases and to station troops in Eastern Europe to bolster its ability to respond rapidly in the event of Russian aggression.
That the Obama administration was proposing more than $3.4 billion in military spending in the region next year — far above the $786 million in the current budget — put some heft behind what had been a vague goal, but questions about where the equipment and troops would be stationed were left unanswered.
US officials said the intention was to have new equipment — available to both United States and NATO forces — positioned in the region as well as having a full armored combat brigade deployed somewhere in the region, on a rotating basis, at all times.
Administration officials argued that the rotating nature of this deployment would keep the United States in compliance with the NATO-Russia Founding Act of 1997, under which both sides promised not to station large numbers of troops along their borders.
Leaders in Poland and the Baltic nations have argued strenuously that Russia’s aggressive actions in Ukraine had already violated the act, and they urged US leaders to ignore it and station permanent troops in the region.
Not everyone will react positively to a larger military presence, analysts said. In the Czech Republic, some leaders have increasingly made overtures to Moscow, and the move may be seen as counterproductive.
“The tone in the country is increasingly being set by the president, Milos Zeman, who speaks openly of ending the sanctions against Russia and would see this as a step in the opposite direction,’’ said Erik Best, the US-born author of Prague’s Fleet Sheet, an online political and business journal.
