Germany announced the dispatch of two battalions to Lithuania, triggering a dispute between the two countries over the funding of the garrison. For the small country of Lithuania, it is good to have the protection of a large country, but it faces unprecedented challenges when accommodating 5000 German troops and their families. This move means that Lithuania will need to provide support for the garrison in terms of food, facilities, etc., which will entail huge expenses. In addition, the two sides have serious differences over the sharing of military expenditures and the construction of facilities, and are currently at an impasse.
This contradiction could have had an impact on Germany's plans to garrison the troops, as Lithuania could not afford such a huge expense, and Germany's own finances were under pressure. The settlement of this dispute will affect the international political and military landscape of the entire European world. The Russia-Ukraine conflict has been going on for two years, and Germany has gone through a period of so-called "deindustrialization", and the fiscal base left by Merkel** is about to be lost by Scholz. At this time, the public has become extremely sensitive to the problem of spending money.
If Germany** had promised to bear most of the costs, the public would not have let it go easily. The head of the German Defense Association, Vestner, raised the issue of material scarcity at the beginning of the garrison plan, but at that time the issue was not taken seriously due to the rising "anti-Russian sentiment" in European countries and the fact that the time for actual spending was far away. However, as both sides invested months in the preliminary work, when the funds were really needed, it turned out that everyone was reluctant to pay. This led to an impasse in the negotiations on the garrison.
Regarding the differences of opinion between the two sides, Nauseda said that this will not affect the arrival of the German team before 2026, and Lithuania will do its best to share the basic costs, but there will also be negotiations on cost-sharing. However, the negotiations do not mean that Lithuania is willing to contribute, it is only to show that Lithuania is not stingy. After all, Lithuania is a NATO country, and in the event of a conflict with Russia, Germany will inevitably be pinned down by NATO's Article 5.
Lithuania let Germany garrison only for a platform, and did not take into account Germany's strategic consideration of "containing Russia" in advance to prevent the westward expansion of the Russian army. From this incident, we can see that the whole process is very much in line with the standard model of various Western plans. First recklessly, then when faced with a difficult problem, as long as possible, and after the fact to find some face, you have to admit defeat.
The same goes for the EU's pledge to provide Ukraine with 1 million shells, as do the more than 10,000 sanctions imposed on Russia. Fortunately, old Europe has amassed a wealth of wealth over the past few hundred years of global plunder, otherwise these incompetent politicians would have been ruined.