On April 15, LRT reported that Lithuanian opposition lawmakers are calling for Lithuania to be "capable of defending itself independently for at least one month" — while the government maintains that defense plans exist but are classified.
This debate reveals a fundamental problem in Lithuanian defense thinking.
"One Month" Is Not a Strategy
The entire Lithuanian political class — government and opposition alike — frames national defense as survival time before rescue arrives. The opposition says one month. The government won't say anything. But the underlying assumption is the same: someone is coming to save us. The US. Germany. NATO. Someone.
What if nobody comes?
That is not a hypothetical question. It is what happened to the UAE in March 2026. And it is exactly what Operation Winter Storm models for Lithuania.
The Iran War Destroyed the Rescue Assumption
In the first four days of the Iran war, US Patriot batteries fired 943 interceptors — 18 months of global production consumed in 96 hours. The United States then withdrew from the UAE rather than defend it under sustained Iranian missile and drone fire. Gulf states hosting American bases were bombarded daily. Alliance guarantees collapsed under fire.
Lithuania's entire air defense inventory consists of 36 AMRAAM interceptors. There are no spares to send — the global stockpile is empty.
The defense spending ratio between Iran and the United States is 1:100. Iran spends $10 billion. The US spends $1,000 billion. Ask yourself: is the Strait of Hormuz open today?
The Real Question Nobody Is Asking
The Lithuanian debate is stuck on "how long can we survive alone?" That is the wrong question. The right question is: how do we make sure nobody dares attack us in the first place?
That is what deterrence means. Not survival time. Not holding out for rescue. Making the cost of attacking you so catastrophic that the question simply never arises.
France asked this question in 1958, after being at war with Germany three times. The answer — build an overwhelming deterrent that depends on no one — changed everything. No one has seriously considered attacking France since.
Lithuania Has Everything It Needs
The irony is that Lithuania is better positioned than almost any country in Europe to build sovereign deterrence:
- The spending is there. 5.38% of GDP on defense — the highest in NATO by GDP share. The money exists.
- The talent is there. Lithuania is a top-3 country globally in mathematics. It has one of Europe's most dynamic startup ecosystems.
- The technology has changed. The Iran war proved that a country spending 1/100th of its adversary can fight it to a standstill with asymmetric weapons. Lithuania's spending ratio with Russia is 1:30 — far better odds than Iran's.
- The model exists. France built overwhelming deterrence from scratch after WWII. Lithuania can do the same — with autonomous systems, mass drone defense, and AI-enabled capabilities instead of nuclear weapons.
Today's wars are won with robotics and software. Lithuania is structurally excellent at both. This is not a weakness story — it is a story about a country that has every advantage and doesn't know it yet.
What Needs to Change
Lithuania doesn't need a Plan B for when allies fail. It needs a Plan A that doesn't require allies at all. Alliances are a bonus, not a foundation.
Concretely, this means:
- Stop framing defense as survival time. "One month" is dependency thinking. The goal is permanent deterrence.
- Build sovereign strike capability. The day Lithuania's president can credibly state that any attack will result in devastating retaliation — delivered autonomously, without asking anyone's permission — is the day deterrence works.
- Invest in asymmetric defense. Mass low-cost drone defense, not $4 million Patriot rounds on $20,000 Shaheds. The cost ratio must favor the defender.
- Build a domestic defense industry. Lithuania's engineers can build what the country needs. Dependency on foreign procurement is dependency on foreign political will. The 200+ BDI initiatives lay out exactly what to build.
- Fix the constitutional succession gap. Article 89 of the Lithuanian Constitution has exactly one person in the chain of command after the President. One strike, and Lithuania has no legal Commander-in-Chief. This must be reformed.
Operation Winter Storm models what happens when none of this is done. Every vulnerability it exposes has a concrete, affordable countermeasure. BDI has published over 200 defense initiatives addressing each one.
The question is not whether Lithuania can defend itself. It can. The question is whether it chooses to.
Dr. Thiébaut Devergranne is the founder of the Baltic Defense Initiative. He is French, former SGDSN legal counsel (French PM defense apparatus), and has been based in Vilnius for over 10 years.