Executive Summary
The 2022-2026 Ukraine war showed that when officers fall or radios fail, the squad sergeant either decides in under a minute or the unit freezes. Russian top-down doctrine collapsed at squad-platoon level; Ukrainian decentralised mission command, built with NATO partners since 2016, held. By October 2023 NATO allies had trained roughly 3,800 Ukrainian leaders including about 2,600 squad commanders; Lithuanian instructors trained around 2,900 Ukrainian soldiers in 2023 and 3,500 in 2024. Domestic squad-leader development runs through the General Jonas Zemaitis Military Academy NCO cadre, the State Volunteer Force (KASP), and the Iron Wolf Brigade, with no dedicated residential pipeline comparable to the Estonian Battle School, Poland's Poznan NCO Academy, or Finland's Hamina course. The Israeli reservist sustainment crisis (Chatham House, April 2026) warns that even strong NCO systems strain under prolonged operations. The recommended next step is a Ministry of National Defence feasibility study, with Seimas defence committee input, covering curriculum, selection, instructors, KASP integration, and budget. Form and host are for Lithuania to determine.
The Problem
The Ukraine war showed that small-unit autonomy decides outcomes once officers are killed or communications jammed. Russian forces, trained for top-down execution, repeatedly stalled when junior officers fell. Ukrainian forces with empowered NCOs continued to manoeuvre. NATO doctrine has since absorbed this lesson under the label decentralised mission command, and allied training programmes have been rebuilt around it.
Lithuania has strong external instructor experience and several internal pipelines (the General Jonas Zemaitis Military Academy NCO cadre, KASP territorial sergeants, Iron Wolf Brigade SNCO development) but no dedicated residential squad-leader academy. Volume and consistency are the open questions: an active force of around 22,500 plus roughly 28,000 KASP reservists implies a squad-leader requirement that diffuse career-progression training may not meet at the depth Ukraine has shown is needed.
Without action: Without a clear pipeline, Lithuania risks fielding squads led by administrators rather than combat-trained sergeants. The Russian failure mode in Ukraine is the warning; the Israeli reservist sustainment crisis is the reminder that even high-quality NCO systems can be exhausted by prolonged operations.
Lithuanian Context
Lithuania's geography (forests, urban corridors, the Suwalki land bridge, the Belarus border 35 kilometres from Vilnius) rewards small-unit initiative. The Bundeswehr Panzerbrigade 45 build-up to full operational capability by end-2027 adds a German-language NCO interoperability requirement. The Israeli reservist sustainment crisis (Chatham House, April 2026) is a cautionary signal that NCO depth must be sustainable, not just impressive on day one. Whether the answer is a new academy, an expanded mandate at the General Jonas Zemaitis Military Academy, a Baltic joint NCO school with Estonia and Latvia, or a strengthened KASP pipeline is a Lithuanian determination.