Lithuania Wants U.S. Nukes DEPLOYED Near Kaliningrad

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Become a Member Today and Unlock EXCLUSIVE Videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKfak8fBm_Lhy4eX9UKxEpA/join  In an unprecedented move on October 6, 2026, Lithuania’s parliament voted overwhelmingly to scrap Article 137 of its constitution, clearing the legal path to host permanent U.S. military bases and American nuclear weapons on Lithuanian soil. With Vilnius spending a record 5.38% of its GDP on defense and offering to pay for a U.S. base out of pocket, the Baltic state is taking direct aim at Russian saber-rattling in Kaliningrad and nuclear deployments in Belarus. Discover how this historic vote, returning American Abrams battalions, and the defense of the Suwałki Gap are redefining NATO’s Eastern Flank.  ⏱️ CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Lithuania's Parliamentary Vote: Lifting the WMD Ban 01:19 - Dismantling Article 137: Legislative Thresholds & The Jan 2027 Vote 03:17 - Sovereign Funding & Permanent Base Offer: Trump's Response 05:50 - Fiscal Burden-Sharing: 5.38% GDP Defense Outlays & US Battalion Deployments 08:15 - Moscow's Warning: Peskov Denounces NATO Escalation 09:29 - NATO Nuclear Sharing Architecture: Precedents & Command Control 12:33 - Hybrid Probes & Escalation: Belarusian Balloons & Border Incursions 15:03 - The Kaliningrad & Suwałki Dilemma: Deterring Grey-Zone Land Grabs  Support us directly as we bring you independent, up-to-date reporting on military news and global conflicts by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMilitaryShow/join  #militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis #themilitaryshow  SOURCES: https://pastes.io/dzPxwMHw

Transcript

00:01Give us American nukes. That's the message Lithuania has sent to NATO as tensions reach boiling point between Russia and

00:09the Baltic states.

00:10A deterrent is needed, something to stop Putin from going overboard and launching an attack against one of NATO's smallest

00:18members.

00:19US troops may already be returning, but will they be bringing nukes with them?

00:24And if so, what would that mean for NATO's posture against Russia as the prospect of all-out war edges

00:30closer to reality?

00:32On October 6th, the news broke that Lithuania's parliament had made a massive move.

00:37A vote was held on a constitutional amendment that would end the country's long-standing ban on stationing weapons of

00:45mass destruction on Lithuanian territory.

00:48The vote passed with a massive majority.

00:51106 lawmakers voted for the new amendment, with 18 against and a further 6 abstaining from the vote altogether.

00:59Opponents of the amendment are already calling for a referendum, but the lifting of the ban on nuclear weapons is

01:04picking up steam.

01:05There is now a crack in the door.

01:07But more has to be done to boot that door wide open.

01:11We'll explain more in a moment, but first, if real, human-made military reporting matters to you, subscribe and tell

01:17us what you think below.

01:18You can also become a member for exclusive content while directly supporting the work behind the channel.

01:23The vote we've just seen gets the wheels in motion.

01:26A second and final vote that rubber stamps the decision is set to be held no earlier than three months

01:32after the first vote.

01:33The schedule for the second vote is already in place.

01:36The Speaker of Lithuania's parliament, Jyousas Olekas, has already declared that the vote on the amendment is scheduled to take

01:43place on January 12th, 2027.

01:46It needs to pass with support from at least 94 of the 141 members of Lithuania's parliament.

01:53Early indications are that the amendment will fly through.

01:57What we see here is twofold.

01:59First, Lithuania is working on dismantling Article 137 of its constitution, which is a massive move in its own right.

02:07Second, a message is being sent to the US with this vote.

02:11Lithuania wants American nuclear weapons on its territory.

02:14Article 137 of the Lithuanian constitution is expressed in plain language.

02:20There may not be any weapons of mass destruction and foreign military bases on the territory of the Republic of

02:26Lithuania, it declares.

02:28The clarity of this article tells you how serious Lithuania has been about it ever since it became an independent

02:33state free of Soviet control.

02:35Article 137 existed to ensure that nothing like that Soviet era of the country's history could happen again.

02:41But the situation in 2026 is such that Lithuania has to make some tough choices.

02:48Removing Article 137 may also remove a safeguard, but it clears the way for Lithuania to welcome its most powerful

02:54ally to build bases and station nukes on its territory.

02:58And speaking of bases, that brings us to another point.

03:01If Lithuania wants to have American nukes on its territory, it needs places where those nukes can be stored, maintained,

03:08and, if needed, launched from.

03:11Lithuania knows this better than anybody.

03:13It has sent a second message to the US, suggesting that it will happily clear the way to make America's

03:19stationing of nuclear weapons in Lithuania as easy as possible.

03:23Also on October 6th, as news of the parliamentary votes started to filter through, Lithuania made an interesting pledge.

03:30According to the country's Prime Minister Mindauga Sinkovicius, Lithuania will not only allow the US to create a base on

03:38its soil if Article 137 is removed, but it will pay for the cost of the base out of its

03:43own pocket.

03:44That's according to Reuters, which points to the reason why Lithuania just made itself a very attractive prospect to the

03:49US.

03:50The Baltic state borders two aggressors against NATO, Russia's ally Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.

03:58Keep that exclave in mind because it's key to everything that is happening.

04:02Of course, none of this means anything if the US isn't open to the idea of having a base in

04:07Lithuania.

04:08The good news for Lithuania is that America is very interested in that idea, and no less than US President

04:14Donald Trump has said as much.

04:17In the wake of the massive moves that Lithuania is making, Trump has said that he will definitely look into

04:23the possibility of opening a permanent US base on Lithuanian soil.

04:27That would be a huge commitment.

04:29A permanent base requires a permanent US troop deployment, which Lithuania has never allowed or had in its history.

04:35They are friends of mine.

04:37They are great people, so we will certainly look at it, Trump declared after being informed of Lithuania's recent moves.

04:55The wheels of all this were only put in motion on October 6th, but it looks like Lithuania is already

05:02operating under the assumption that the second parliamentary vote delivers a good result.

05:06After that, it will be full steam ahead.

05:08Or will it?

05:09Those who pay attention to Trump know that what he says and what he ends up doing aren't always the

05:15same thing.

05:16Plus, Trump has repeatedly expressed frustration with various NATO members for what he sees as their failure to meet their

05:23defense spending commitments.

05:24After all, it was only in March 2025 that Trump made a terrifying claim that the US wouldn't come to

05:30the aid of a NATO member

05:31if that member hadn't met what Trump sees as its obligation to spend more on defense.

05:36All of this will concern Lithuania.

05:39However, what we see in Trump's recent comments is that he is impressed with Lithuania,

05:44likely because it's taken Trump's claims about NATO spending seriously.

05:48Lithuania is a small country, and it's never going to be able to pour the hundreds of billions of dollars

05:53into its military that the US spends every single year.

05:56In fact, the country's 2026 defense budget is just over $5.3 billion.

06:02But that $5.3 billion also represents 5.38% of Lithuania's gross domestic product, or GDP.

06:11That percentage is everything.

06:12Trump's frustration stemmed from the fact that many nations weren't meeting the past commitment of 2% of GDP on

06:19defense.

06:20Lithuania isn't just meeting that current commitment, but it's blown so far past it that the nation is already above

06:26the 5% of GDP commitment

06:27that NATO says all of its members should meet by 2035.

06:31In Trump's eyes, Lithuania has proven itself as a NATO member.

06:35That, perhaps more than anything else, will make Trump and the US willing to open the permanent base that Lithuania

06:42wants.

06:42And with that permanent base could come the nuclear weapons that Lithuania is now opening the door to having them

06:48placed on its territory.

06:50It also helps that the US and Lithuania have a long-standing relationship that predates all of this.

06:56As Newsweek reports, the US regularly sent around 1,000 soldiers to Lithuania on rotation,

07:02ahead of a pause on a fresh deployment as the Pentagon reviews its European posture.

07:06That pause appears to have been lifted for Lithuania.

07:09As the country's government claimed in late September that American soldiers are coming back, Newsweek adds,

07:15both an engineer battalion and a second battalion armed with Abrams tanks will be coming soon, Lithuania claims.

07:22Two battalions means anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 US soldiers are soon to arrive in Lithuanian territory.

07:28Right now, those soldiers won't be permanently stationed.

07:31But if Lithuania's new bill makes it through the second round of voting

07:35and the US decides to take advantage of the deletion of Article 137 from the country's constitution,

07:40then who knows?

07:41The troops may become permanent and nuclear weapons could soon find their way into Lithuania.

07:48You can probably already imagine how the Kremlin has reacted to all of this news.

07:52In a nutshell, it isn't good.

07:54But before we explain more, this is a reminder that you're watching the military show.

07:59If you haven't subscribed to the channel, then now is the perfect time to do so.

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08:12Putin's favourite mouthpiece, Dmitry Peskov,

08:15has already delivered the Kremlin's response to Lithuania's latest moves.

08:19It's fair to say that Putin isn't happy.

08:22But as usual for Russia, what Lithuania wants is being dressed up as an unfair escalation,

08:27rather than the response to Russian aggression that it is clearly intended to be.

08:32Neither of these developments will contribute to stability and predictability on the European continent.

08:37On the contrary, they will, to our regret,

08:39mark yet another significant escalation of tensions, Peskov-wide.

08:44He added that Lithuania's vote and the potential for a NATO build-up

08:48on the alliance's eastern flank cannot be perceived as anything other than a step toward escalating tensions,

08:54just as the deployment of nuclear weapons in a neighbouring country cannot.

08:58That's pretty rich from a nation that throws around nuclear threats like they're going out of style.

09:04Maybe if you didn't say,

09:05but Russia has nukes every time something doesn't go your way,

09:08you wouldn't be dealing with this sort of problem, eh Putin?

09:11Still, some questions need to be answered,

09:14chief among them being why Lithuania has chosen now to start clearing the way for the return of US troops

09:20and the stationing of nukes on its territory.

09:23But before we answer that question, there's another.

09:26Let's say the US takes Lithuania's offer and sends in the nuclear weapons.

09:30What would that mean in practice?

09:32What Lithuania is proposing is far from unprecedented.

09:35NATO has a nuclear sharing policy,

09:37which has led to several NATO states hosting American nukes.

09:41Among those states are Germany, Italy, Belgium, Turkey and the Netherlands.

09:46In the past, the US has also hosted nuclear weapons in Greece

09:50and before it got its own nukes, the UK.

09:52So that's one potential barrier out of the way.

09:55There is already a process in place for the US to do what Lithuania is signalling that it wants.

10:01Currently, it's unknown exactly how many nukes the US has stationed in Europe,

10:05the Council on Foreign Relations reports.

10:07However, it is believed there were somewhere in the region of 100

10:11stored in five NATO member states across six bases back in 2021.

10:17The key to all of this is that the US doesn't just hand over nukes to other countries

10:21and then leave those nations in control of the weapons.

10:24America makes all of the decisions.

10:26That's why Lithuania is talking about setting up a permanent American base on its territory.

10:32Permanence is the only thing that would convince the US that it's worth sending nuclear weapons to the Baltic state.

10:38Anything less would mean that the US stations a nuke that it may have to pull out of Lithuania

10:43if it decides to take back control over whatever base it assigns for the weapon.

10:48Simply put, nukes in Lithuania wouldn't be used against Russia or anybody else

10:53unless the US chooses to use them.

10:56Lithuania would have no direct power over the weapons.

10:59If that's the case, then we would come back to the question we posed earlier

11:03about why Lithuania would want this in the first place.

11:06There are two answers.

11:08Lithuania feels that it needs a deterrent against Russia

11:11and it also believes that nuclear weapons would help it to play a role in solving the Kaliningrad issue.

11:17When it comes to a deterrent, arguments have been made for years

11:21that stationing nuclear weapons in the Baltic states would steer Putin away from his more insane ideas.

11:28Rand made that argument in an October 2019 article noting at the time

11:32that NATO's deterrent was militarily weak, leaving an opening for a Russian invasion

11:37should Putin go in that direction.

11:39An asymmetry had developed in the European nuclear landscape

11:42and placing nukes in the Baltic region would help redress the balance.

11:47Nukes in Lithuania would also help the US to booster the credibility of its security guarantees,

11:52Rand argues.

11:52That was a talking point in 2019 and it's even more so in 2026,

11:58given what we mentioned about Trump's NATO comments earlier.

12:00Fast forward to seven years after Rand published its paper

12:04and we're starting to see the consequences of NATO's lacklustre Baltic security posture.

12:09For Lithuania, a much stronger deterrent is needed now because Russia keeps on pushing its luck.

12:15Putin is actively testing NATO boundaries with hybrid warfare,

12:19even as he wages conventional war in Ukraine

12:22and a message needs to be sent to the Kremlin that the Baltic nations are ready.

12:27Aerial incursions will particularly concern Lithuania.

12:31Over the past year or so, Lithuania has watched as Russian drones

12:34and sometimes fighter jets enter the airspace of its Baltic neighbours,

12:39as well as nations like Poland and Romania.

12:41Lithuania has also had to deal with Russian aggression in the very recent past.

12:45Back in September, a drone crossed into Lithuania from Belarus.

12:49The NATO response was swift,

12:50as fighter jets were deployed to destroy the drone

12:53in what marked the first time that had ever happened over Lithuania.

12:56A year prior, a Russian fighter jet along with a refueling tanker

13:00breached Lithuanian airspace, crossing over from Kaliningrad.

13:04Russia, of course, denied that this ever happened,

13:07but that's standard operating procedure for Russia.

13:09It's fair to say these incidents have rattled Lithuania.

13:13It also served as a reminder that it's not just Russia that Lithuania has to worry about.

13:18Belarus is also a problem, especially as that nation borders Lithuania.

13:22According to Newsweek, Lithuania has repeatedly accused Belarus

13:27of organising or enabling hybrid attacks on its territory,

13:31including sending military balloons over the border in December.

13:34Those balloons disrupted air traffic,

13:37making it clear that Belarus is serving as a proxy for Russian aggression.

13:40It also hasn't escaped Lithuania's attention

13:43that Russia made a big song and dance

13:45over holding nuclear force exercises inside Belarus back in May,

13:50soon after declaring that it would station nukes in the country.

13:54For Lithuania, this is a direct threat located just over its border.

13:58The nukes it wants from the US would be as much a deterrent against Belarus

14:01as they would be against Russia.

14:03And don't forget the near constant threats

14:05that Russia volleys at the Baltic states.

14:07At various points over the last year or so,

14:10Russia has issued veiled threats to all three Baltic nations

14:14over their support for Ukraine.

14:16In April, Russia's foreign ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova,

14:20declared,

14:21If the regimes of these countries have enough sense,

14:24they will listen.

14:25If not, they will have to deal with a response.

14:28That threat was made after Russia accused the Baltic nations

14:31of allowing Ukraine to use their airspace for drone strikes.

14:35Lithuania sees Russian aggression in all of these moves,

14:38and it isn't wrong.

14:39The moves being made now would enable Lithuania to benefit from,

14:43at the very least, a permanent presence of US troops.

14:46If nuclear weapons are also stationed on its territory,

14:49it would amount to a calling out of Russia after all of these threats.

14:52And speaking of threats, that brings us back to the Kaliningrad issue.

14:56At the beginning of October, the BBC reported that Putin had declared

14:59that Russia would use every weapon at its disposal,

15:03up to and including nukes, if Kaliningrad came under NATO attack.

15:07He said this while also insisting that Russia is not threatening anybody.

15:12Russia's doublespeak is in full effect here.

15:15Lithuania takes this threat, because that's what it is,

15:18very seriously, because it shares a border with Kaliningrad.

15:21That means any military action Russia takes involving the exclave

15:25would almost inevitably impact Lithuania.

15:28If that action involves nuclear weapons, then Lithuania needs to be ready.

15:33The Baltic state is already taking some action to secure itself

15:36against the threat posed by Kaliningrad.

15:39On October 7th, TVP World reported that Lithuania is gearing up

15:43to deploy its military to guard the border it shares with Russia's exclave.

15:47That move comes in response to an incident that happened in Latvia earlier in the week.

15:52Authorities caught a group of 20 illegal migrants

15:55attempting to cross into Latvia from Belarus.

15:58Those migrants were allegedly instructed to push toward Latvia

16:01by armed escorts that were trying to force them into the Baltic state's territory.

16:06Yet another example of Russia's hybrid warfare strategy.

16:10Naturally, Lithuania is worried about something similar happening on its borders,

16:13especially given that Kaliningrad and Belarus

16:16could both present this type of threat.

16:18So, troops are on their way to the Kaliningrad border.

16:21It wouldn't surprise us to see a similar measure taken at the border with Belarus.

16:26Returning to Putin's Kaliningrad threat,

16:28Moscow's rhetoric may be dismissed by some

16:30as the sort of saber-rattling that we see all too often from the Kremlin.

16:34However, it can't be ignored,

16:36especially in the context of Baltic preparedness.

16:39Kaliningrad represents a threat to the 65-kilometer-long Sovalki Gap,

16:44which connects Lithuania to Poland.

16:46If Russia manages to occupy that gap,

16:48Lithuania will be cut off from many of its NATO allies,

16:51perhaps enabling an invasion from Kaliningrad or Belarus.

16:55Being ready to strike before that gap can be taken is key

16:59to the Baltic defence line that NATO is attempting to create,

17:02says Chatham House.

17:04The Baltic states have also prepared themselves

17:06to be at the centre of a grey zone conflict with Russia.

17:10Border defences are being erected,

17:12and all three nations have disconnected themselves

17:15from the Belarusian and Russian electricity systems

17:18on which they previously relied.

17:21In short, Lithuania is getting ready for an attack via Kaliningrad

17:25that it hopes never comes.

17:26One way to make such an attack far less likely

17:29is to station American nuclear weapons in Lithuania.

17:33That way, Lithuania has a powerful type of weapon

17:36that could be used to wipe out Kaliningrad if the need arises.

17:40More than anything else,

17:41this would serve as a deterrent to Russia,

17:43unlike anything else the Baltic states are doing

17:46to prepare for a fight.

17:48Mess with the ball and you get the nuclear horns,

17:51so to speak.

17:52Lithuania is still at the very start of its nuclear journey.

17:55A vote has passed, but another awaits.

17:58Everything that Lithuania wants from the US

18:01can only happen if that second vote leads to the removal

18:04of Article 137 from the Lithuanian constitution.

18:08January 12th, 2027 is going to be a very important day.

18:12It may just influence the entire future of Lithuania's,

18:15America's and even NATO's posture against Russian aggression.

18:19If you need any more reasons why Kaliningrad is such a threat

18:22that Lithuania wants nukes to counter the exclave,

18:25we've covered it all in another video.

18:26Watch that video next to learn about a TV show

18:29that set the Kremlin off

18:31and why Kaliningrad, as dangerous as it is,

18:34may be a burden to Russia if a war with NATO explodes.

18:38But before you do,

18:39we're real people producing researched

18:41and fact-checked military reporting.

18:43If you want to support that, subscribe,

18:46share your thoughts below

18:47and consider becoming a member

18:48for exclusive content we don't publish publicly.

18:51And thank you for watching.

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