Kalle Kirss, director of the NATO and European Union Department, said Estonia hopes allies will agree to bring their systems here.

"NATO's eastern flank, as a whole, could have a continuous air defense. These rotations should be regular and planned. In this respect, we are also communicating with our allies. With the Spanish again, among others," he said.

To create a rotational system, it is necessary to have agreements with several allies. Tomas Jermalavičius, a researcher at the International Center for Defense and Security (ICDS) in Tallinn, said agreements for air defense based on bilateral agreements – between two countries – are disappointing.

"This is not a joint NATO effort, where the defense alliance would coordinate and carry it out. We still have Tallinn talking to Washington or London, and Vilnius to Berlin," he said.

The Dutch will temporarily send long-range Patriot air defense systems to Lithuania this summer. This boosts Baltic security as a whole, Jermalavičius said. However, he added, this suggests allies tend to bring more troops and equipment to places where they are already.

Germany has already agreed to station a brigade permanently in Lithuania and the first personnel have arrived.

"It [the brigade] is a large entity that needs protection. It needs an anti-aircraft bubble, an anti-missile bubble. One thing follows the next and the next," the researcher explained.

Lithuania hopes Germany will bring its Patriots to Lithuania in the autumn, he added.

While Spain's NASAMS is a medium-range air defense system, the Patriot is a long-range system. This is important because air defense needs to be layered with different systems to repel a big attack.

Estonia is buying medium-range air defenses from Germany which will arrive in the coming years, and already owns short-range Piorun air defenses from Poland. 

In the future, there will still be a need for long-range air defense in the region.

"To get the whole picture, it would be good if we had different units, different capabilities, different air defense elements rotating here. If in 2023 we had the NASAMS system, in the future we would like to see the Patriot system rotating here. To provide that next layer," Kirss said.

One concern is that neither the British nor the French, who have the biggest deployments in Estonia, have few air defenses. The Americans have the most Patriots, Jermalavičius explained.

"If we want a more permanent solution based on a rotational model, we have to look to other allies, I assume the Americans," he said.

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