Czech army plans to bring in garrisons to every region—but still falls short
The Czech army will grow by several new garrisons. It plans to create a territorial defense battalion in every region within ten years, with new bases for logistics and air defense.
While the military was downsizing and abandoning garrisons in the 1990s and early 2000s, the trend is now reversing. For example, soldiers have returned to the Jihlava region, where they will rent a building that the Ministry of Defense previously transferred to the city for free.
Pavel Lipka, deputy chief of the General Staff, explained the reversal in an interview with Czech Radio:
"For thirty years we have been practically devastating the army and getting rid of everything we could, so much so that we have almost left some regions and there are only small deployment sites. The situation has changed fundamentally, bringing new challenges, including the fact that we will have to return to some locations."
In 2024, the army also reclaimed the airports in Líně and Přerov. In both cases, Lipka said, they plan to build facilities for a logistics battalion. This is mainly because of the new tasks that Czechia will receive from NATO at the end of June and which were approved by the defense ministers of the alliance’s member states last week.
They will not be publicly known, but as Chief of General Staff Karel Řehka outlined last autumn, Czechia is to focus more on logistics and air defense. So, Lipka's team is also looking around for a location where a second air defense base could be built.
In defense of the county
The army is also counting on strengthening the so-called territorial forces. Within ten years, each region should have a unit whose task is to defend the territory in the event of a conflict or to provide services to allied soldiers moving across Czechia to the front.
According to the General Staff's plans, the existing infantry units will grow to battalions of six hundred men. Their core is to be made up of professional soldiers, but the majority will be composed of members of the active reserve.
According to Lipka, the military is now looking for suitable facilities for these battalions mainly among state or local government property.
"But don't imagine that a barracks-type professional unit that they use 365 days a year will be built for the territorial forces. Rather, we are looking for suitable places where they can have facilities built, even in a decentralized way, so that they can carry out their tasks from these facilities."
The biggest challenge will probably be to fill these new units. There are now approximately 24,000 soldiers serving in the Czech army. By the end of the decade, plans call for 6,000 more. However, according to Řehka, more than 37,000 will be needed for the new NATO tasks.
