NATO forces are well positioned to refight the battle of Waterloo of 1815, the first Balkan War of 1912, the botched invasion of the Dardanelles in 1915 and German panzers sweep through the Ardennes in 1940 -- just not to repel an attack by Russia in 2014.

Leaders of the trans-Atlantic alliance will vow to change that at a summit starting today, with eastern European countries close to Russia clamoring for a beefed-up military profile to deter the Kremlin from broadening its territorial ambitions beyond Ukraine.

Europes progressive demilitarization, the legacy of years of declining military budgets and varying perceptions of the Russian threat, will limit how far the alliance goes, leaving eastern Europe dependent on mobile contingents of NATO-flagged troops, backed up by the full spectrum of U.S. military might and, tacitly, its nuclear arsenal.

The message is that in the event of a confrontation, NATO could deploy a holding force very quickly and then would wait for the cavalry to arrive, which was pretty much the model during the Cold War, said Neil Melvin, a senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

The summit of 28 North Atlantic Treaty Organization leaders starts at 11:45 a.m. today in Newport, Wales, and runs through tomorrow afternoon.

NATO countries demobilized after the Cold War and sought to co-opt Russia as a partner. Alliance out of area missions in the Balkans and Afghanistan, along with cuts in defense spending, especially in Europe, led to a growing mismatch between U.S. and European firepower. NATO entered this years Ukraine crisis with an exposed eastern flank and a rapid-response force that takes six months to deploy.

The alliances absorption of eastern European countries once under the Soviet yoke set the stage for the current tensions. To reassure Russia that it wasnt going on the offensive, NATO pledged in 1997 to refrain from new permanent stationing of substantial combat forces near Russias borders.

Even in the heat of the Ukraine crisis, that non-binding pledge has held. So as not to multiply the Kremlins suspicions of NATO intentions, allied leaders have vowed to abide by the original commitment, at least publicly.

As a result, NATO has multinational bases and command centers dotted across western Europe, in places like Brunssum, Netherlands, and Naples, Italy. The basing map evokes past wars: supreme headquarters in Mons, Belgium is close to the site of Napoleons final defeat at Waterloo and the scene of the first German-British clashes at the start of World War I in August 1914.

Wide swathes of eastern Europe are blank spots in NATOs order of battle. Szczecin, Poland hosts a headquarters for a multinational corps, and warplanes from a rotating cast of militaries patrol the alliances northeastern flank from bases in Estonia and Lithuania.

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NATO Switches Aim From Waterloo to East as Russia Bares Fangs