NATO deploys 90,000 troops to simulate conflict with 'equal' opponent
(Baonghean.vn) - NATO is launching its largest exercise since the Cold War, rehearsing how the US military could reinforce European allies in countries bordering Russia and on the alliance's eastern flank if conflict breaks out with a "peer" opponent.
NATO's senior commander Chris Cavoli said on January 18 that about 90,000 soldiers will participate in the "Steadfast Defender" exercise - Steadfast Defender 2024 expected to last until May.
NATO said more than 50 ships, from aircraft carriers to destroyers, will join more than 80 fighter jets, helicopters and drones and at least 1,100 combat vehicles including 133 tanks and 533 infantry fighting vehicles.
Mr Cavoli said the exercise would rehearse NATO's implementation of its regional plans, the first defence plans the alliance has drawn up in decades, and would focus on the details of how NATO would respond to a Russian attack.
NATO did not mention Russia by name in its statement. But the alliance's flagship strategy document identifies Russia as the biggest and most direct threat to the security of NATO members.
“Steadfast Defender 2024 will demonstrate NATO’s ability to rapidly deploy forces from North America and other alliance regions to reinforce European defense capabilities,” NATO asserted.
The enhanced capabilities will take place in a “simulated scenario of an emerging conflict with a peer adversary,” Cavoli told reporters in Brussels after a two-day conference with national defence chiefs.
According to NATO, recent exercises of similar scale were Reforger – which took place in 1988, during the Cold War, with 125,000 participants – and Trident Juncture in 2018, with 50,000 participants.
Soldiers taking part in the exercise, which will include simulations of the deployment of personnel to Europe as well as field exercises, will come from NATO countries and Sweden, which hopes to join the alliance soon.
The allies signed off on the regional plans at a 2023 Vilnius summit, ending a long era in which NATO saw no need for large-scale defense plans as Western countries waged smaller wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and felt certain that post-Soviet Russia no longer posed an existential threat.
In the second part of the Steadfast Defender exercise, a particular focus will be on the deployment of NATO's rapid reaction force to Poland, on the alliance's eastern flank.
Other key locations for the exercise will be the Baltic states considered most at risk from a potential Russian attack, along with Germany – the supply hub, and countries on the alliance's fringes such as Norway and Romania.
