NATO has long held back from major maneuvers on the eastern flank. However, since the Russian attack on Ukraine, the world has changed. Now an extraordinary exercise is about to begin.
NATO wants to mobilize around 90,000 soldiers for a major maneuver to deter Russia. The four-month exercise called “Steadfast Defender” will be the defense alliance’s largest in decades, US General Christopher Cavoli said after a meeting of the NATO Military Committee in Brussels. According to the commander in chief of NATO forces in Europe, preparations for the maneuvers should begin next week.
The actual maneuver is scheduled to start in February. The aim is to train in particular the alerting and deployment of national and multinational land forces, as Cavoli further explained.
According to information from the German Press Agency, the scenario of the exercise is a Russian attack on Allied territory, which leads to the declaration of the so-called alliance case according to Article 5 of the NATO Treaty. The latter regulates the obligation to provide assistance in the alliance and states that an armed attack against one or more allies is viewed as an attack against all.
Largest maneuver since the end of the Soviet Union
The largest NATO exercise to date since the end of the Cold War was organized in 2018 with a focus on Norway. Around 51,000 soldiers were involved. The last NATO maneuvers that were larger than the exercise now planned took place before the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. At that time there was, among other things, the “Return of Forces to Germany” series of maneuvers. In 1988, for example, around 125,000 soldiers were involved.
The background to the exercise is, in particular, Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. The NATO partner country has been fighting the Russian invaders for almost two years with massive military aid, primarily from NATO states.
Source: Stern
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