2024-01-19 21:07:04
Brussels (agencies)
NATO announced that next week it will begin its largest military training since the Cold War, with the participation of 90,000 soldiers over a period of months.
NATO’s Supreme Commander in Europe, US General Christopher Cavoli, said during a press conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels that the “Standing Defender” training will continue until late May, and includes units from all 31 member states and the candidate country, Sweden.
He added: “This will be clear evidence of our unity, strength, and determination to protect each other.” The maneuvers will simulate a war scenario once morest “an adversary of similar size,” NATO said.
General Cavoli explained that the maneuver would include, in particular, forces “from North America” that came as reinforcements to the European continent.
About 50 warships, 80 aircraft, and 1,100 combat vehicles of different types are participating in the exercises.
These war maneuvers are considered the most important since the “Reforger” maneuver in 1988, in the midst of the then Cold War between the Soviet Union and NATO.
Dutch Admiral Rob Boer, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, which includes the commanders of the armies of the 31 member states of the alliance, said during the same press conference: “It is a record number in terms of the number of soldiers.”
Britain alone intends to send 20,000 soldiers to these exercises, as Defense Secretary Grant Shapps announced last Monday.
British elements from the Royal Air Force, the Royal Navy and the Army will be deployed in Europe and beyond, for the “Steadfast Defender” military exercises, London announced.
Shapps considered that “NATO is now larger than ever before, but the challenges are also greater,” noting that NATO’s enemies have become “more interconnected” than ever before, while the Western allies are “at a turning point.”
The senior NATO official considered that the world may have been overly optimistic over the past year, and therefore “it is important not to be too pessimistic in 2024.”
In addition, the day before yesterday, during a ceremony in the city of Lille, France assumed command of a multinational NATO ground force for a year, the number of whose members might reach regarding 120,000 soldiers, and they might be deployed if a member of the alliance was in a state of emergency. .
General Emmanuel Golan, commander of the French Rapid Reaction Corps, stationed in Lille, northern France, received from General Arslan of the Turkish Rapid Reaction Corps the flag that symbolizes the transfer of this mission to another party.
The French Rapid Response Corps includes regarding 450 soldiers from 14 nationalities. It is the only multinational staff of ground forces, operational and deployable, that carries out missions for France, NATO and the European Union.
Golan confirmed to journalists, “The role of the Rapid Response Corps is to intervene as a strategic reserve for NATO.”
NATO’s founding treaty enshrines the principle of collective defense, according to which any attack on a member state is supposed to lead to a collective response from the alliance.
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