NATO will hold its biggest military exercise in decades

NATO has announced that it will launch its biggest military exercise in decades next week, involving 90,000 troops, to test the allies' ability to engage in a months-long conflict with an adversary as capable as Russia. AFP.
The main phase of the Trident Juncture exercise, which involves military forces from all NATO member states plus partners Finland and Sweden and stretches from the North Atlantic to the Baltic Sea, began in Norway on October 25 and is scheduled to lasted two weeks.
"This is an important day because Trident Juncture is NATO's largest exercise since the end of the Cold War," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said before the exercises began.
The drills drew criticism from Moscow amid ongoing tensions between NATO and Russia, which occupied Crimea in 2014 and has been waging a two-year war in Ukraine but accuses the alliance of provocative behavior near its borders.
Another source of contention is what NATO claims Russia has a missile that violates a key US-Russian nuclear weapons treaty and could potentially be used to target alliance members in Europe.
The exercise "is a vivid demonstration of our capabilities and our determination to work together," Stoltenberg said.
Without mentioning Russia by name, he said that "the security environment in Europe has significantly deteriorated" in recent years and that NATO has responded with the biggest adaptation of our collective defense since the end of the Cold War. Trident Juncture demonstrates this adaptation."
"Trident Juncture will involve around 65 ships, 250 aircraft, 10,000 vehicles and 90,000 personnel," Stoltenberg said of the exercise, which will take place in two phases.
"It is ambitious and demanding," said the Secretary General.
The live exercise will take place from October 25 to November 7, and the command and staff exercise will follow between November 14 and 23.
Moscow has repeatedly said it views NATO's expansion to former Warsaw Pact countries and the Baltic states after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 as a provocation, and Russia and NATO have repeatedly accused each other of aggressive actions in recent years.
Despite criticizing NATO exercises, Russia accepted an invitation to send observers to Norway, a move Stoltenberg welcomed in the name of transparency.
"As long as they behave professionally and avoid dangerous situations and behavior, I don't think it's any problem that they observe the exercise," the NATO chief said.
Describing the exercise, the secretary-general said the personnel would be divided into "Southern forces" and "Northern forces" who would "alternately play the role of the fictitious aggressor and the defenders of NATO.
"The exercise will test our readiness to restore the sovereignty of an ally - in this case Norway - after an act of armed aggression. This scenario is fictitious, but the lessons we will learn will be real," said Stoltenberg./BGNES