NATO is brewing a rare major action against Russia and Belarus

According to the Frankfurt Report website on September 17th, NATO will use real target data in exercises held in the spring of 2024.

The report states that NATO's largest exercise, "Stand firm Defender," is held every three years. The last time, in 2021, the scale of the exercise was significantly reduced due to the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic. The next exercise, in the spring of 2024, will be much larger in scale: it is expected to involve 40000 army officers and soldiers, more than 50 warships, and several fighter squadrons.

This is a scale that has never been seen since the Battle Remaster military exercise during the Cold War era. And this is not the only innovation: in this exercise, officers and soldiers will test NATO's newly determined defense plan based on real-life scenarios.

The planner of this exercise, Gunnar Bruggener, said, "We will project all the forces tested during the exercise into pure reality." Bruggener, now 55 years old, is a German Federal Defense Force Brigadier General and is responsible for the exercise at the NATO military headquarters in Mons, Belgium. He said, "The exercise involves the true capabilities of the enemy, the boundaries we display on the map, and real geographic data."

▲ Data image: In May 2021, military personnel inspected aircraft while participating in NATO's "Defender of the Faith 2021" exercise on the aircraft carrier "Queen Elizabeth" near the coast of Portugal.

He believes that the last point is the greatest progress. "If target selection is not practiced through real geographic data from the top to the tactical level, it is difficult to identify the problems that need to be solved. For example, some targets can only be attacked with the approval of the highest European commander.". However, whether the relevant procedures can be quickly and effectively advanced can only be verified under specific circumstances.

On the contrary, NATO officers and soldiers have so far been accustomed to fighting in a carefully constructed hypothetical world. For a long time, the enemy in the exercise was named "Bothnia", a fictional country that threatened NATO members. The planner created the entire space for implementing the exercise. Of course, the hypothetical enemy refers to Russia, but this fictional country has fictional roads, ports, and borders.

In June 2020, NATO adopted the concept of deterrence and defense in the European Atlantic region. It reflects the transition from crisis actions outside the alliance region to typical national and alliance defenses under modern warfare conditions.

In this document, Russia is no longer listed as a potential partner, but as the biggest direct threat. NATO subsequently developed new force models and defense plans based on this foundation; At the Vilnius Summit in July, leaders of member countries approved these two plans. Since the Cold War, NATO has for the first time reassigned large joint forces to specific combat scenarios. We must now conduct a drill on this.

For officers and soldiers, the enemy is still not called Russia, but named "Okasus". This is an Eastern military alliance that attacked NATO and triggered a collective defense state. But on the exercise map, the members of this alliance are clearly visible: Russia and Belarus located within the real border. Brugnar said that Russia's aggressive war against Ukraine made this step possible. "Countries have clearly stated that we should also be more bold in our exercises," he said. Ultimately, these exercises are just implementing the concepts of deterrence and defense.

Next year, the "staunch defender" military exercise will present an emergency situation: hostile alliances launch attacks on NATO's weakest link - the Suwauki Corridor, which is only 60 kilometers wide on the land border between Poland and Lithuania. The invaders advanced towards the Weksel River in Poland. NATO has launched an intervention force - tens of thousands of officers and soldiers are ready for combat within a few days.

The reinforcement troops come from the United States on the other side of the Atlantic. Three aircraft carrier battle groups set sail for European ports. The combat troops must be transferred from there to the operational area as soon as possible, and during this process, they need to cross two rivers. The climax of the exercise will occur in early March, when the officers and soldiers will arrive at the Weksel River from two directions.

Planning such an exercise will take several months. Brugnar must coordinate with at least 15 NATO commanders and 32 countries - the Swedes have already been involved, although they are still waiting for their final accession to NATO. All countries send experts to attend seminars and develop exercise plans.

According to reports, another new feature of this exercise is that NATO's highest headquarters is not only responsible for planning the exercise, but also personally directing it. Previously, this was the responsibility of the combat headquarters. However, if the actual test is alliance defense, it will be the responsibility of the NATO European Allied Forces Commander in Chief.