Nato allies to stage biggest military exercise

WARSAW. — Troops were set to hit the ground in Poland yesterday as Warsaw kicked off its largest-ever joint military exercises with its NATO allies, aimed at shoring up regional security amid the West’s worst standoff with Russia since the end of the Cold War.

The two-week long Anaconda manoeuvres are aimed at “checking the alliance’s ability to defend its eastern flank,” Polish Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz said at opening ceremonies in Warsaw the previous day.

The move comes a month ahead of a landmark NATO summit in Warsaw set to seal its largest revamp since the Cold War by deploying more troop rotations to eastern European members spooked by Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

Moscow fiercely opposes NATO moves to reinforce its eastern flank, billed by the alliance as part of its “deterrence and dialogue” strategy.

The latest in a string of NATO manoeuvres in the region, Anaconda involves some 31,000 soldiers from 24 alliance states, including 14,000 from the US, 12,000 Poles and 1,000 from Britain as well as personnel from former-Soviet “Partnership for Peace” states like Ukraine and heavy equipment deployments.

NATO has been careful to reassure Moscow ahead of the July summit, with its Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg insisting “the Cold War is history and we want it to stay that way.”

Russia has long objected to NATO’s expansion in its Soviet-era backyard and in 1997 NATO formally agreed not to install permanent bases in former Warsaw Pact states.

But some European security analysts question whether NATO’s current strategy, based on the deployment of rotational rather than permanent forces, can really secure its eastern flank.

“When push comes to shove, how long will it really take to mobilise at break-neck speed troops in the possibility of a threat of an attack?” Carnegie Group analyst Judy Dempsey said in an interview with AFP.

“If it (NATO) is not going to permanently deploy troops, then it really should speed up infrastructure to move troops there (to the eastern flank) quickly.”

Since the Ukraine conflict, NATO has established a high-speed “spearhead” response force, complete with forward command and logistic centres in its eastern members so it can deploy much more rapidly. — AFP.