NATO and its partners are preparing to launch the largest air combat maneuvers in the alliance’s history next week, a show of force aimed at demonstrating readiness to counter Russian aggression in Europe, the newspaper said.Wall Street Journal“.
Led by Germany, 25 countries will take part in the “air defense” maneuvers, which will see the participation of approximately 250 aircraft, including B-1 strategic bombers, advanced F-35 fighter jets and long-range drones, in addition to more than 10,000 aircraft. Soldier.
According to the newspaper, these military exercises will help better position allied air forces in Europe and elsewhere to protect partners such as South Korea and Japan.
The maneuvers come as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has taken on new importance as a defense alliance after Russia’s attack on Ukraine last year sparked the biggest armed conflict in Europe since World War II.
New tensions between East and West have spread to all parts of the world, especially after joint exercises that brought together China and Russia this week have angered US allies in Asia.
The US Air Force will participate with 100 aircraft and 2,600 soldiers from 42 federal states. The maneuvers will extend June 12-23 from the United States through Germany to Russia’s borders around the Baltic and Black Seas.
In the wake of the fallout from Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Germany is still seeking to show a bellicose stance by leading maneuvers created for the first time in 2018, as President Vladimir Putin’s latest maneuver in Ukraine prompted Berlin to annex. According to the newspaper, the emphasis is on its armed forces after decades of neglect.
“Germany has to take more responsibility and sometimes take the lead among NATO countries here in Europe … and in this exercise we will demonstrate that we can do that,” he said, adding, “We have to show that these NATO territories are our red line.”
For his part, General Michael Lowe, director of the U.S. Air National Guard, said allied air forces “want to use lessons learned from efforts around the world, including in the Pacific.”
General Luo told the newspaper: “Deterrence by force, you have to have capability, credibility and willingness, and when you look at the Western alliance and our Western values, we certainly have the will, and now we are showing both capability and credibility.”
Luo said the large scale of the exercise should allow joint forces to conduct similar deployments in hours, not months, as far away as South Korea or Japan.
South Korea and Japan scrambled jets to intercept China and Russia’s joint air patrols in the Sea of Japan and East China Sea on Tuesday.
The Japanese government said the Russian-Chinese drills “raise serious national security concerns.”
The “air defense” drills will involve mass deployments of troops and equipment from the US to Europe in preparation for scenarios where Russia organizes attacks on NATO members.
The basic scenario for the maneuvers involved a simulated enemy capture of the German port of Rostock in an attack that would trigger NATO’s Article 5 collective defense clause. The response included recovering the port and other infrastructure, securing the cities, and moving into offensive action. It simulates Russian missile and drone attacks and deploys fighter jets to intercept them, the newspaper said.
Parts of German airspace will be closed to civilian aircraft for short periods. The exercises will also extend to NATO’s eastern sector in the skies over Lithuania and Romania, Poland and the Czech Republic.
Joint air forces will conduct exercises to fill the European defense gap resulting from the lack of air defense.
Germany, Europe’s largest country by population, has 11 Patriot air defense systems, two of which are on loan to Poland, and many of which are under maintenance.
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