NATO preps for war it hopes won’t come
Alliance has increased training after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
JEDRZYCHOWICE, Poland — About 90,000 NATO troops have been training in Europe this spring for the Great Power war that most hope will never come: a clash between Russia and the West with potentially catastrophic consequences.
In Estonia, paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division out of Fort Liberty, N.C., jumped out of planes alongside soldiers from Colchester Garrison in Essex, Britain, for “forcible entry” operations. In Lithuania, German soldiers arrived as a brigade stationed outside Germany on a permanent basis for the first time since World War II.
And on the A4 autobahn in eastern Germany, a U.S. Army captain and his Macedonian counterpart rushed toward the Suwalki Gap — the place many war planners predict will be the flashpoint for a NATO war with Russia — hoping the overheated radiator on their Stryker armored combat vehicle wouldn’t kill the engine.
All are part of what is supposed to be a tremendous show of force by NATO, its largest since the start of the Cold War, that is meant to send a sharp message to President Vladimir Putin of Russia his ambitions must not venture beyond Ukraine.
But it is also a preview of what the opening beats of a modern Great Power conflict could look like. If NATO and Russia went to war, U.S. and allied troops would initially rush to the Baltic countries Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — NATO’s “Eastern Flank”— to try to block penetration by a Russian force.
How that war would end, and how many people might die, is a different story. Tens of millions of people were killed in World War II. This time, the stakes have never been higher. Putin has brought up the potential for nuclear war several times since Russia invaded Ukraine more than two years ago.
A European continental ground war has seemed far more possible since Russia invaded Ukraine.
“This exercise changes the calculus for our adversaries — that’s the real power of this,” said Gen. Darryl A. Williams, the American general who leads NATO’s Allied Land Command. Putin, he said, “is watching this and saying, ‘Hmm, maybe I need to think twice here.’ ”
Russia’s war in Ukraine infuses almost every movement of the exercises, which began in January and will continue through May. It is why some of the U.S. troops experimented with commercial drones that they could weaponize by fixing with explosives, to see how to counter such tactics, much as Russian troops have had to learn how to defend against Ukraine’s use of store-bought drones that have been MacGyvered with explosives.
It is also why the overheated Stryker carrying the two American and Macedonian captains looks almost exactly like all of the others.
Military officials said that on the battlefield, the Russian top brass made themselves conspicuous. They often appeared rooted in the same place, U.S. military officials said, instead of moving around. Sometimes several command vehicles were hooked together with antennas next to them, almost advertising, one military official said, the presence of Russian generals and officers.
NATO and U.S. military officers don’t want to make the same mistake.
Williams said in the past, such exercises did not name the enemy — there was just a fictitious opponent.
Not so this year. For the first time, “we now, in this year, are actually fighting an exercise against the Russians,” he said. “We fight against our potential adversary.”