NATO Secretary-General confirmed that Alliance is ready to launch the largest war games since the Cold War era, FT reported.
NATO’s the most scale war games scheduled to start next Thursday, about 50,000 soldiers from 31 countries will take the part in the drills officially named Trident Juncture 18. Troops from Alliance’s 29 member states plus Sweden and Finland will mock battle against an invading force in Norway. The 2018 wargames scheduled to run until November 7, an official statement reads.
Ahead of the huge military drills, Jens Stoltenberg reminded to the journalists in Brussel that since 2014, Europe’s security environment has significantly deteriorated. NATO’s SG added as well that upcoming TRJE18 drills scenario is fictional “but the lessons we learn will be real.”
Trident Juncture 18 kicked off just weeks after Russia staged its own largest ever military drills since the end of the decades-long Cold War, which concluded with the dissolution of the Soviet Union27 years ago.
Talking about the drills, General Rune Jakobsen, commander of the Norwegian joint headquarters, has said there is no need for Moscow to “get scared”, as the core exercise is due to take place 1,000km from the Russia border, while air operations will be at least 500km away. Russia and Norway share a 196km land border but it is the increased focus on the Arctic that has ratcheted up the tension between the two neighbours.
