Stars and Stripes
November 4, 2013
NATO forces mobilize across eastern Europe for war games
By John Vandiver
STUTTGART, Germany: NATO’s largest war game in years, which kicked off in Poland on Saturday, will involve some 6,000 troops at locations spread out across the region over the course of nine days.
The exercise — Steadfast Jazz — also will test the readiness of NATO’s Response Force, a multinational rapid-reaction unit that is getting off the ground after years of planning and false starts.
“The purpose of this exercise is to make sure that our rapid-reaction force, the NATO Response Force, is ready to defend any ally, deploy anywhere and deal with any threat,” said NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen in a news release announcing the start of Steadfast Jazz.
During the war games, the headquarters of the NATO Response Force will contend with a range of threat scenarios such as cyberattacks, war crimes and other threats to civilian populations.
Meanwhile, NATO troops on land, at sea and in the air will hone their abilities to work together in a multinational environment.
During the drill, naval vessels will deploy in the Baltic Sea while aircraft fly over central Europe. About 3,000 soldiers are participating in a live exercise in western Poland, the main site of Steadfast Jazz.
“The certification of the NRF (NATO Response Force) headquarters is a crucial step in maintaining and enhancing the ability of NATO forces to work together and provide seamless connectivity and interoperability,” said Gen. Hans-Lothar Domrose, commander of Joint Force Command Brunssum.
NATO leaders have lauded the current state of the alliances fighting forces, which they say are more connected and “interoperable” than any other time during the alliance’s 60-year history.
Officials say the long fight against an unvanquished Taliban in Afghanistan has bolstered to an all-time high NATO’s ability to fight alongside one another. Formed to counter the massive armies of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, NATO armies struggled to achieve such interoperability during much of the Cold War as alliance forces fielded vastly different weaponry, ammunition and even radios.
Among the elements taking place in Steadfast Jazz exercise are about 350 vehicles, including armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles; 1,000 mechanized infantry from various nations; a chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear Battalion; and numerous company and platoon-sized elements, 11 surface vessels and one submarine; 46 aircraft and 11 helicopters.
“Steadfast Jazz,” which will involve all 28 NATO nations as well as partner nations Finland, Sweden and Ukraine, is the largest NATO exercise since 2006.
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