NATO is developing a plan to deploy the Alliance's military forces across Europe due to the intensification of the Russian defense industry over the past year. This was reported by the Financial Times, according to UNN.
Details
NATO's Joint Support and Enabling Command, the alliance's command center in the southern German city of Ulm, is developing plans for how NATO military forces will deploy across Europe and be supported and reinforced in the event of a conflict, officials said.
As noted, lessons from the Steadfast Defender military exercise, which simulates a large-scale conflict with an enemy in NATO's east, will be used. Admiral Rob Bauer, who heads the NATO committee, said that the exercise was aimed at "preparing for a conflict with Russia.
Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said last week that Russia could test NATO's mutual defense provisions "within three to five years." This follows similar warnings from colleagues in Sweden, the United Kingdom, Romania, Germany, and senior NATO officials since the beginning of the year.
"We will have to get used to the idea that it is quite possible that (Russian President Vladimir - ed.) Putin will attack a NATO country within 5-8 years," said Marie-Agnes Straka-Zimmermann, chairwoman of the Bundestag Defense Committee.
Also, General Sir Patrick Sanders, the outgoing head of the British army, warned that the British population should be prepared for a potential war with Russia. According to him, British citizens should be "trained and equipped" to fight.
This week, Estonia's foreign intelligence service reported that Russia intends to double the number of troops stationed along the border with the Baltic states and Finland, which could portend a potential military conflict with NATO over the next decade.
"Putin does everything he says he will do. And the only thing that can stop him is the politics of force," said Christoph Heusgen, former foreign affairs adviser to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and current chairman of the Munich Security Conference.
However, some Allies are skeptical that the Russian president intends to attack a NATO member. "Our assessment is that he takes our Article 5 commitments seriously and does not want to go to war with NATO," said one senior U.S. defense official.
Addendum
According to the newspaper, one of the reasons for Western officials' concern is Russia's revival of its industrial defense machine over the past year, which has occurred at a speed that many in the West thought impossible.
During the year, Russia fired 4 million artillery shells and several hundred tanks. Ukrainian officials predict that this year it will recruit another 400,000 people without resorting to full-scale mobilization.
NATO-Ukraine training center to be opened in Poland - Stoltenberg2/15/24, 5:57 PM
As noted, European NATO member states have increased their defense spending by about a third over the past decade, with some countries increasing their spending significantly after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Although the Russian army is heavily deployed in Ukraine and has suffered huge losses in the two years of war, most Western officials expect it to be able to rebuild its forces within five to six years.