NATO: more than 500 thousand alliance troops on high alert
Kyiv • UNN
NATO reports 500,000 troops on high alert due to the threat from Russia. European countries are reintroducing compulsory military service and increasing defense budgets to strengthen their defense capabilities.
More than 500 thousand NATO troops are on high alert. This was reported by the spokesperson of the North Atlantic Alliance Farah Dahlalla in an interview with CNN, UNN reports.
Since 2014, NATO has undergone the most significant transformation in our collective defense in a generation. We have put in place the most comprehensive defense plans since the end of the Cold War, and more than 500,000 troops are now on high alert
According to CNN, several European countries have reintroduced or expanded compulsory military service amid a growing threat from Moscow, part of a series of defense-building measures that are likely to be further expanded.
"We're coming to the realization that we may have to change the way we mobilize, change the way we produce military equipment, recruit and train personnel," said Robert Hamilton, head of Eurasia studies at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, who served as a U.S. Army officer for 30 years.
"It's a tragic truth that we are here in 2024, deciding how to mobilize millions of people to throw them into the meat grinder of a potential war, but this is where Russia has led us," he said.
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A number of European countries ended compulsory military service after the end of the Cold War, but several states - especially in Scandinavia and the Baltics - have reintroduced it in recent years, largely because of the Russian threat. In some countries, refusing to be drafted can result in fines or even imprisonment.
Latvia was one of the countries that reintroduced conscription. There, compulsory military service was reintroduced on January 1 of this year, after being abolished in 2006. Male citizens will be called up for service within 12 months of reaching the age of 18 or graduating from school for those still in education.
In April, Norway unveiled an ambitious long-term plan that would nearly double the country's defense budget and add more than 20,000 conscripted soldiers, officers and reservists to the armed forces.
"We need a defense that is fit for purpose in the new security environment," said Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stere.
Conscription is compulsory in Norway, and in 2015 the country became the first member of the NATO defense alliance to draft men and women on equal terms.
Also this year, Germany updated its contingency plan for a conflict in Europe for the first time since the Cold War, and Defense Minister Boris Pistorius presented a proposal for a new voluntary military service in June. "We must be ready for war by 2029," he said.
