(Brussels) The Steadfast military exercise, the largest war simulation organized by NATO since the end of the Cold War, began on Wednesday in Norfolk, in the northeast of the United States, the Alliance announced in a communicated.
THE USS Gunston Hall, an American transport and landing warship, left the port of Virginia on Wednesday for a crossing of the Atlantic to Europe. It will be followed before the end of the month by a Canadian ship, NATO said.
Steadfast, which will mobilize up to 90,000 soldiers on both sides of the Atlantic, must, among other things, verify the Alliance’s ability to quickly mobilize and transport American troops to “strengthen the defense of Europe”, according to this press release.
These maneuvers, which will extend over several months from the Atlantic to NATO’s eastern flank, will take the form of a conflict scenario against an “adversary of comparable size”, according to the Alliance’s terminology, which designates thus, without naming it, Russia, whose large-scale offensive in Ukraine began almost two years ago.
Some 50 warships, 80 aircraft and 1,100 combat vehicles will take part in this largest exercise since “Reforger” in 1988, in the midst of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the Atlantic Alliance.