NATO has kicked off its biggest military exercise in decades. Steadfast Defender aims to show that the Western alliance can rapidly deploy forces from North America and elsewhere to reinforce Europe. NATO members and Sweden are taking part in the drills, involving around 90,000 troops.
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00:00 And let's get more on that.
00:02 We are joined by Elizabeth Braa.
00:03 She is senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.
00:09 She joins us from Washington, D.C.
00:10 Thank you so much for your time this afternoon.
00:13 It's NATO's biggest exercise in decades.
00:15 Talk with us a little bit more about the timing.
00:20 It is, as you say, a massive exercise.
00:24 And in fact, it's the first exercise of its kind since the end of the Cold War.
00:29 It's an exercise practicing the movement of NATO forces within NATO territory, including
00:36 the U.S., which means bringing a lot of troops from the U.S.
00:40 And the last time NATO practiced it at this scale was during the Cold War with something
00:44 called reforger.
00:46 And now we are back with this massive exercise no longer called reforger because reforger
00:51 was return of forces to Germany.
00:54 And now Germany is no longer the front line.
00:56 The Baltic states and Poland are the front line, which is being practiced.
01:00 And for obvious reasons, because that's where there could be potential harm.
01:05 And that also explains the timing, because the situation at the border of the Baltic
01:10 states and Poland has deteriorated in the past couple of years.
01:14 And the strengthening and the expanding of NATO has always been one of the main concerns
01:18 of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
01:20 So can you explain how these exercises, to what extent they raise the likelihood of confrontation
01:28 instead of reducing it?
01:34 The Russians will always say that a NATO exercise is confrontational, but NATO has always made
01:40 the case during the Cold War and today that it's a defensive alliance.
01:44 It's only there to defend this territory.
01:46 If you don't enter NATO territory, NATO won't do anything to you.
01:51 And what also dates back to the Cold War is this sort of scaremongering on the Russian
01:57 side or on the Soviet side, as it was then, that NATO had hostile intentions or aggressive
02:02 intentions.
02:03 So Russia will do that once again and probably have some success because this is a very significant
02:11 exercise.
02:13 But they've been scaremongering so much over the past five, 10 years.
02:19 I don't think people will be as receptive to that message as they may have been 10 years
02:24 ago.
02:25 In the context of the war in Ukraine, I mean, you know, the Russian military itself is very
02:29 much occupied there.
02:31 And I'm just wondering how that has been impacting the expert view of where the Russian threat
02:36 to NATO stands right now.
02:41 The Russians are very clever in that they are using not just their military capabilities
02:46 and resources, but also non-military capabilities and resources.
02:53 So if we look at the threats to the Baltic Sea region, which is where this exercise is
02:58 taking place, it's not just the threat of Russian troops marching across the border.
03:03 It's also the threat of what is called hybrid or gray zone aggression.
03:09 Something like what Belarus has been doing clearly in some sort of cooperation with Russia,
03:14 which is to weaponize migration at the border of Lithuania, Latvia and Poland.
03:20 And the sabotage that we have seen of sea-based infrastructure in the Baltic Sea.
03:25 Now, NATO's troops in themselves wouldn't be able to really do much about that.
03:32 But this is a show of strength and a show that NATO is committed and is watching the
03:36 region.
03:37 If something were to happen and escalate, NATO would be there.
03:40 Elizabeth Braugh, Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council.
03:43 Thank you.
03:44 [BLANK_AUDIO]