DW – March 17, 2022
As Russia’s assault on Ukraine edged closer to NATO territories this week, the alliance kicked off a massive military drill in Norway.
Around 30,000 troops, 220 aircraft and 50 vessels from 27 countries are participating in NATO’s Cold Response 2022. Militarily non-aligned countries — Finland and Sweden, who maintain close relations with NATO, are also a part of this defense exercise which began on March 14 and concludes on April 1.
Cold Response got underway just after Russian missiles struck a base in western Ukraine, some 25 kilometers (15 miles) from the border of NATO member Poland. Lieutenant Colonel Ivar Moen, spokesperson for the Norwegian Joint Headquarters, stressed that this military exercise was planned even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Cold Response is normally held in March every year, where NATO troops practice their combat skills in the cold Norwegian weather. Drills are held on land, in the sea and in the sky. This year’s exercise was planned months in advance and is in no way linked to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” Moen told DW.
“The main purpose of Cold Response is to test how Norway receives and manages allied reinforcements. This defensive exercise for Norway is in line with Article 5 of NATO’s Charter, which requires allies to rescue one another if attacked,” he added.
As a part of this drill, Norway was also required to invite all 57 member states of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), including Russia, to observe the exercise.
This is an obligation under the Vienna Document — a series of security agreements between European nations, which also seek to ensure transparency around military drills.
While the Kremlin declined the invitation, the Russian Embassy in Norway told French news agency AFP last week, that “any buildup of NATO military capabilities near Russia’s borders does not not help to strengthen security in the region.”
“This is not a buildup of troops. This is a defensive exercise and we will not be training near the border with Russia. It is a simple yearly drill to ensure Norway and its NATO allies are safe amid current and any future tensions,” Moen said.
Fabrice Pothier, strategy officer and CEO of policy group Rasmussen Global, explained that Russia’s views on NATO drills are all a part of Moscow’s playbook.
“Russia will pretend to feel threatened with these drills and call it a buildup of troops along its border with Norway. But NATO is allowed to hold drills to strengthen its troops and there is nothing threatening about that,” he told DW.
Bolstering combat skills in cold terrain
Since the 1950s, Norway has hosted many military exercises for NATO countries, which aim to bolster their military capabilities amid the cold and rugged Norwegian skies, fjords, seas and mountains.
The country hosted the first Cold Response drill in 2006 and plans the exercises months in advance.
Nato rapid reaction force. Click to enlarge
According to the Permanent Delegation of Norway to the OSCE, this year’s Cold Response is taking place in south-eastern, central and northern Norway in three phases.
While the first phase of the drill has begun with maritime drills in the Atlantic, the second phase will focus on air operations involving NATO airplanes, testing their ability to land on icy terrains efficiently. The last phase will include amphibious landing and land battle training. The entire drill is aimed at ensuring that Norway has the capability to handle NATO deployments.
But amid rising tensions with Russia and the Kremlin threatening to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, Moen stressed that the exercises of Cold Response 2022 will not be adapted to include drills to tackle nuclear threats.
“Acting as a sort of Guardian of the North, Norway has planned this drill before the war in Ukraine. That plan will continue without any changes,” Moen said.
Stefan Scheller, an associate fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations, thinks the focus of Cold Response 2022 which involves practicing amphibian operations in cold weather conditions, can help to strengthen NATO.
“It is very positive that 27 nations have signed up for the exercise, since the more participants you have, the better the training within the alliance will be,” Scheller told DW.
“Moreover, it is great that the drill was not canceled this year. Otherwise the alliance would have sent a wrong signal and a sign of weakness in these troubled times,” he added.
That’s echoed by Ivana Stradner, an advisor to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
“Some argue that this exercise is dangerous because Russia can misconstrue it. However, launching this exercise is a step in the right direction because we should not allow Putin to dictate NATO’s security and canceling this exercise would show NATO’s weakness,” she said
‘Augment air defense forces’
While NATO continues to hold military drills to fortify its territories and capabilities, Rasmussen Global’s Pothier thinks that the current security situation in Europe should motivate NATO to focus on different defense tactics.
“Military exercises do help strengthen troops, but I expect NATO to be more active in other fronts as well like pushing back on military threats from Russia and focusing on deploying air defense systems to protect Ukraine,” he said.
“The edge of NATO’s border is now under attack and the only way to defend it is to augment NATO’s air defense forces,” he added. Stradner highlighted that while Putin perceives NATO and its drills as a threat, it shouldn’t mitigate NATO’s vigilance.
“Russia constantly claims to be threatened by NATO but this is a purely defensive alliance that does not seek to [encroach upon] Russian territory. We can expect Putin to find NATO’s weak link in order to show that the alliance is a paper tiger. So NATO has to be ready to respond,” she said.
All neutral countries which join this war are longer neutral. So silly.
Should read no longer neutral. I need to edit more carefully.
Putin kill as many USA+UK troops
you can . they are all servants of the
globalist plutocrates and therefore
enemies of the white race !
Ratchild: Lets set up more white gentiles to get slaughtered via our various yarmulke wearing Presidents & PMs.
Mosestein: Excellent. This will further decrease the white male gentile population as we continue importing millions of Afro-Asian monkeys & mongrels into Europe & the West to rape/mate with white women..
Ratchild: Our mongrel Messiah is coming soon..
These drills are totally insignificant. All they do is support the stupid idea that Russia wants its old Soviet empire back. Okay, you can make an argument along those lines since the NWOs last round of sanctions, but in the past, all Russia wanted to do was sell oil, gas, and trade.
But I hold the view that Russia doesn’t want its old empire back. All Ruusia wants are its security concerns recognised.
Russia is much more likely to nuke the West, than invade Eastern Europe.
We could be reaching the point where the West lays down an ultimatum to Russia; leave UKraine in x days or weeks, or we will be at war. Similar to the UK forcing Hitler into Poland. Putin wouldn’t follow back down, so it would be WW3. Its not very far fetched. Many, including myself, believe the UK, maybe the US, wanted Russia in UKraine, and maybe the West wants WW3, but they want to blame Russia for starting it my not following NWO instructions.
The ‘exceptional’ could hold the view, that they can actually win a nuclear exchange with Russia, & China… they are that xxxxing daft and desperate. This is about ideology, there’s no practicallity, no common sense, especially when there’s no peaceful way to rebuild the US and UK economies. Two ideologies heading down the rabbit hole, are we at the point where neither can back out? Probably.
> there’s no peaceful way to rebuild the US and UK economies
Yes there is. But no one would want to do it. The US is easy, because all they need to do is isolate themselves. Stop spending any money on war or anything else abroad. Throw out the foreigners and voila – you’re able to feed and house everyone. Remember: no one would want to do it.
The UK is impossible, because it can’t feed itself, even if you throw out every last foreigner. It can’t clothe itself. It could house everyone, but only in the world’s smallest and most horrible housing. No one would want to live there – but then no one wants to live there now. The only way for the UK is to reenter the EU, throw out every last foreigner, limit every ugly woman (they’re all ugly) to one child for several generations, and have all the remainder work their arses off like the japanese did after you murdered them with atom bombs. Then, you would be able to feed and house everyone. I repeat: no one would want to do it.
Whilst it may be a setup for an impending first strike, it is more likely that NATO is trying to prompt the non-aligned states (Sweden and Finland) to join.
It also serves to make the Baltic states feel braver and more provocative (more persecution of ethnic Russians, thus perhaps providing the spark that the British obviously want so badly).
IMHO, What actually tip the balance of power to ZATO fronting Russia , is the membership of Montenegro & North Macedonia to ZATO ?? No doubt about it ? That made a huge contribution ??
As the late Vladimir Bukovsky , a former political prisoner in the USSR remarked, the EU is the new Soviet Union with an unelected, virtually unremovable Commission being equivalent to the Soviet Politburo, & a ‘Parliament’ which is in essence the same as the Supreme Soviet (i.e. a rubber stamp for the decisions of the Commissars in the Commission).
Because of the prevailing Marxist Political Correctness in the EU & the West in general (the product of the baleful influence of cultural marxism ) there is no need for a gulag.
It was always intended to be a building block of world government, so why would anyone want to join the declining/moribund EU?
repeat after me: So the US isolates, they don’t need their military, so don’t they just run it as normal, or do they cut back drastically?
Where you are wrong, is that the hegemonic US dollar as the global reserve currency actually funds the US debt and their beyond their means way of life. Every global trade done in US$ provided the US with a commission. Then we have the pertrodollar.
On top of this, the US runs a global extortion racket, they used to stride the planet carrying a big baseball bat, they still do, but the bigger players like China, Russia, INDIA, Brazil, & Iran are no longer scared of Uncle Sam.
If the US were to isolate, they would become much poorer. As to the UK, no point talking about them.
Let’s look on the bright side..
There are now only 199 aircraft involved in these drills after yet another V22 osprey fell out of the sky for no reason whatsoever.
The awareness, the consciousness of kill, condemnation, spreads. This kind of crap only serves to replace peace by practicing war. Smedley was right, war is a racket, and there is a VERY big buck to be made in it. Uncle Sammy has a $750 BILLION defense budget, PEACE TIME, and that moola IS NOT for beating swords into plowshares. Neither is the North American Treaty Organization. The road to hell is paved with such, it SEEMS, but doesn’t DO.
Yet it is small potatoes, the 13.6 GIVEN (promised) to Ukraine could have gone a loong way toward buying the country. The label “war criminal”, the bio-“research” facilities, the $5 BILLION to install the democide government who has insanely poked the bear for EIGHT YEARS – another military drill?
Yeah, that’ll help!
Corn Pop diplomacy – tits on a bull too…