The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) began its largest air military maneuvers in history on Monday, coordinated by Germany and intended to show its unity in the face of potential threats, particularly from Russia.
The Air Defender 23 exercise will run until June 23 and will include some 10,000 soldiers and 250 aircraft from 25 NATO countries and allies such as Japan and Sweden, the latter a candidate to join the Alliance.
The objective of these exercises, planned several years before the Russian attack on Ukraine and which are more relevant in the current context, is to train cooperation between different countries and their armed forces in order to defend Germany and NATO.
According to the Alliance, they aim to strengthen interoperability and readiness to protect against drones and cruise missiles in the event of an attack on cities, airports or ports within NATO territory.
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“We show that the territory of NATO is our red line, that we are ready to defend every inch of this territory,” said the inspector general of the German Air Force, Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz, in statements to the NDR regional chain.
And while Gerhartz insisted the drills were “not directed at anyone,” US Ambassador to Germany Amy Gutmann did say the drill will “beyond a shadow of a doubt demonstrate the agility and speed of our allied force” and send a message to other countries like Russia.
I would be surprised if a world leader doesn’t take note of what this shows in terms of the spirit of this alliance.
“I would be surprised if a world leader doesn’t take note of what this shows in terms of the spirit of this alliance, the strength of this alliance, and that includes Mr. (Vladimir) Putin,” he told reporters.
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Ambassador Gutmann also noted that there are no plans for Air Defender to be a recurring exercise, although she clarified: “We don’t want this to be the last.”
Therefore, in the next ten days some 2,000 flights will be carried out, with the Wunstorf airbase, in the Hannover region, in Germany., as a logistics center for maneuvers. The first flights already took off on Monday from the Wunstorf, Jagel and Lechfeld airbases, according to a spokesman for that nation’s air force.
Operations will take place in three exercise zones: over the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, over northeastern Germany and over the south of the country.
More than 200 missions and three composite air operations per day are planned involving the combination of various types of aircraft with different capabilities, such as reconnaissance, tanker and fighters.
For example, Sead missions (Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses) will be carried out with the aim of disabling enemy air defenses and aircraft crews will be trained in the use of their electronic combat equipment, particularly for situations of threat by anti-aircraft missiles.
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The German authorities indicated that everything possible will be done to limit flight delays or cancellations, although they admitted that the schedules of some flights could be affected by the maneuvers, in particular at Frankfurt or Berlin Brandenburg airport.
On Saturday hundreds of protesters rallied in Wunstorf against the exercises. ‘Practice peace, not war,’ read one sign.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With AFP and EFE
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