NATO is about to significantly increase its combat capacity along the border with Russia. By 2020, 30 battalions of land forces, 30 combat ships and 30 squadrons of aircraft must be on site within 30 days to strengthen the troops already in Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In terms of land forces alone, this means 18 to 30,000 men.
Brussels, June 6.– Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg expects NATO Ministers of Defense to approve the 'Nato readiness initiative' initiated by America tomorrow (literally: readiness initiative). From the outset, it was the intention that the troops that are more or less semipermanent along the eastern NATO border, can quickly help in case of emergency.
As far as the NATO headquarters are concerned, two other decisions are included: a faster decision-making structure and greater mobility, especially for land forces and their equipment.
NATO and the EU have been working on this for a while. In case of emergency, they want to have port capacity at their disposal, the possibility to transport heavy equipment by rail and the certainty that roads, bridges and viaducts, like the time of the Cold War, are again calculated on the weight of tanks. Environmental laws that were not there before may also not be an obstacle to ammunition transport, for example.
Command center
Each NATO country will have its own 'mobility center', which can quickly clear up any obstacles in its own country and also serve as a point of contact for NATO and mobility centers in other ...
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