From Deutsche Welle.
NATO’s on notice in Ukraine crisis: What’s next?
Romania has long wanted a NATO battlegroup on its territory, similar to those mustered for Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland….
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France has expressed interest in leading the new deployment, and this week French Defense Minister Florence Parly, on a visit to Bucharest, announced a group of experts was already arriving in Romania to begin mapping it out.
And Romania may not be the only eastern NATO ally to get a new battlegroup….
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Speaking at the Atlantic Council think tank, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) General Philip Breedlove praised this decision and encouraged the alliance to look at other “options that would tell [Russian President Vladimir] Putin that he’s going to get the opposite of what he asked for.”
Noting that the US and other nations are now sending additional fighter jets for the air policing missions that cover the Baltics and much of NATO’s other territory, Breedlove argued that the time had come to upgrade that function and give it some teeth.
“Air policing is a peacetime function for renegade aircraft,” he said. “We should be changing NATO now into an ‘air defense’ posture. Give our aviators the rules of engagement and the special instructions that would allow them to respond to a bellicose action.”
In addition to the heightened troop alert, Breedlove suggested “possibly moving elements of NATO’s Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) and other things to improve our positioning in the forward area.” The VJTF is the spearhead component of the 40,000-strong NATO Response Force, consisting of some 20,000 troops. The VJTF reaction time has already been shortened this year from seven days down to five.
Those forces would deploy even more quickly than that if needed, says the former commander of the US Army in Europe, General Ben Hodges. “If you’re here telling me I have five days’ notice to move, then I’m going to be ready to move in one or two days,” he explained.
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Romania’s new battlegroup is likely just months away. “Long overdue,” Hodges concludes.
Anti-bellum 