Germany will stage the largest air exercise in NATO history beginning Monday, in a show of force designed to impress potential allies and adversaries such as Russia, German and US officials said Wednesday.
The Air Defender 23 (AD23) exercise, which will take place from June 12 to 23, will have ten thousand participants and 250 aircraft from 25 countries to respond to a simulated attack on a NATO member.
“This is an exercise that will be absolutely stunning to anyone watching,” US Ambassador to Berlin Amy Gutmann said at a news conference in the German capital.
The United States will send 2,000 members of the Air National Guard and about 100 aircraft to participate in the training exercises, coordinated by the German Air Force (Luftwaffe).
Among the participants are Sweden and Japan, two countries that are not part of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization).
Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Slovenia, the United States, Estonia, Spain, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, the Netherlands, Poland, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom, Romania and Turkey are also participating.
“I would be very surprised if some world leader did not take note of what this shows in terms of the spirit of this alliance, what the strength of this alliance means,” Gutmann was quoted as saying by the US agency AP.
“And that includes Mr. [Vladimir] Putin”, he added in reference to the Russian president, who ordered the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 to, among other reasons, stop the expansion of NATO in Eastern Europe.
Although the exercise had been planned for several years, the invasion of Ukraine caused NATO to prepare for the possibility of an attack on its territory.
The exercise simulates the invasion of Germany by forces of an eastern military alliance, which leads to the activation of the principle of collective defense of NATO territory, provided for in article five of the Atlantic Alliance treaty.
The treaty was signed on April 4, 1949, in Washington, by the 12 founding countries of NATO, including Portugal, which did not participate in the AD23 exercise.
“We are showing that NATO territory is our red line, that we are prepared to defend every inch of this territory,” Luftwaffe commander Lt. Gen. Ingo Gerhartz said.
US Air National Guard Director Lt. Gen. Michael A. Loh said the exercise goes beyond deterrence.
“It is about the preparation of our force. This is about coordination, not just within NATO, but with our other non-NATO allies and partners,” he said.
German authorities admitted that the exercise could cause some disturbances in civil aviation in Europe and a lot of noise, due to the approximately 2,000 flights planned.
“There is no security at zero cost,” justified the Luftwaffe commander, quoted by the Spanish news agency EFE.
Source: TSF
