Moscow will soon orchestrate yet another major military exercise, this time in its Eastern Military District (EMD)—a vast 2.7-million-square-mile territory stretching from its Siberian Arctic shores down to Vladivostok on the Pacific, close to Russia’s borders with China and North Korea. This will come exactly one year after its Zapad-17 exercise across Russia’s Western Military District, just on NATO’s doorstep.
While far from the Alliance’s borders this time, the forthcoming event’s location, huge scale, and unusual partner participation (China) carry strategic implications for NATO and the West, and also raise serious questions open to diverse interpretation.
