After Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, NATO pledged to adapt to the new situation the action heralded. At the Wales summit that year the alliance recommitted to the 2 percent spending goal, extended the role of the NATO Response Force (NRF), and created a Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) to react within five days to a contingency on NATO’s eastern flank. Two years later in Warsaw, the alliance agreed to send battalion-sized military contingents to each of the Baltic countries and Poland. The US would later add three battalions to rotate between eastern flank states. And at its 2018 Brussels summit, NATO put the NRF’s readiness goals in more tangible terms: 30 battalions, 30 fighter squadrons, and 30 warships to be ready within 30 days. In addition, the alliance’s command and logistics structure was to be updated to deal with deployments of larger formations in the same region.
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Gustav Gressel: After Crimea, can NATO defend Europe?
US soldiers take part in a massive amphibious landing during the Exercise Baltic Operations (BALTOPS), a NATO maritime-focused military multinational exercise, on June 4, 2018 in Nemirseta on the Baltic sea in Lithuania.
