Should a powerful response be given to Russia? NATO takes care of it, organizing an impressive air exercise from 12 to 24 June, the largest in its history, in which 24 nations will participate, involving ten thousand men and two hundred and twenty aircraft. The United States alone will field XNUMX US Air National Guard personnel and XNUMX aircraft.
The objective of the exercise is to be able to respond, all together, to an attack against a NATO member country.
"We want to demonstrate the agility and speed of the air force as a first responder and showcase the NATO air force” said the lieutenant general Ingo Gerhartz, head of the German Air Force. “The transatlantic dimension - he added - it is solid proof of NATO's cohesion and solidarity.".
For the US Ambassador to Germany Amy Gutmann the exercise will be “absolutely impressive". "I'd be quite surprised - he added - if a world leader did not take note of what this shows in terms of the spirit of this alliance, which means the strength of this alliance".
During the exercise, a scenario of theArticle 5 of NATO, i.e. the collective defense of the territory of the Alliance. Following the arrival and departure of US reinforcements and other Allied aircraft at three hubs in Germany (Jagel/Hohn in Schleswig-Holstein, Wunstorf in Lower Saxony and Lechfeld in Bavaria as well as Spangdahlem in Rhineland-Palatinate), Volkel in the Netherlands and Čáslav in the Czech Republic, participants will train in composite air operations (COMAO) in areas over Germany and conduct round-trip missions from the Baltic states and Romania.
The countries involved are Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Finland, France, Italy, Japan, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Slovenia, Spain, Czech Republic, Turkey, Hungary, United Kingdom and United States.
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