Operation Anaconda: NATO Allies Launch Largest Military Exercise Since Cold War

The largest war game in eastern Europe since the end of the cold war has started in Poland, as Nato and partner countries seek to mount a display of strength as a response to concerns about Russia’s assertiveness and actions. Defense experts warn that any mishap could prompt an offensive reaction from Moscow.

A defense attache at a European embassy in Warsaw said the “nightmare scenario” of the exercise, named Anaconda-2016, would be “a mishap, a miscalculation which the Russians construe, or choose to construe, as an offensive action”.

The exercise, which US and Polish officials formally launched near Warsaw, is billed as a test of cooperation between allied commands and troops in responding to military, chemical and cyber threats.

Managed by Poland’s Lt Gen Marek Tomaszycki, the exercise includes 14,000 US troops, 12,000 Polish troops, 800 from Britain and others from non-Nato countries.

Multinational operations publicized so far include an airdrop involving 1,130 parachutists over the northern Polish city of Toruń on Tuesday – including 500 US troops and 230 British ones – engineers building a bridge to carry 300 vehicles over the Vistula river and a night-time “assault” involving 35 helicopters.

Marcin Zaborowski, a Polish defense analyst at the Centre for European Policy Analysis in Warsaw, said: “In Poland we see the exercise as a reassurance measure from the US and Nato. The defense needs of central and eastern Europe are real. The scope and numbers of Anaconda are no match for the Russian exercises that go on all the time just across the border.”

It comes within weeks of the US switching on a powerful ballistic missile shield at Deveselu in Romania, as part of a “defense umbrella” that Washington says will stretch from Greenland to the Azores.

Last month, building work began on a similar missile interception base at Redzikowo, a village in northern Poland.

The world is a dangerous place, and there are many players in addition to the homicidal and mentally unstable Islamic terrorist groups. In particular are the Russians and the Chinese, both of whom seek to increase their worldwide military stature. It is critical that the United States work with NATO nations to help them develop their own mechanisms of self defense, and that the U.S. military stop abusing its own military to make societal statements and get back to the business of military might and national protection.

Source: theguardian.com