On January 21, local time, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said that NATO plans to hold the "Steadfast Defender 2024" military exercise in many places in Europe, marking NATO's irretrievable return to the Cold War mode. The exercise is another part of the West's hybrid war against Russia.
On January 18, local time, NATO's Allied Commander-in-Chief in Europe, Christopher Cavalli, announced that the upcoming "Steadfast Defenders 2024" military exercise is "the largest in NATO in decades", and about 90,000 military personnel from 31 countries will participate in this exercise.
Last year, NATO held the air deployment exercise "Air Guardian 2023" from June 12 to 23 local time, with 10,000 soldiers and about 250 aircraft from 25 countries led by the United States participating in the exercise, which was known as "the largest air force exercise in history" at that time.
Compared with the last time, this time the phrase "air force exercise" has been removed, which means that it will be a joint exercise of the navy, land and air force. According to a Reuters report, the purpose of NATO's military exercise is to practice how to respond to a conflict with a "close match" adversary. However, this tone is a bit high.
It is reported that NATO's "largest" military exercise will last for four months, with 90,000 troops dispatched, including at least 50 ships of various types, 80 warplanes, helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles of various types, 1,100 tactical vehicles, 133 tanks and 533 infantry fighting vehicles.
How can we say about this configuration? The number of tanks is 133, and there is not a single zero; more than 50 warships claim to have everything from destroyers to aircraft carriers, and there are no less than 60 carrier-based aircraft in an aircraft carrier formation alone, so is a total of 80 planes of various types serious? You must know that at the moment, the "escort alliance" headed by the US military and facing the Houthis in the Red Sea has 70 or 80 aircraft of various types on eight of its ships.
In fact, NATO's military exercises have been warming up since the middle of last year, when it was said that they were expected to be held in Germany, Poland and the Baltic states in February and March 2024, and would involve 500 to 700 air combat missions, more than 50 warships and 41,000 troops. Now, unconsciously, the number of troops participating in the exercise has doubled, but when the exercise actually begins, I am afraid it will be difficult to reach this scale.
Because it has become difficult for the United States and NATO to mobilize more than 50,000 people for large-scale exercises, many units have participated in exercises virtually in the past, and they cannot be counted as exercise personnel in the strict sense.
For example, from August 9 to 18 local time last year, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps launched a military joint exercise codenamed "Large-scale Exercise-2023", claiming to dispatch 7 fleets, 6 aircraft carrier strike groups and 3 amphibious assault ship formations around the world, with more than 10,000 troops participating in the exercise, spanning 22 time zones.
This is outrageous if the context does not match the context, because the strength of an aircraft carrier strike group alone is nearly 10,000, and how can it still be 10,000 when six aircraft carrier strike groups are dispatched? This is the US military's numbers game, and only the "Ford" and "Reagan" of the six aircraft carrier strike groups are actually present, and the remaining 50 or so ships are participating in the exercise virtually. From this point of view, NATO's claim of 90,000 troops this time may be good if it can reach the initial expectation of 41,000.
It is not uncommon for the symbolic significance of various military activities of the United States and the West to be greater than the practical significance. What signal is NATO trying to send when it launches this military exercise with great fanfare? Speaking of which, it is nothing more than to verify NATO's joint combat capability and boost the morale of the Ukrainian army, but the most important thing is to pay attention to the duration of the exercise. Because the 2024 Russian presidential election just ends in mid-to-late March, this timing is more delicate.
Therefore, even if there is nothing to do in this round of NATO exercises, it must be delayed for four months, and it must cover the period of the Russian presidential election. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand that the reason why NATO wants to slap its swollen face and become fat even if its equipment is no longer what it used to be is to try to interfere in Russia's internal affairs, create a sense of urgency for the army to suppress the situation, intimidate Russian voters, influence the willingness to vote as much as possible, create variables for its general election, and strive to create a political ecology favorable to NATO.
Finally, to speak of NATO's "largest military exercise" is to remind Europeans of the fear of being dominated by the Soviet Union's "West-81" military exercise in 1981. This is not only in Europe, but even in the history of mankind is the largest military exercise, and the imaginary enemy is NATO.
The Soviet army invested a total of more than 500,000 troops, and all kinds of advanced weapons at that time took turns, and even simulated 141 simulated nuclear strikes, showing the world that the real steel torrent combat effectiveness is terrifying. Seeing that NATO observers were dumbfounded, the Western media once commented that if the Soviet army launched an all-out offensive on this scale, the only chance for the US military to win would be to send troops to the aid as soon as it received the war report, and not hesitate to detonate the nuclear weapons deployed on the front line to delay the attack, otherwise the European continent would be filled with the Soviet red flag within a week! In contrast, NATO's "largest scale" today is simply child's play.