The British-led division-sized force will include troops from at least six countries. It will be comprised of air, sea and land components as well as special forces, the British business daily said Friday in the lead story on its website. The as yet unnamed force would exercise frequently and be maintained at a very high state of readiness, according to NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who spoke of its creation for the first time in interviews with European journalists earlier this week.
“We have something already called the NATO response force, whose purpose is to be able to be deployed rapidly if needed. Now it’s our intention to develop what I would call a spearhead within that response force at very, very high readiness,” Rasmussen said.
The Netherlands, Norway and three Baltic states, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania have committed to being part of this “spearhead” and “Canada has also expressed an interest in taking part,” the Financial Times said.
In military parlance, “spearhead” usually means the lead unit in combat.
Notably absent from this list were Germany and the U.S., but the FT hinted that it was possible the force could grow much larger.
The Harper government has arguably been more critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions in Ukraine than any other western leader. Ottawa has already sent more than 500 uniformed military personnel to Europe in response to the crisis.
Four armed CF-18 aircraft from CFB Bagotville tasked with scrambling to intercept Russian aircraft intruding into NATO airspace will become operational next week at an airbase in Lithuania. An above strength infantry company from CFB Petawawa is now on exercise with Polish and American troops in Poland and HMCS Toronto is sailing near the Black Sea, where Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine earlier this spring.
The air, land and sea components of these forces are expected to be replaced by follow-on units from Canada every few months.
The creation of the force is to be announced by British Prime Minister David Cameron and the trans-Atlantic alliance at next week’s NATO Leader’s Summit in Wales. Prime Minister Stephen Harper is to attend the meeting on September 4-5 in Cardiff.
The military was not aware of any pending announcement regarding Canadian participation in such a new NATO force, an officer familiar with overseas planning said.
The war in Ukraine deepened this week when Kyiv and NATO declared that thousands of Russian troops opened a new front in the war in eastern Ukraine just as Ukrainian forces were taking territory back from Russian-backed rebels. Russia has repeatedly said such claims were nonsense.
Original Article
Source: canada.com/
Author: Matthew Fisher
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