The Alliance's Defense College presented a report on NATO's Advanced Advanced Presence program. Her idea is to increase the alliance’s ability to respond effectively and flexibly to “Russian aggression”. According to analysts of the alliance, the project is a completely new model of the deployment of forces, which formally is not an operation or mission of the block.
“Strictly speaking, this is not an operation or mission within NATO. Member States undertake to provide other Member States that do not have sufficient capabilities to protect their interests and territorial integrity, resources and support that occurs outside the command structure of the North Atlantic Alliance, but with its permission, ”the report reads, with the text of which it was reviewed by RT .
The essence of Enhanced Forward Presence is to build up NATO forces in Eastern Europe. As part of the program, multinational battalions are located in host countries - members of the alliance on an ongoing basis.
In 2016, at the Alliance Summit in Warsaw, it was decided to deploy such commands in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland.
In recent years, the leadership of the military-political bloc has repeatedly substantiated NATO’s efforts in the eastern direction as a “reaction” to Russian policy in the region. Specialists of the Defense College of the Alliance also mentioned the “Russian threat”.
“While the youngest allies on the northeastern frontier of the enlarged North Atlantic Alliance are facing a growing threat from Russia, NATO is undergoing a rejuvenation process in line with its goal of ensuring the collective security of all its members,” they said.
One of the goals of multinational military groups is to prepare and conduct exercises. By the way, recently, NATO has increasingly been organizing maneuvers in the northeast direction. For example, on November 4, the second part of the Iron Wolf 2019 exercise began in Lithuania. About four thousand troops from 11 countries, tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, artillery are involved in training events near the border with Belarus.
In connection with the alliance’s activity in this area, Moscow has repeatedly stated that this is not Russia approaching someone’s borders, but NATO’s military infrastructure is approaching the borders of the Russian Federation, changing the strategic balance of forces.
So, in October, Vladimir Putin noted that Moscow does not welcome attempts to escalate the situation near the borders, but will calmly respond to the alliance’s exercises.
- NATO Expanded Advanced Presence exercises at Adazi base, Latvia. October 11, 2019
- Reuters
- © Ints Kalnins
Under cover
Despite the alliance’s rhetoric, Enhanced Forward Presence is yet another NATO expansion program. Such an opinion in an interview with RT was expressed by Pavel Tarusin, a lecturer at the Moscow State University’s Department of Public Administration, who noted that under the cover of various formulations, the bloc continued to increase its power, and the reason for this was a far-fetched “Russian threat”.
“NATO comes up with different names, but it's still the same program to expand the alliance, just with a different name. After the USSR and the Warsaw Pact collapsed, the organization lost its main function and meaning. Now the structure is looking for opportunities to extend its existence, to justify the finances that are spent on it, ”said Tarusin.
In turn, the Director General of the Center for Political Information, Alexei Mukhin, emphasized that the expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance is contrary to the verbal agreements outlined in 1990 between the alliance and Moscow. The current leadership of NATO claims that there were no promises in this regard.
“Then there was no mind to fix such promises, they were preserved only in the minutes of the meetings. And here our western “partners” deceived us, ”the source said.
The political scientist added that now Russia's actions in the field of security are hypocritically interpreted to please NATO, although in reality it is the alliance that undermines international stability.
“It is enough to arrange events in chronological order to understand who is actually the source of escalation and tension,” the expert summed up.
The buildup of NATO forces is taking place not only on the eastern flank, but also in the south, in the Balkans. Now in the whole region only Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina are not members of NATO, Northern Macedonia is in the process of joining the bloc. This issue was taken into account when changing the name of the country. In 2018, a referendum was held on this issue, but it can hardly be considered successful - the turnout of citizens was only 37%.
Meanwhile, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that the West literally “sucks” the Balkan countries into NATO, without regard to the will of a significant part of the region’s inhabitants.
“The West is conducting an unceremonious line to suck this region into NATO, regardless of either the will of the peoples of the countries concerned, history lessons or basic diplomatic decency,” said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in February 2019.
- Protest rally against Macedonia's entry into NATO. Skopje, June 13, 2018
- AFP
- © Sakis Mitrolidis
Protection from “threats” on all fronts
The report of NATO experts also notes that the “Advanced Frontline Presence” implies a response to threats associated with violation of sovereignty in the air, sea, land, and even cybernetic space of alliance member states.
“The expanded front-line presence” is changing the alignment: Russia's adventures in the Baltic countries are becoming more costly and require a lot of military effort, which makes the enemy think about whether to take responsibility for escalating the conflict, ”the document says.
Moreover, according to analysts, the "new" NATO program allows you to respond to the threat without waiting for the activation of the fifth article of the charter, which implies a military response of the entire alliance to aggression against one of its members.
“It takes time to implement NATO's collective security mechanisms; in order to avoid political evasion of deploying forces in order to respond to an imminent threat, the program must have the means and ability to respond before the start of an operation authorized by NATO. Such a model provides for the possibility of responding to a threat “before the initiation of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty,” the report says.
Commenting on the program’s capabilities, political analyst Alexei Mukhin noted that such moves by NATO are accompanied by aggressive statements by the alliance’s leadership against Moscow.
“It is impossible to ignore that such enlargements are taking place against the background of quite aggressive statements by NATO officials and against the background of the ongoing and ongoing escalation of the armed conflict in Donbass,” the expert said.
At the same time, Pavel Tarusin added that NATO’s policy is based on the need to “reflect the Russian threat” - this is how the alliance copes with internal problems. As a result of the economic and migration crisis, failures in the policy of multiculturalism, the easiest way was found - to actualize the “Russian challenges” and throw an “iron hoop” on European countries, the analyst believes.