Citing what it termed “Russian aggression” on Friday, NATO leaders gathered at a summit in Newport, Wales gave official approval of what’s been called a “rapid response force” for eastern Europe, a so-called “spearhead” aimed at countering Moscow that would include an influx of as many as 5,000 soldiers, backed with new weaponry.
“This is a demonstration of our solidarity and resolve,” said NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen as he announced the move by the western military alliance. “This spearhead will include several thousand land troops ready to deploy within a few days with air, sea and Special Forces support.”
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Part of a larger “Readiness Action Plan” meant to bolster NATO’s military footprint in Poland and the Baltic states of Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia—Russian leaders have repeatedly said that such a NATO expansion along the former Iron Curtain would be seen as a threat to its security and have angrily asserted that such moves by the west, led by the U.S. and the U.K., are a betrayal of key agreements long ago reached.
In addition to repeated pledges that NATO would not seek to expand eastward following the end of the Cold War, other treaties between Europe and Russia have now been brought back into question as the U.S. and Europe have imposed repeated economic sanctions against Russia for its move to re-incorporate Crimea earlier this year and the active support it has shown rebels in eastern Ukraine.
As the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS reports:
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