Workers’ Communist Party (APK), Denmark / KPnet.dk / Jan. 23, 2024 / Translated from Danish

From late January to late May, NATO is conducting a huge military exercise consisting of three separate exercises, one of them in the Nordic region. The exercise is a situation where NATO mobilizes for war against Russia. Ostensibly, it is a defense exercise, but in reality it is a training of a war situation of an offensive nature and a rearmament pressure against Russia. As we have seen with NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine, the war that is formally a defense is at the same time a result of decades of pressure and provocation from the West against Russia. In essence, it is an imperialist showdown between great powers that NATO is preparing for.

The exercise consists of three separate exercises, one on NATO’s northern front (Nordic Response), the second on the eastern front (Steadfast Defender) with a focus on Poland and with Germany as a key transit country, and the third in the North Atlantic between Scotland, Norway and Iceland (Joint Warrior 24). Romania will be the base for the F-16 aircraft that NATO countries are currently deploying in the Ukraine war and the country will be included in the exercise.

The overall purpose is to practice the movement of troops and weapons from the US and other NATO countries to the front lines of war, i.e. logistics and coordination for a NATO war and NATO’s rapid reaction forces.

For the first time, NATO is operating with the Nordic region as a single region and the exercise will be close to the Kola Peninsula and Russia’s nuclear arsenal.

The exercise will be the largest since the Cold War and will involve 90,000 participants from all NATO countries. More than 50 ships, 80 fighter jets, helicopters, drones, 133 tanks and much more will be involved.

Denmark is a member

Denmark will participate with two frigates and an inspection ship, as well as units from the Air Force and the Special Operations Command, which includes the Jaeger Corps, the Frogman Corps and the Sirius Sledge Patrol.

Danish ports have been designated NATO ports, which we have already seen in use several times. Receiving US troops in the ports will be part of the exercise.

A special twist will be the training of the Nordic countries’ air forces as a single unit. An intention to coordinate the Nordic air defenses under a joint command was decided by NATO in March 2023. In March 2023, the Nordic heads of the countries’ air forces –in the presence of the head of NATO Air Command– signed the agreement:

“The ultimate goal is to operate seamlessly together as one force by developing a Nordic concept for joint air operations based on already known NATO methodology. The Nordic Response and Arctic Challenge Exercise will be used as milestones for the joint efforts.”

When NATO talks about defense, one must remember how the Ukraine war is propaganda-wise set up as a purely defensive war. Russia alone is given the responsibility, and Russia is clearly at war for its own imperialist interests regarding Ukraine, but behind the story lies the West’s long-term takeover of power in Eastern Europe, where countries have gradually been incorporated into NATO. NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine is just as much a war of aggression, and it will also be the character of a war that NATO is now practicing. It is imperialist competition that can turn into armed war, a huge risk that is being increased and fueled, among other things, through exercises like this.

Danish imperialism, as part of NATO –with the opening of US bases, with harbors subject to military purposes, with F-35 aircraft under NATO command– has involved us deeply in their entire war set-up. The NATO exercise this spring will be a tangible expression of NATO preparing for war right here in the Nordic region and Europe.

Download the free booklet (in Danish): Fight All Imperialism – The Growing Rivalry of the Great Powers and the Location of Danish Imperialism.

Categories: Imperialist War, International

Tags: NATO