NATO activated its response force on Friday amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg announced that the alliance is “now deploying the NATO Response Force for the first time in a collective defense context. We speak about thousands of troops. We speak about air and maritime capabilities,” he said.
The response force has as many as 40,000 troops, but Stoltenberg confirmed the entire force would not be deployed at this time, though he also didn’t specify how many troops will be involved.
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“We have deployed defensive land and air forces in the eastern part of the Alliance, and maritime assets across the NATO area,” NATO heads of state and government said in a joint statement.
“We have activated NATO’s defence plans to prepare ourselves to respond to a range of contingencies and secure Alliance territory, including by drawing on our response forces,” the leaders added. “We are now making significant additional defensive deployments of forces to the eastern part of the Alliance.”
NATO Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Tod Wolters called the deployment a “historic moment.”
“This is an historic moment and the very first time the Alliance has employed these high readiness forces in a deterrence and defense role. They represent a flexible, combat credible force that can be employed in multiple ways and we are utilizing fully their inherent agility,” Wolters said in a statement. “These deterrence measures are prudent and enhance our speed, responsiveness and capability to shield and protect the one billion citizens we swore to protect.”
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The foreign leaders also reiterated their “ironclad” support for Article 5 of the NATO agreement, which says that if any NATO member gets attacked, it should be considered “an attack against them all.”
If Vladimir Putin were able to conquer Ukraine and then decided to invade a NATO ally, it would then force the United States and other Western nations into the center of the conflict.
Eastern-flank allies “are extremely concerned,” Stoltenberg added. “They are close to the fighting in Ukraine, and they also border Russia, and they’ve seen not only the military buildup and the ongoing war in Ukraine, but also seen the very threatening rhetoric because this goes far beyond Ukraine.”
