Turkish soldiers fire the AK40-GL Bombaatar during exercise Steadfast Defender near Cincu, Romania, May 23, 2021. NATO officials are planning to bring together more than 40,000 troops for the exercise in 2024. (Brett Dodge/U.S. Navy)
NATO’s largest military drill since the end of the Cold War is being planned for 2024, bringing together more than 40,000 troops for an exercise stretching from the Baltics to Poland and Germany, according to alliance officials.
Steadfast Defender will be a testing ground for practicing intertwined NATO and national defense plans, Adm. Rob Bauer, NATO’s military chief, said Saturday.
“A new era of collective defense is upon us,” Bauer said following a meeting of NATO defense chiefs. He called the exercises the largest in the post-Cold War era.
The meeting was held in Oslo, Norway, and was attended by Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
Gen. Eirik Kristoffersen, Norway’s defense chief, said Steadfast Defender will serve as a sort of umbrella training.
“An important element of that is the biggest exercise is to be held in the Nordic countries ever, Nordic Response, in 2024,” he said.
Five Nordic countries will host multiple alliance members, including new arrival Finland, with a focus on integrating them into NATO’s revised defense plans, Kristoffersen said of Nordic Response.
U.S. soldiers launch defensive attacks during Steadfast Defender in Cincu, Romania, June 1, 2021. The first iteration of the exercise in 2021 had 4,000 troops. The exercise is expected to grow to include more than 40,000 troops in 2024. (Jabari Clyburn/U.S. Army)
HMS Queen Elizabeth and USS The Sullivans join ships of NATO's Standing Maritime Groups 1 and 2 on May 28, 2021, in the Atlantic Ocean. The rendezvous was part of Steadfast Defender 21, an exercise designed to test NATO’s ability to rapidly deploy forces to the coast of Portugal and the Black Sea region. (Unaisi Luke/Royal Navy)
A Spanish soldier holds a position near Cincu, Romania, during exercise Steadfast Defender, May 24, 2021. NATO will launch another iteration of the exercise in 2024, one that is expected to be the largest post-Cold War military drill to date. (Allied Joint Force Command Naples)
NATO’s announcement of Steadfast Defender is the latest sign of alliance enhancement of the scale of its maneuvers since Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
In 2023, allies took part in the Germany-led Air Defender exercise, which was billed as the largest exhibition of NATO air power in more than 70 years.
Currently, some 30 NATO warships are involved in Baltic Sea drills that the alliance said are focused for the first time on “high-end warfare” required to defend allies in the region.
“Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has radically altered the security situation in the Baltic Sea, and NATO has substantially increased its defensive presence in the region at sea, on land and in the air,” NATO spokesman Dylan White said at the start of the two-week Northern Coast exercise, which got underway Sept. 9.
In recent days, NATO also carried out its first drone surveillance flight over Finland as allies step up reconnaissance missions on the bloc’s eastern edge.
