MOSCOW. Feb 13 (Interfax-AVN) - A large-scale exercise of NATO member nations entitled Strong Resolve 2002 will take place in several European and American countries from March 1 to 15, the NATO information bureau under the Belgian Embassy in Moscow told Interfax-Military News Agency on Wednesday.
The aim of the exercise is to maintain NATO's ability to carry out response operations in two separate or simultaneous crises in various regions of the world. The training will involve navies, air forces and land forces of two strategic commands, headquarters of main commands of NATO allied forces in the Atlantic and in Europe.
As many as 25,000 servicemen from Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States as well as from partner countries such as Austria, Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Ukraine and Uzbekistan will take part in the war games.
Participants in the exercise will practice two types of NATO missions, these being collective defense against an attack on NATO countries and response to crisis situations where NATO forces act as mediators between the belligerent parties and are deployed on the territory beyond NATO's areas of responsibility. The training will help modernize NATO's mechanisms of maintaining collective defense and responding to crisis situations, increase operational compatibility of NATO member and partner nations, demonstrate NATO's abilities to hold complex and simultaneous operations on strategic, operational and tactical levels.
A part of the exercise involving 11,000 servicemen will happen in Norway and adjacent naval and air spaces, while another part will take place in Poland where a NATO multinational unified task force is to be deployed.