MOSCOW. Oct 8 (Interfax-AVN) - In the 21st century, armies of the United States and NATO member nations must be ready to fight the so-called asymmetric war enforced by international terrorists, General Montgomery C. Meigs, commander of the U.S. Army in Europe, said here on Tuesday.
An asymmetric war is a new type of non-military violence envisaging environmental and technogenic forms of pressure on the population, as well as sabotage acts at nuclear and technical facilities, mass poisoning of residents through water supply systems, etc., Meigs said in a lecture at the Joint-Arms Academy of the Russian Armed Forces.
According to him, the U.S. Armed Forces are about to launch the restructuring in order to respond adequately to possible waging of an asymmetric war by international terrorists in the future.
Meigs arrived in Russia on Monday for a two-day visit. His lecture on NATO's involvement in combating international terrorism was attended by the academy's chief Lieutenant General Vladimir Popov.
On Tuesday afternoon, Meigs will visit the academy's training center in the town of Solnechnogorsk in the Moscow region. He will study the experience in training commanders for Russia's peacekeeping units in Kosovo and Bosnia, a source in the Russian Defense Ministry told Interfax-Military News Agency.
"General Meigs commanded NATO's Multi-National Division North in northwestern Bosnia and later headed the SFOR stabilization force. That is why he expressed his desire to study in detail methods of training commanders for peacekeeping forces at the Balkans in the training center," the source said. "The general will attend several field exercises, where cadets of the center will practice peacekeepers' actions in a conflict zone taking into accounts international laws. In addition, he will meet with Russian officers and teachers of the center," he said.
Meigs is expected to leave for Germany on Tuesday afternoon.