The most extensive NATO military exercises in the past decade are planned for October and November. They will be held in Spain, Italy and Portugal, as well as in the Mediterranean and in the Atlantic, Sputnik reports.
The participants of the exercises will become more than 36 thousand service men from 30 countries, as well as NATO allies and seven partner countries: Australia, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Finland, Macedonia, Sweden and Ukraine.
The leaders of the military-political bloc defines the main goal of the exercises as training its forces to the military scenario of a hybrid war, which as they consider, Russia leads
A clear manifestation of this is the fact that even the NATO analysts are becoming more and more doubtful that the phenomenon of hybrid warfare exists at all, since all of its description, which appeared during the last year, based on the past conflicts. In particular, a columnist for The National Interest is of the opinion that this form of conflict does not exist, dew to a simple reason that Russia has no plans to seize the territory of other states.
In this regard, the upcoming exercises are only a continuation of the old NATO strategy to increase military activity in Europe,providing the strengthening of the rapid reaction force, increasing of the number of the US troops on the continent, a dramatic expansion of the program of exercises and patrols, as well as the increase in defense spending, which gives the Russian Federation a reason to accuse the Alliance in an unprecedented expansion of activities at its borders, RIA Novosti reports.