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Exercise DEFENDER-Europe

Exercise DEFENDER-Europe 20 is the deployment of a division-size combat-credible force from the United States to Europe, the drawing of equipment and the movement of personnel and equipment across the theater to various training areas. U.S.-based equipment will leave from ports in four states and arrive in six European countries. This will require the support of tens of thousands of service members and civilians in multiple nations. U.S. service members will then spread out across the region to establish intermediate staging bases with multinational forces and participate in various annual exercises.

These U.S. and European exercises are regularly conducted and not part of DEFENDER-Europe 20, but rather "linked" through a shared exercise scenario, coordinated mission command, mutual sustainment and common communication environment. DEFENDER-Europe 20 is the largest deployment of U.S.-based forces to Europe for an exercise in the more than 25 years.

As DEFENDER-Europe 20 draws nearer, Army Prepositioned Stocks (APS) sites get a lot busier; from personnel ground guiding massive vehicles like M1 Abrams tanks to Humvees, and a laundry list of other vehicles getting tagged and tracked while being transferred to locations hours away. APS sites will see a lot of action in the next coming months, from rail operations, line haul, and barge all supporting the efforts for DEFENDER-Europe 20, the largest U.S. deployment of troops to Europe in more than 25 years.

The APS sites located in Europe will play a key role in aiding DEFENDER-Europe 20 planning, movements, and exercises. Around 13,000 pieces of equipment will be drawn from Army Prepositioned Stock. Coleman Barracks specifically has an entire Army Brigade Combat Team (ABCT) worth of equipment that is stored there with the capacity to house another ABCT worth of stock.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on 10 February 2020 that the manoeuvres "show the strong commitment of the United States to NATO and to the freedom and security of Europe", while stressing that they are not directed against Russia, nor against any country in particular.

But this activity does set off alarm bells. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who recently toured Latin American countries, including Venezuela, said Moscow cannot "ignore" such actions. Lavrov suggested that those responsible for these"absolutely unjustified" exercises, which are nothing more than a "dangerous game", are in fact expecting retaliation from Russia to further increase tension. "But everything we do in response to NATO threats to our security, we do exclusively on our territory. Just as all our nuclear weapons are on our territory, unlike U.S. nuclear weapons," Lavrov added.

Exercise Defender Europe 21 started 03 May 2021. This year's exercise involves 26 nations, including the U.S., and around 28,000 multinational forces all focused on building operational readiness and interoperability between NATO allies and partners. Defender Europe is an Army-led exercise, though this year it has significant Air Force and Navy participation. Last week, for instance, the USNS Bob Hope arrived off the coast of Albania in advance of its participation in a joint logistics over-the-shore exercise there.

One of the stated purposes of European Defender 21 is for NATO to demonstrate its ability to maintain a “deterrent posture” in northern Europe (i.e., Poland and the Baltics) while concurrently shifting forces to other areas in Europe. The “proof of concept” phase of European Defender 21 that demonstrates this capability will involve a “Joint Logistics over-the-shore” operation involving the movement of military equipment from ships into the Albanian port of Durres, and then the transport of this equipment to training areas in Macedonia, Croatia, Bosnia and Hungary.

Albania is a new member, and the port of Durres has not been used to offload military equipment since the Second World War. The road and rail connectivity between Albania and its neighbors is untested and largely unsuited for the transport and sustainment of large military formations. The Durres operation serves as a feeder exercise into a larger operation, Steadfast Defender, which is focused on the transatlantic reinforcement of Europe, thereby demonstrating NATO’s ability to respond rapidly to any potential Russian aggression.

The Defender Europe 21 exercise will also include several smaller "linked" exercises. Those include Swift Response, which involves airborne operations in Estonia, Bulgaria and Romania; Immediate Response, which involves more than 5,000 troops from eight nations conducting live-fire training in 12 different countries; Saber Guardian, which includes more than 13,000 service members doing live-fire training as well as air and missile defense operations; and a command post exercise with 2,000 personnel exercising the ability of a headquarters to command multinational land forces.

The Defender Europe exercise is going to conclude in June, but not before demonstrating joint force readiness, lethality and interoperability, reinforcing the U.S. commitment to allies and partners, and providing an opportunity to highlight the job forces are doing every day and in the region — the Balkan and Black Sea regions in particular, and throughout Europe and the Africa area of operations.