James Stavridis: How can Europe deter Putin? Revive the ‘Reforger’

When I was a junior officer during the Cold War the biggest North Atlantic Treaty Organization military training exercises perhaps the largest in history were annual drills called Exercise Reforger The goal was to ensure NATO s ability to deploy troops rapidly to West Germany if war broke out between the alliance and the Soviet Union s Warsaw Pact nations Reforger was a loose acronym of Return of Forces to Germany The first Reforger was held in and they ran annually through just after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact Forces from every country in the alliance participated although the bulk of them were American drawn from the U S troops stationed in Europe at the height of the Cold War At the time only countries were in NATO this day there are The event was not just an exercise it was an actual planning and execution demonstration of NATO s defensive war plans It required the forces to marry up with their huge stockpiles of equipment on NATO s eastern flank called Prepositioning of Materiel Configured in Unit Sets POMCUS sites U S Marines were also part of the flow of troops toward the possible combat lines and the Navy s Sixth Fleet focused on the Mediterranean and Second Fleet covering the North Atlantic participated from sea As a lieutenant junior grade onboard the U S aircraft carrier Forrestal in the fall of I remember our participation in air sorties in aid of ground operations Even though we knew it was a drill we took it with deadly seriousness the intent was to be prepared to fight tonight as the saying went in those days With the demise of the Soviet Union and the reunification of Germany Reforger exercises were deemed unnecessary But given Russian President Vladimir Putin s willingness to invade his neighbors we should ask whether it is time to bring Reforger back If so what might the exercises look like in nowadays s world And are the NATO allies up to taking a larger role The reason for the original Reforger exercises was simple to create deterrence in the minds of the Soviets The sight of -plus allied troops hundreds of combat aircraft and dozens of warships helped keep Moscow from getting any ideas about further conquests in Central and Western Europe In current times three things argue strongly for a new Reforger series First is Moscow s two decades of territorial aggression particularly the invasions of Georgia and Ukraine and Putin has also sought to undermine free elections in various European countries and used hybrid warfare tactics to intimidate nations from Moldova to Armenia Russia has threatened NATO s Baltic states and is building up offensive capabilities on the edge of new alliance member Finland A second reason for a new Reforger series is that Putin has turned his country into a war economic activity devoting more than of GDP to military spending double the U S level and pouring of his annual budget into financing the war in Ukraine He is also recruiting mercenaries from around the world and has inveigled Kim Jong Un of North Korea to send him several troops Based on the rope-a-dope he is playing in negotiations with President Donald Trump over Ukraine Putin seems unlikely to cease and desist anytime soon Third Europe is conclusively waking from a long period of denial about the threat Moscow presents on its doorstep The U S allies are boosting military spending and seem ready to put together a major annual exercise to show Putin that they have the ceiling and the will to fight if attacked Ursula von der Leyen the leader of the European Union and the new secretary general of NATO former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte recognize that the moment is critical A new Reforger series could take selected lessons from its illustrious predecessors It should include forces from each of the allies including contingents from even the smallest nations like Iceland and Luxembourg This time the bulk of the troops aircraft and warships should come not from the U S but from Europe particularly France Germany and Poland Overall command and control should be vested in NATO s supreme allied commander and run from the nuclear-proofed command bunker in Mons Belgium a place I know well Like the previous iterations it should not be purely practice or a tabletop drill but a real-time manifestation of current war plans giving commanders at all levels real authority over their troops A anticipated breakdown of responsibilities in command and control Turkey for land forces Britain for maritime Germany for air and missile defense Belgium for special forces Italy to protect the southern flank and the Netherlands on the northern flank Related Articles Other voices Gun rights vs religious freedom the Texas double standard Trudy Rubin Why the ambassador to Ukraine quit and Trump s phone call with Putin bombed Noah Feldman Supreme Court understands the assignment on birthright citizenship Allison Schrager Even Democrats might like MAGA accounts Erwin Chemerinsky How much power to stop the president should federal judges have The U S should focus not on manpower but on what it does better than any other country providing intelligence cybersecurity overwatch satellite and space connectivity artificial intelligence and advanced drones and other unmanned vehicles The U S Sixth and Second Fleets should be involved but as assistance for carrier strike groups from the UK France and Italy Above all like its ancestor Reforger the new exercise should focus on the swift flow of logistics Smaller newest exercises have revealed infrastructure problems particularly with highways bridges and rail lines that NATO has been working to remedy especially in the newer Eastern European members So much of war depends on getting the right troops transportation and ordnance together at the point of attack A new Reforger could demonstrate that vital ability right in front of Vladimir Putin s nose James Stavridis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist a retired U S Navy admiral former supreme allied commander of NATO and vice chairman of global affairs at the Carlyle Group He dean emeritus of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and he s on the boards of Aon Fortinet and Ankura Consulting Group and has advised Shield Capital a firm that invests in the cybersecurity sector