While it may have been the largest exercise in Eastern Europe since the end of the Cold War, Anakonda ultimately was not an official alliance exercise, but rather an event sponsored by Poland and the US. And while officials from both countries were pushing headquarters in Brussels to declare the drill NATO-owned, Germany was the ringleader among a handful of mostly Western European nations withholding approval, according to sources.

In the run-up to the exercise, “There were those voices in the alliance that were worried about that signature being too big,” recalls now-retired NATO Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Philip Breedlove. “The political leadership of the alliance chose to keep them separate so as not to be too bellicose,” he told Defense News.

Still, as Anakonda kicked off in June, Russia predictably accused all participants of being just that.

Moscow’s forces themselves have staged sizable exercises since relations with the West turned sour following the internationally condemned annexation of Crimea in 2014. Many Russian drills were unannounced, sometimes involving upwards of 100,000 forces, and their suddenness made Western officials nervous.

Some NATO officials, as well as defense analysts, have said the troubling thing about Russia’s prolific snap drills is that they could be used to amass troops along Europe’s Eastern borders, under the guise of an exercise, in order to carry out a take-over of a Baltic nation, Crimea-style.

During Anakonda, US Army Europe Commander Gen. Ben Hodges downplayed the exercise’s size. At roughly 30,000 troops, he said the forces involved wouldn’t even fill one-third of a European soccer stadium.

But for some officials in other European counties, that force size still was deemed to be too big.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German foreign minister, prior to Anakonda said NATO was “warmongering” against Russia and that the Polish military exercise was “sabre-rattling.”

Such statements show a difference of opinion between countries within the NATO alliance about how far the West should go militarily in trying to show Moscow where red lines lie when it comes to protecting former Soviet Union states.

“This goes back to the question of what is provocation and what is deterrence,” Lisa Sawyer Samp, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Defense News.

There is a portion of NATO, she said, “that thinks that what we have been doing is poking the bear unnecessarily and that the Poles are the tip of the spear when it comes to poking the bear, so with the NATO flag on a Polish exercise that some consider unnecessarily large or close to the [NATO] summit or practicing lethal drills, cutting the ribbon on missile defense, there are things the Poles wanted that NATO doesn’t have a consensus on.”

In a report released by CSIS just prior to the recent NATO Summit in Warsaw, analysts working at the behest of US Army Europe highlighted the problem in defining “credible deterrence” and “escalatory provocation.”

The debate over this, they say, continues “to be a constraining factor within the alliance when deciding future US and NATO force posture arrangements.”

The report says while it’s important to recognize the dangers of “accidental escalation, one can also err in being too cautious.”

Moreover, Russia can be expected to cry foul at anything NATO or any of its allies do, making appeasement impossible, the thinking goes.

“It’s hard to say exactly when I look at what causes a reaction from Mr. Putin and what does not,” Rachel Ellehuus, the principal director for Europe and NATO policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, said at a House Armed Services Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee hearing July 13. “It seems like we can try to get into his mind and get at what is an excuse for provocation but I don’t think he necessarily needs one.”

Pointing to Baltic Operations 2016, a naval exercise with about 6,100 soldiers that has happened for decades and where Russia has been invited to participate in the past, Ellehuus said: Putin “griped more about BaltOps” than he did about Anakonda.

But efforts to avoid Russia accusing NATO countries of being provocative “at all costs has led to micromanagement of decisions typically delegated to lower-level commanders, including logistics . . . and exercise planning,” the CSIS report states. “This situation creates the worst of all possible outcomes: strong deterrence rhetoric but diminished credibility and operational capability.”

One of the measures agreed at the Warsaw summit was for the alliance to station highly ready units in the three Baltic nations.

Ian Brzezinski of the Atlantic Council lamented that the largest exercise since the end of the Cold War for NATO was Trident Juncture, which took place not in Central Europe, but Spain and Portugal.

“That will have to change if NATO is going to be able to reinforce its Baltic deployments,” Brzezinski said. “It will need to undertake division and brigade-level exercises in Poland and the Baltics to test, refine and demonstrate its ability to reinforce those forward based units.”

Email: jjudson@defensenews.com, ssprenger@defensenews.com

Twitter: @JenJudson

The plan was approved July 9 on the second day of the summit in Warsaw.

The last session of the Warsaw summit was a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission, providing the opportunity for alliance leaders to discuss the country’s security situation with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

At his last press conference at the summit on July 9, US President Barack Obama said NATO’s assistance package is designed to strengthen the Ukrainian military.

“The trust funds we set up at our last summit are already assisting Ukraine in areas such as cyber defense, logistics and the rehabilitation of wounded soldiers,” Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary-general, said at a joint press conference with Poroshenko..

Stoltenberg said that some of the areas of potential cooperation between NATO and Kiev include countering threats from improvised explosive devices and combating hybrid warfare.

In a joint statement, the NATO-Ukraine Commission said that “Russia has continued its aggressive actions undermining Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and security, in violation of international law.” To facilitate the necessary reforms in Ukraine, “the CAP contains more than 40 areas where NATO will support Ukraine,” the statement said.

A meeting of the NATO-Russia Council is to be held at ambassadorial level in Brussels on July 13.

Meanwhile, Ukraine was not named in a communiqué issued after the summit’s conclusion in which NATO leaders said they “encourage those partners who aspire to join the Alliance… to continue to implement the necessary reforms and decisions to prepare for membership.” These countries include Georgia, Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, according to the statement.

NATO will deploy troops to Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia with the aim to strengthen the alliance’s military presence on its eastern flank.

“We have decided to enhance our military presence in the eastern part of the alliance with four battalions here in Poland, as well as in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania on a rotational basis,” Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary-general, said at a press conference here on July 8. “These battalions will be robust and multinational to demonstrate the strength of the Atlantic bond.”

The announcement confirms an earlier announcement by Stoltenberg who said at a press conference in Brussels on June 13 that NATO will deploy about 4,000 troops to the designed battalions.

Under the alliance’s strategy, Canada will be the framework nation for Latvia, Germany will perform this role for Lithuania, the UK will be Estonia’s framework nation, and the US will serve in this capacity for Poland, Stoltenberg said.

The secretary-general said that the alliance is seeking a constructive dialog with Moscow. A meeting of the NATO-Russia Council is scheduled to be held at the ambassadorial level in Brussels on July 13.

“Russia should not, and cannot be isolated,” Stoltenberg said.

The decision comes amid increased concern by NATO’s Eastern European countries over Russia’s intervention in Ukraine and the subsequent annexation of the Ukrainian Crimean peninsula. As a result, a number of political leaders from the region have called on the alliance to deploy additional troops to Eastern Europe as a safeguard against Russia’s potential aggression.

At the Warsaw Summit Experts’ Forum, an event accompanying the summit on July 8, some of these concerns were voiced by Polish President Andrzej Duda who said that the “annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas, terrorism and mass migrations have shattered our perception of the system’s stability.”

“This is why NATO must show unity and solidarity,” Duda said.

A few years ago it was cyber-attacks on financial institutions that made the headlines. Today, it is attacks on critical networks and infrastructures – disrupting services and, in some cases, bringing modern life to a grinding halt. In fact, what was once a nuisance has become a strategic challenge.

Two years ago, a cyber-attack temporarily blocked access to NATO headquarters’ website. Recently, a series of cyber-attacks was launched against German state computer systems, including to gather intelligence on critical infrastructure such as power plants. And in Ukraine, cyber-attacks have been used as a weapon of so-called “hybrid” warfare.

States and non-state actors are increasingly using cyber-attacks to achieve their diplomatic and military objectives. So two years ago, NATO allies acknowledged that the impact of cyber-attacks could be as harmful to our societies as a conventional attack and made clear that cyber defense is part of the alliance’s core task of collective defense.

Cyber-attacks can also seriously undermine NATO’s missions around the world. Our forces are increasingly likely to operate in environments where adversaries use cyber-tools to disrupt our decision-making. To ensure that NATO can do its job of protecting its citizens and territory against any threats, we have to be just as effective in the cyber domain as we already are on land, in the air and at sea.

Faced with this developing threat, NATO has not sat idle. We have worked hard to bolster our own networks and to help allies strengthen their cyber-defenses. We have extended the protection we provide centrally to new networks, such as the chain of new small headquarters we have established in the east of the alliance.

We have also improved our ability to detect and analyse threats – and are doing everything we can to facilitate the exchange of information. Our Cyber Threat Assessment Cell uses information gathered both by individual allies and the alliance itself, and we share real-time information through a dedicated “Malware Information-Sharing Platform.”

NATO’s cyber Rapid Reaction Teams are up and running with highly skilled experts and cutting-edge technology to support our nations in case of a serious cyber-attack. Our investments in training and education – including NATO’s state-of-the-art annual exercise “Cyber Coalition” – help to make sure that our skills keep pace with technology. At the same time, we are deepening our cyber defence partnerships – in particular with the European Union – and intensifying our cooperation with industry and academia, especially when it comes to information-sharing and the exchange of best practices.

So, NATO has achieved a great deal in tackling cyber-attacks – but we know that we need to do more. Cyber threats do not respect borders, and no country is invulnerable. That is why at the Summit in Warsaw, allies will make a Cyber Defence Pledge – to strengthen our cyber defenses as a matter of priority. Strong and resilient cyber defenses are key if the alliance is to fulfil its core purpose. We need to ensure we are prepared for the future and that we are truly cyber-secure.

In Warsaw, we will also recognize cyberspace as an operational domain, alongside air, land and sea, as a number of allies have already done. This will improve NATO’s ability to protect and conduct operations across these domains. It will help us to manage our resources, skills and capabilities, and to ensure that cyber defense is better reflected in our military exercises, in our training and in the way we respond to crises. Ultimately, in cyberspace, like in the other domains, NATO relies on allies to provide capabilities for its missions.

For all that NATO is doing to adapt to a changing world, one thing will never change: we are a defensive alliance, whose mission is to protect NATO’s citizens and territory, and whose actions will always be proportionate and in strict accordance with international law. That, in turn, means that we strongly support efforts to foster a more transparent and secure cyberspace, through the development of voluntary norms of behavior by individual states and related confidence-building measures.

NATO is founded on the shared values of liberty, democracy, human rights and the rule of law. That is why we are determined to ensure that cyberspace remains the place for peaceful, open communication and debate that we all need it to be.

Jens Stoltenberg is the secretary general of NATO.

Britain’s shock vote to leave the European Union (EU) dominated Obama’s final NATO summit, which comes at what he called the most critical time for the military alliance since the Cold War.

Obama used the Warsaw summit to issue a clear message to key US allies Brussels and London to resolve their differences amicably.

“No one has an interest in protracted, adversarial negotiations,” he said.

But he said that while the British vote had “created uncertainty” about European integration, fears that it could destabilize the relationship between Europe and the United States were exaggerated.

“This kind of hyperbole is misplaced,” he said after meeting European Council head Donald Tusk and European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker.

Obama said earlier in the Financial Times he was “confident” Britain and the EU could make an “orderly transition to a new relationship.”

Britain would “continue to be a major contributor to European security,” he predicted.

Britain ‘Not Turning Back on NATO’

British Prime Minister David Cameron — who is also at his last NATO summit after saying he will stand down following the Brexit vote — insisted Britain would not play a “lesser role in the world.”

“We are not turning our back on NATO,” said Cameron, whose nuclear-armed nation is one of Europe’s biggest contributors to the alliance.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg added that Brexit “will not change UK’s leading position in NATO.”

In response to Obama’s comments, the EU’s Juncker toned down his previously tough position on Britain’s need to start divorce proceedings immediately and said negotiations would not be in a “hostile mood.”

Stoltenberg, Tusk and Juncker later signed a NATO-EU cooperation accord, laying out how the alliance can work with the EU.

Russia was meant to be the focus of the two-day meeting, with NATO preparing to endorse its biggest revamp since the end of the Cold War in response to Russia’s 2014 intervention in Ukraine.

The summit is being held symbolically in the birthplace of the Soviet-era Warsaw Pact, NATO’s old adversary, and leaders will dine Friday night in the ballroom where the pact was signed in 1955.

Resurgent Russia

The summit’s centerpiece is a “Readiness Action Plan” to bolster NATO’s nervous eastern flank in the face of a Russia under President Vladimir Putin that the allies now see as more aggressive and unpredictable.

NATO leaders will approve rotating four battalions through Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, up to 4,000 troops in all, as a collective tripwire against fresh Russian adventurism in its old stomping ground.

German Cancelor Angela Merkel, right, and French President Francois Hollande, left, talk before the meeting of heads of state of the North Atlantic Council taking place during a NATO summit on July 8. The Polish capital Warsaw is hosting a two-day, top-level NATO meeting for the first time since Poland joined the alliance in 1999.

Photo Credit: Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty Images

Obama said 1,000 US troops would be stationed in Poland, and Britain said it would contribute 650 troops, with Canada and Germany leading the other battalions.

The plan also includes a pledge to spend 2 percent of annual economic output on defense — ending years of cuts — and the creation of a 5,000-strong “Spearhead” force ready to deploy within days.

Stoltenberg also echoed calls by German Chancellor Angela Merkel for “meaningful” dialogue with Russia, with NATO and Russian ambassadors set to meet next week.

“NATO does not want a new Cold War. The Cold War is history and should remain history,” former Norwegian premier Stoltenberg said.

France Says Russia ‘Not a Threat’

But fresh cracks appeared in NATO’s unified front on Russia when French President Francois Hollande insisted that Russia was a “not a threat” but a “partner.”

Moscow bitterly opposes NATO’s expansion into its Soviet-era satellites, which it sees as a threat to its own security.

“We want to believe that common sense and political will to avoid a confrontation will carry the day. Russia remains open for dialogue,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said Friday.

Russia is even more strident in its opposition to the Ballistic Missile Defense System the United States is building and which the NATO summit is due to declare has reached an initial operating level.

Washington says the shield is designed to counter missile threats from Iran or the Middle East, but Russia says that once the system becomes fully operational in 2018, it will undercut its strategic nuclear deterrent.

Moscow remains opposed to the possibility of Finland joining NATO. Instead, Russia wants non-aligned Finland to develop closer links in the area of military cooperation and defense-industrial collaboration.

The July 1 summit meeting with Finnish president Sauli Niinistö, the commander-in-chief of Finland’s Armed Forces (FAF), was held at Niinistö’s summer residence at Kultaranta in south west Finland.

Referring to its expanding military cooperation with NATO, Putin warned Finland that the Western Alliance would be prepared to fight Russia in a possible future conflict “down to the last Finnish soldier”.

However, Putin said that while relations would be “tested” if Finland joined NATO, Russia would “respect” this decision.

“Membership of NATO is a decision for Finland to make on its own,” said Putin.

Finland wanted the summit meeting to further normalize relations with Russia. This could lead to revisiting bilateral defense-industrial collaboration, proposed in 2013, in the event of the European Union (EU) lifting trade sanctions with Russia.

Russia offered Finland expanded access to sizable defense contracts in return for a broad defense-industrial agreement under which Finland would be able to purchase significant weapons systems, including aircraft, surface-to-surface missile systems, mobile field artillery, battle tanks and ships, from Russia.

The proposal, intended to influence Finland’s position away from ties with NATO, was presented to the Finnish government during a visit to Helsinki by Russia’s defense minister Sergei Shoigu.

Moreover, Shoigu suggested that Finland could become a military partner to Russia in the greater Baltic Sea area.

The offer by Russia was followed by the ministries of defense in both countries establishing working groups to identify potential areas for defense-industrial cooperation, including the possibility that primary Russian defense programs could be opened to Finnish subcontractors.

However, the forward momentum for talks ground to a halt in February 2014 when Russia sent troops and military equipment into Ukraine. This action triggered a sanctions war between the European Union, backed by Finland, and Russia that included military materials.

“The answer, which will be given on July 8 and 9, will be a sufficient and efficient one. It will be an answer relying on capable deterrence and ensuring the security of our states and our nations,” Macierewicz said at a news conference held by the Polish Ministry of National Defence on July 1. “In view of the latest events which took place in the EU, no one can doubt that NATO is the structure that guarantees efficient security.”

Macierewicz said that Poland “is convinced that this summit will stabilize the situation both in the south and in the east. NATO is a defense alliance, and as such it responds to threats.”

New Security Assurances

“For Poland, a country which freed itself from Soviet rule a quarter century ago, this event is an important event, and it proves to the public that there are no first and second category allies,” said Marek Jablonowski, a political scientist from the University of Warsaw. “The [Polish] government will push for more solidarity among NATO member states.”

The summit takes places at a time when a number of Eastern European allies are calling on NATO to reinforce its presence in the region due to their concern over an increasingly belligerent Russia. The Polish government hosts the high-profile event at the National Stadium in Warsaw — a modern construction launched in 2012 for the European soccer championship that can accommodate as much as 72,900 spectators.

The summit is a chance for Poland to draw more attention to Moscow’s hybrid warfare tactics and provide local allies with additional security assurances.

Ahead of the summit, NATO head Jens Stoltenberg said that the alliance aims to deploy four international battalions to Poland and the three Baltic states in response to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. Member states are expected to reach an agreement on the initiative at the summit.

For Poland, which has called on NATO to establish permanent bases on the alliance’s eastern flank, this would count as a sign of NATO’s readiness to defend its Eastern European member states.

Increased Security Measures

In the wake of the Ukraine crisis, which involved Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula in March 2014, Warsaw has backed the Ukrainian government. The Polish government has also accelerated efforts to set up a joint brigade of 4,000 troops with Lithuania and Ukraine. The brigade, which is scheduled to be fully operational in 2017, is expected to increase the three countries’ interoperability, as well as spur joint exercises and operations.

Terrorist organizations are another major concern for a number of NATO member states, as indicated by the security measures implemented by the summit’s hosts. The National Stadium was closed to the public in June, and a 2.5-meter-high and 3-kilometer-long metal fence was erected around the sports facility. The area surrounding the stadium has been restricted to the public, and law enforcement officers were deployed around the fence.

The Islamic State group carried out an attack on a Turkish airport in Istanbul on June 28, which according to the state-run Anadolu news agency left in its wake 44 dead and more than 200 injured.

With this in mind, the Polish government recently inked a deal for the provision of non-kinetic countermeasures against UAVs during the July summit. The anti-drone countermeasures are intended for mini- and micro-class drones.

The meeting will be held July 13 at NATO’s Brussels headquarters, according to Jens Stoltenberg, NATO secretary-general.

“The NATO-Russia Council has an important role to play as a forum for dialogue and information exchange, to reduce tensions and to increase predictability. Our practical cooperation with Russia remains suspended, but we are keeping channels for political dialogue open,” Stoltenberg said.

“Our discussions will focus on the crisis in and around Ukraine and the need to fully implement the Minsk Agreements,” he added. “We will also look at military activities, with a particular focus on transparency and risk reduction, as well as the security situation in Afghanistan.”

The meeting will occur under the aegis of the NATO-Russia Council, an entity formed in 2002 to foster communication between the former Cold War enemies. The council last met in April of this year, after an almost two-year gap – the result of NATO cutting of contacts with Moscow following the Russian invasion of Ukrainian territory.

NATO leadership is currently en route to Poland to kick off the alliance’s biennial meeting, this year held in Warsaw. It is expected the meeting will heavily focus on how to forestall Russian aggression, including the formal announcement of four battalions of NATO forces along the alliance’s Eastern flank.

There has also been open speculation from NATO members that Russian president Vladimir Putin may make some sort of aggressive move, whether in Europe or Syria, ahead of the summit in an attempt to destabilize the discussions. That the NATO-Russia Council is meeting again may be a sign that won’t happen.

In recent months, both former NATO commander Gen. (Ret.) Philip Breedlove and former defense secretary Chuck Hagel have called greater communication between NATO and Russia a necessity to avoid an escalation of hostilities.

Email: amehta@defensenews.com

Twitter: @AaronMehta

“The signed letter of intent positions the Polish industry as an important component of the Global Patriot program, including the transfer of key technologies. It also opens the doors to the Polish industry to enable its participation in the modernization programs of 220 Patriot systems operated by 13 countries,” PGZ said in a statement.

The move has been praised by Polish Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz, who said that the deal will have a decisive impact on plans by the ministry to acquire an air and anti-missile defense system.

“The letter of intent means that the company and partner which are most likely to implement the Polish missile defense system are Raytheon and the US government,” Macierewicz told local news agency PAP.

The latest development comes ahead of the NATO summit, which is scheduled to be hosted by Poland on July 8 and 9 in the country’s capital Warsaw.

PGZ was set up in 2013 to consolidate Poland’s fragmented state-owned defense industry. The Polish Ministry of Treasury remains the main shareholder of PGZ, but the group is subordinated to the country’s Ministry of Defence.

PGZ consists of more than 60 companies with a workforce of 17,500. Its aggregate annual revenues are about 5 billion zloty (US $1.26 billion).

The procurement is related “to secure the organization of the NATO Summit in Warsaw, Poland, and the visit of … Pope Francis to Poland,” the statement said. The summit is to be held on July 8 and 9, while the pope is scheduled to visit the city of Krakow on July 27-31.

The tender, whose technical requirements were classified and results were not officially released, was launched and concluded within two days. Plans to install the defensive technology emphasize the importance given by the Polish government to securing the two high-profile events, and the cabinet’s concerns related to the latest attacks carried out by Daesh, the Arabic term for the Islamic State jihadist group. This includes the Istanbul airport suicide bombings which left 45 people dead on June 28.

According to the available information from the Armament Inspectorate, the anti-drone countermeasures are intended for mini- and micro-class drones. Prior to the tender, potential contractors were invited by the Ministry of Defense to submit initial bids.

“Initial offers were to be solely placed by entities that were informed in writing by [the ministry] on the possibility to acquire an invitation to submit initial bids based on the results of the performed technical dialog,” the statement said.