BERLIN \u2014 An air deployment exercise billed as the biggest in NATO\u2019s history and hosted by Germany got underway on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Air Defender 2023 exercise that is set to run through June 23 was long-planned but serves to showcase the alliance\u2019s capabilities amid high tensions with Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first planes took off on Monday morning from airfields in northern Germany. Some 10,000 participants and 250 aircraft from 25 nations will respond to a simulated attack on a NATO member. The United States alone is sending 2,000 U.S. Air National Guard personnel and about 100 aircraft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe exercise is a signal \u2014 a signal above all to us, a signal to us, the NATO countries, but also to our population that we are in a position to react very quickly … that we would be able to defend the alliance in case of attack,\u201d German air force chief Lt. Gen. Ingo Gerhartz told ZDF television.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gerhartz said he proposed the exercise in 2018, reasoning that Russia\u2019s annexation of Crimea underlined the need to be able to defend NATO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has jolted NATO into preparing in earnest for the possibility of an attack on its territory. Sweden, which is hoping to join the alliance, and Japan are also taking part in the exercise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Assessments of the extent to which the exercise will disrupt civilian flights have varied widely. Matthias Maas, the head of a German air traffic controllers\u2019 union, GdF, has said that it \u201cwill of course have massive effects on the operation of civilian aviation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gerhartz disputed that. He said that Germany\u2019s air traffic control authority has worked with the air force to keep disruption \u201cas small as possible.\u201d He noted that the exercise is limited to three areas which won\u2019t all be used at the same time, and that it will be over before school vacations start in any German state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI hope that there we will be no cancellations; there may be delays in the order of minutes here and there,\u201d he said, insisting that a study cited by the air traffic controllers\u2019 union assumes a worst-case scenario in bad weather in which the military wouldn\u2019t fly anyway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the Air Defender 2023 exercise, 10,000 participants and 250 aircraft from 25 nations respond to a simulated attack on a NATO member.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":106758,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":26,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[7,160,29,46,11,36,94,26,164],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3465],"class_list":["post-47549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air","category-daily-news-roundup","category-digital-show-dailies","category-europe","category-global","category-newsletters","category-paris-air-show","category-training-sim","category-training-simulation-report"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"7EUDNUDT2BGCVFZ4NEDVOFPYKI","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/your-military\/2023\/06\/12\/natos-largest-ever-air-defense-exercise-starts-in-germany\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n