NATO Agrees to Send Thousands More Troops to Eastern Europe

US to Deploy 1,000 Ground Troops to Poland as Part of Scheme

by Jason Ditz

As expected, NATO’s Warsaw summit today saw agreement on a deployment of an additional 4,000 ground troops into Eastern Europe, which NATO Secretary-General Jens Stollenberg presented as a message to Russia that the alliance is unified against their invasion.

Russia, of course, hasn’t actually invaded NATO, and NATO’s top military commander, Gen. Petr Pavel, conceded recently that there was no real possibility of that happening. Still, the alliance seems eager to use Russia as a pretext for some pricey new international deployments.

The 4,000 troops will make up four battalions, led by the US, Britain, Germany, and Canada. The US says their deploymentwill be about 1,000 troops, while Britain has gone on record planning 650 troops, and Canada saying they’ll send “roughly 450.”

The US troops are planned to be entirely in Poland, following years of Poland complaining that they thought joining NATO would get them a bunch of foreign troops deployed on their soil, a potential economic boost for those areas housing them. Other troops are to be sent to the Baltic states, which are all hyping an “imminent Russian invasion,” and have been for years.

Russia has expressed annoyance about the deployments along their frontier, and have threatened retaliatory deployments in Kaliningrad to retain their own capabilities in the region.

http://news.antiwar.com/2016/07/08/nato-agrees-to-send-thousands-more-troops-to-eastern-europe/