Reuters: “NATO agrees Russian deterrent but avoids Cold War footing”

NATO has agreed on a bold step to deter Russia from any attack in the Baltics or Eastern Europe by setting out ways to rapidly deploy air, naval and ground forces without resorting to Cold War-era military bases.

The news comes as Georgia’s Defence Minister attends today’s NATO Defence Ministerial in Brussels, Belgium. Minister Tinatin Khidasheli is also due to meet NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and attend the NATO-Georgia Commission meeting.

As world officials begin to comment on the NATO action, Minister Khidasheli offered a word of warning to NATO to be weary of any comment made by the Russian side, as reported by Reuters.

With the Kremlin, nothing can be excluded. They cannot show weakness.”

Georgia, a non-NATO member, fought a five-day war with Russia in 2008 that left two of its regions occupied by Russian military.

The news agency says few European NATO allies openly describe Russia as a threat, for fear of antagonising the continent's main energy supplier, but this view was dismissed by others.

Reuters spoke to British Defence Minister Michael Fallon as he arrived for the NATO meeting in Brussels. He said:

We need to deploy troops and ships to deter the aggression, the threats that we have seen. NATO means what it says, that we are ready to deter any kind of pressure."

Troop numbers, spending plans and logistics are still to be decided, but NATO officials say the decision to go ahead with such a substantial military presence on NATO's eastern borders will be one of the biggest for the alliance in decades, says Reuters.

The news agency claimed the NATO agreement, made yesterday, said NATO could have up to 1,000 troops in each of the six countries the Alliance is looking to reinforce: Lithuanian, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Bulgaria and Romania.

"They will be backed by a rapid-reaction force that includes air, naval and special operations units of up to 40,000 personnel,” stated the Reuters article.

Read the full article here: www.reuters.com