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Anakonda 16. The “Big” maneuvers are back. Deterrence or gesticulation?

(credit: MOD Poland)
Since Tuesday, Toruń and its surroundings have become the scene of one of NATO's "largest airborne operations" on Polish territory. (credit: MOD Poland)

(B2) The good old days of big military maneuvers. On both sides of an invisible iron curtain, people persist in showing their muscles, with tanks on the roads, parachutes and planes in the air, and ships on the seas. The Anakonda 16 / Swift Response-16 exercise which has been taking place since Tuesday (June 7) in Poland and will last all week is proof of this (1).

In the Atlantic Alliance, and even less in Poland, it is hardly hidden that this exercise is directed against an adversary: ​​Russia. The scenario also leaves no suspense about the origin of the attack. A " Union of Reds targeted the Baltic countries and northern Poland. "The union of the Blues" must react (2). With 30.000 soldiers mobilized, around 3000 vehicles, 12 ships and a hundred planes and helicopters, Anakonda 16 is presented as the most important exercise of the Allied forces since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

24 countries participate. The bulk of the workforce is however provided by the Poles (more than 12.000 soldiers) - because this exercise is above all a national exercise - and the Americans (14.000 heads). The other countries provided troops but in smaller numbers, about the size of a battalion: 800 British, etc. The important thing is like at the Olympics, you have to participate.

A virtue of interoperability, a message: in Moscow

This exercise - like all military exercises - has one virtue: to test the interoperability of the various national and allied forces, in a large-scale operation. But the message is essentially political: it is a question of saying to Moscow "watch out!: the Allies are training and are ready to defend their allies". What at the headquarters of the Alliance in Brussels is called "reinsurance measures".

Cold War or armed mistrust?

If the parallel with the cold war comes immediately to mind, we cannot however use the same terminology. Because on the one hand the borders are all the same more open than at the time. On the other hand, not all bridges are cut with Moscow. Cooperation is even the rule in several areas: on nuclear issues in Iran, even in Syria...

But there is, without question, an "armed distrust". Because the Kremlin proved it in 2014 in Ukraine, and previously in 2008 in Georgia, it is not reluctant to send its tanks and its commandos to help out and intervene militarily in countries close to it to dissuade them from go too far west.

Deterrence or gesticulation?

However, the question can be asked what is the real deterrent value of this exercise, which looks just as much like an exercise aimed at the national population as with regard to neighboring Russia. If the Polish army manages to show its muscles, wants to be very strong on its soil, the reality seems slightly different. After years of engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Poles are today very little present in external operations: whether in coalition in Iraq-Syria, in EU training missions in Mali, in Somalia or in Africa. Isn't this absence itself the mark of a certain weakness?

(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)

(1) This exercise is not the only one in June. In the wake of this, the exercise " saber strike with 10.000 soldiers to test operational capabilities in the field.

(2) This Red/Blue/Green denomination is not new. All NATO exercises are based on the same color denomination: red designating the enemy, blue the friend, green the neutral. Read our glossary

Nicolas Gros Verheyde

Chief editor of the B2 site. Graduated in European law from the University of Paris I Pantheon Sorbonne and listener to the 65th session of the IHEDN (Institut des Hautes Etudes de la Défense Nationale. Journalist since 1989, founded B2 - Bruxelles2 in 2008. EU/NATO correspondent in Brussels for Sud-Ouest (previously West-France and France-Soir).

One thought on “Anakonda 16. The “Big” maneuvers are back. Deterrence or gesticulation?"

  • "Isn't this absence itself the mark of a certain weakness?" No.

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