Officials: NATO Will Create ‘Spearhead’ Force Aimed at Russia

'Rapid Reaction Force' Designed to Counter Future Invasions

The final terms won’t be finalized until later this week at the Estonia Summit, but NATO is said to be poised to announce a new “spearhead” rapid reaction force of many thousands of troops aimed squarely at Russia.

Officials familiar with the situation say the troops would be provided by NATO alliance members and would be ready to react at a moment’s notice to a hypothetical Russian invasion of any NATO territory.

The officials are citing the “infiltration” of Crimea as the model they reckon Russia might use, which is an extremely bad example, given there were huge numbers of Russian troops in Crimea for decades by treaty before the secessionist move broke out.

Indeed, the “threat” of Russian invasions in eastern Europe are largely illusory, and have been hyped by the Baltic states and Poland in trying to secure larger amounts of foreign aid from Western nations.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.