John R. Deni for Carnegie Europe: One area where the West has struggled though is in mounting the kind of capability display similar to Zapad 2017. That is, deploying large-scale combat power from across the continent and across the Atlantic for the purposes of conducting corps-level training, maneuvers, and live fire, all to achieve tactical, […]
Military strategy and politics
Poland increases defense spending
Poland is increasing defense spending, according to Digital Journal: Poland on Friday hiked defence spending above the 2 percent of GDP target set by NATO which few member states have so far have met. The parliament, in which the rightwing government has a majority, endorsed plans by Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz to raise the budget […]
Lukashenko not allowed in Russia during Zapad 2017
Belarusian president Aleksandr Lukashenko will not visit the Russian part of exercise Zapad 2017. Kommersant.ru reports that Lukashenko was scheduled to appear at training sites in Russia alongside Vladimir Putin but for unknown reasons the plans have changed. Putin may still show up to spectate the exercise in Russia but Lukashenko will only observe the […]
Micromanagement or proper oversight?
Insightful piece by Micah Zenko in Foreign Policy on the principal-agent relationship between politicians and the military: Yet, in every conversation I have had with civilian and military officials, I cannot recall a military officer — at any level — having received guidance or direction that was helpful in developing plans or in fulfilling a […]
Danish military to relieve strained police force
Denmark will use soldiers to relieve the police force.
Major cutbacks underway for Denmark’s military prior to increased spending
A somewhat confusing debate has broken out in Denmark where the government has announced substantial increases in defense spending but also insists that the military meets new budget cuts before it can receive more money. Independent defense website Olfi.dk has released the catalogue of proposed savings produced by consulting agencies BCG and Struensee & Co. […]
Rundown of the Zapad 2017 Scenario
Interesting rundown of Zapad 2017 by Anna Maria Dyner from the Polish Institute of International Affairs. It is interesting that Russia and Belarus use fictional adversaries but real geography for their own side. This seems like a good approach compared to the rather artificial scenarios you sometimes see at NATO exercises where participants end up […]
Russia denies access for observers to Zapad 2017
Ben Hodges, the U.S. Army’s commander in Europe, accuses Russia of fiddling with the numbers in order to keep foreign observers away from the upcoming exercise Zapad 2017, according to The Baltic Times: “The Russians had not given us a lot of reason to trust the numbers that they say. But again, the exercise hasn’t […]
