Exercise Steadfast Defender 2024 will see NATO’s transatlantic movement of forces from North America

About 90,000 troops will participate in Exercise Steadfast Defender 2024, the “largest NATO’s exercise in decades”, starting next week and running through May, the Supreme Allied Commander for Europe, General Christopher Cavoli, told reporters on 18 January in Brussels.

Speaking after a two-day meeting of the Alliance’s national chiefs of defence (CHODs), he said the exercise will involve the 31 NATO countries plus Sweden.

“The Alliance will demonstrate its ability to reinforce the Euro-Atlantic area via a transatlantic movement of forces from North America […] during a simulated emerging conflict scenario against a near-peer adversary,” he said.

Steadfast 2024 is part of a broader effort including several elements aimed at outstandingly increasing NATO’s collective deterrence and defence, originating from the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its consequences.

Among those elements are NATO’s regional plans, which were approved in Vilnius last year to modernise the collective defence system. The Alliance is currently making the plans executable, “meaning to make sure to have the force commitments, the command and control arrangements and all the and the enablement our plans require,” plus eventual refinements.

“So, for the first time in 30 years, we have the strategy for deterrence and defence for the Euro Atlantic area, we have the plans to make the Alliance fit for the purpose of collective territorial defence,” Cavoli said.

Lastly, he provided an update about the Allied Reaction Force, a NATO force able to carry out a full spectrum of missions, a rapidly deployable strategic reserve, which has its headquarters in Italy.

“They are currently training, exercising, and rehearsing in preparation for their new role. They are on track to receive validation as the Interim ARF Headquarters following exercise Steadfast deterrence in May,” he concluded.

Caterina Tani reporting from Brussels