IRIA News

NATO has launched its Nordic Response 2024 military exercise, aimed at bolstering the defense of its northern theater. It is the first such drill since the confirmation of the alliance’s expansion to include Finland and Sweden.

More than 20,000 troops from 13 nations are involved in the Nordic Response 2024 military exercise. The exercise, which started on March 3, 2024, will run through March 14. The drills have been taking place at different locations across northern parts of Finland, Sweden, and Norway.

Exercise Nordic Response is part of the series of exercises under NATO’s largest in decades, Steadfast Defender 24. According to the NATO Air Command, “For the first time, NATO is setting new defense plans into reality proving their executability and NATO’s warfighting transformation. This marks a new era of collective defense and proves NATO Allies’ solidarity, unity, and strength.”

This year’s Nordic Response involves drills on land, at sea, and in the air. More than 50 submarines, frigates, corvettes, aircraft carriers, and amphibious vessels are taking part in the exercise as per a NATO press release.

More than 110 fighter jets, transport aircraft, maritime surveillance aircraft, and helicopters, including CH43 Super Stallion, Merlin, Cobra, and Osprey tiltrotor aircraft would be used over the course of the ongoing military drills.

Welcome to @NATO Sweden! 🇸🇪

A Voyager from @RAFBrizeNorton, operating from @RAFLossiemouth, successfully refuelled Swedish Gripen fighters on Exercise Nordic Response, part of Exercise Steadfast Defender.@Forsvarsmakten #StrongerTogether

More 🔗 https://t.co/SbPaKimE31 pic.twitter.com/lODTCKZPaj

— Royal Air Force (@RoyalAirForce) March 12, 2024

Ground troops are practicing with land warfare equipment including artillery systems, tanks, and tracked vehicles. The NATO nations taking part are Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the U.K. and the U.S.

U.S. Marines of the 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment are also attending the Nordic Response exercise in Norway and participating in the training course to practice surviving in the extreme elements of the Arctic Circle.

“Our greatest strategic advantage in the Arctic region is a network of Allies and partners committed to Arctic security, and more importantly, peace and prosperity,” said the Commander of U.S. Marine Corps Forces Europe and Africa. U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Robert Sofge in a statement released by the U.S. European Command.

“Nordic Response stresses that now is the time to get our systems connected, our doctrine aligned, and to share our tactics to ensure we can sense and make sense in a complex battlefield, in the harshest of conditions, against a capable opponent,” he added.

“The High North represents an important and strategically located area for NATO,” the alliance said on its website. “The exercise increases Nordic preparedness and the capability to conduct large-scale joint operations in challenging weather and climate.”

Sweden, the newest member of the alliance, is participating in the drills with over 4,500 military personnel while Finland has sent more than 4,000 of its troops to part in the large-scale military exercise.

“For the first time, Finland will participate as a NATO member nation in exercising collective defense of the alliance’s regions,” the Finnish Defense Forces said in a statement before the exercise.

#ÚLTIMAHORA. El hombre, la peor plaga en las faz de la tierra.

🇺🇸🇳🇴🇸🇪🇫🇮 La #OTAN comenzó las maniobras “Nordic Response 2024”.

Durarán 12 días y se realizará en el norte de #Noruega, #Suecia y #Finlandia, no muy lejos de la frontera con #Rusia, participarán 20.000 efectivos. pic.twitter.com/UjXya4zO6c

— ¡LO QUE USTED, NO SABE! (@loqueustednosa) March 5, 2024

The accession of Finland and Sweden into NATO has fundamentally altered the security landscape in northern Europe and the Arctic Circle. Despite years of cooperation with NATO, Stockholm and Helsinki had upheld a stance of official foreign policy neutrality throughout the Cold War era and beyond.

Sweden and Finland aimed to steer clear of conflicts with Russia, but the events of Russia’s extensive invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 swiftly prompted a significant change in both public sentiment and political stance.

Russia has often protested NATO’s frequent large-scale military exercises in the Nordic region and the expansion of NATO. “Our country will not leave the bolstering of NATO’s military potential near its borders without a response, it will take relevant defense measures to curtail threats to its national security,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said in February this year.