BERLIN/ULM/BRUNSSUM (Own report) – The German Bundeswehr will play a leading role in “Operation Trident Juncture,” a large scale NATO exercise, set for late September. German NATO-General Hans-Lothar Domröse will command the exercise involving more than 36,000 soldiers. The German Armed Forces’ “Multinational Joint Headquarters” based in Ulm (Baden-Württemberg) will be the main coordinator. “Trident Juncture” will exercise a military intervention in a fictitious country at the Horn of Africa with NATO’s “Spearhead” response force, comprised mainly of Bundeswehr soldiers. According to the training scenario, not only will western troops be confronting a regular army and guerilla fighters, but will also encounter “food insecurity,” “massive population displacements,” “cyber-attacks,” “chemical warfare,” and “information warfare.” According to Lt. Gen. Richard Rossmanith, commander of the “Multinational Joint Headquarters Ulm,” “Operation Trident Juncture” will not only send a “message” to Russia: “Everyone should consider carefully about how they deal with us” – because NATO is “the strongest military alliance in the world” with a “360 degree” orientation.
Flagship
The Bundeswehr announced its participation in NATO’s “Trident Juncture” (TRJE 15) exercise, with around 3,000 soldiers, warships, fighter jets, and amphibious armored assault vehicles. Scheduled for September 28 to November 6, TRJE 15 will be the western alliance’s largest military exercise in more than a decade, involving 36,000 personnel from NATO member countries and officially neutral “partner countries,” such as Austria and Sweden. They will train an invasion of a fictitious country at the Horn of Africa. The maneuver will be commanded by German NATO-General Hans-Lothar Domröse, commander of the “Allied Joint Force Command” in Brunssum (Netherlands) and will take place in Portugal, Spain, Italy, in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. This exercise seeks to demonstrate NATO’s Response Force/NRF and its “Spearhead,” the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force/VJTF, comprised mainly of Bundeswehr soldiers, as the Alliance’s global “flagship” – also through a “deliberate broad exposure in the media.”[1]
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Permanent Warfare
NATO is obviously seeking to use the “Trident Juncture” exercise to prepare itself for a permanent state of global war. As one of its spokespersons recently declared, the challenge is to assure that, as an alliance, it is clear that “we’re never fighting the last war, whether the last war was ten years ago or ten minutes ago.” In this context, the German NATO General Hans-Lothar Domröse, who will command the “Trident Juncture” exercise, said “speed matters- you will see it in the air, at sea, and on land.”[10]
Global Geopolitics 