Three days before an important meeting in Ramstein, Germany, which will bring together around fifty countries that support Ukraine on October 12, Emmanuel Macron’s trip to a training camp in eastern France, scheduled for Wednesday, October 9, October, owes nothing to chance. In the coming months, around 2,500 Ukrainian soldiers will receive training there along with 1,500 French soldiers. A training that has already begun, for most of them, and whose objective is for both to gain more experience, but also to get hold of some of the weapons that will return with them to the battlefields: the armored Caesar cannons. vehicles or even anti-tank missiles.
This visit, a symbol of French support for kyiv, also illustrates Paris’ efforts within the framework of NATO’s collective defense, while the Atlantic Alliance has decided to increase pressure on its thirty-two member states in terms of military planning. On October 6, the German newspaper the world In fact, it has revealed in detail quantified elements about the “plans” of NATO, transmitted to the allies since the spring. Normally classified documents, whose partial publication indicates the concern of the highest military authorities of the Alliance regarding their appearance. “considerable additional financial resources” What should allies contribute to live up to these? “plans”reports the German newspaper.
According the worldwho was able to consult these documents, the objectives assigned to the allies have increased significantly since the Alliance summit in Madrid in the summer of 2022. While the minimum threshold of 82 combat-ready brigades was considered sufficient in 2021, before As Ukraine conflicts, NATO’s ambition is now to reach the threshold of 131 brigades by 2031, an increase of almost fifty units of 3,000 to 4,000 soldiers each. An increase of at least 150,000 troops in total that must be accompanied by the reinforcement of the management and support capabilities of these forces, which currently largely lack resources.
“We need to move faster”
The release of these figures comes a few days after the inauguration of Mark Rutte, the new Secretary General of NATO, for whom the Ramstein summit should constitute his first major meeting. Under pressure from the United States, which constantly repeats that its priority is no longer so much Europe but the Indo-Pacific, and faced with the uncertainties of the American presidential elections in November, the former Dutch Prime Minister made the rearmament of his allies his objective. . priority. “We need larger and better equipped forces, a stronger transatlantic defense industry and greater defense production capacity”Mr. Rutte insisted, when he took office on 1Ahem October.
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