The Baltic
States are in the anticipation of the annual large scale military exercise
Saber Strike.
The well-known annual international exercise held since 2010 by the United
States Army Europe (USAREUR) is focused on the Baltic States. These countries
consider this event as a key element of participants’ training on command and
control as well as interoperability with regional partners. The Saber Strike
exercise aims to facilitate cooperation amongst the U.S., Estonia, Latvia,
Lithuania, Poland and allied and partner nations.
Usually these maneuvers take place in June. Thus, it is logical to assume that
the time of the military exercise is coming, but this year event is never
mentioned.
There are two ways of situation development. The first one is – Saber Strike
2019 will not be held at all. The second one is the information about Saber
Strike 2019 is classified.
The first assumption is unlikely taking into account the U.S. and NATO desire
to strengthen the position in the region. This assumption is also contradicted
by the increasing number and scale of international and national military
exercises in the Baltic region.
So, the second assumption is most likely. But the question arises about the aim
of hiding the information or its content. It is widely proclaimed that NATO and
the U.S. put transparency about the exercises in the head. This principle is
either one of the key priorities of all international organizations including
UN and OSCE. Transparency of activity helps to build international peace and
trust.
It is especially surprising after NATO expressed concern about transparency of Russian and Russia-Belarus military drills which were held near the Baltic State’s borders. Unlike allies, opponents give preliminary information about planned exercises. By the way, some facts can be find on Internet about joint exercise Union Shield 2019 that will take place in autumn in Russia.
BulgarianMilitary.com quoted Russian Minister of Defence Sergei
Shoigu who stated in 2018 that “Union Shield 2019” exercise would be only
defensive and emphasized: “First and foremost, and I would
like everyone to hear that, our drills are solely of defensive nature. We do
not plan any offensive actions as compared to the [NATO] military exercises.
We, undoubtedly, are doing this not as a response to some drills but as a
response to the threats which exist today and which, to our big regret, grow
every year.”
From time to time we can read about the preparations for Russian-Belarusian
exercise “Union Shield 2019”. Thus on March 12-14, the Belarusian-Russian
command-staff training on working out the interaction of military authorities,
formations and military units in the framework of the regional grouping of
troops (RGT) was carried out jointly, as well as improving the RGT control
system.
“The general staffs have embarked on the preparation of the Union Shield 2019
exercise, which will be the main event of joint training of the military
command and troops in 2019 and which will further improve the system of
military security of the Union State,” Belarusian Minister of Defense Andrei
Ravkov noted. According to him, such events help check the quality and level of
combat readiness of the regional group of troops, to see the real capabilities
of weapons and the ability to carry out combat tasks.
True or not, but information is available. It is not very detailed but at least
it is provided in advance. At least they name it as defensive.
As far as Saber Strike is concerned, everything is vaguely and therefore scary. What is the aim of it? Does it have defensive or offensive nature? When and who will come to the Baltic States? The approach “no comments” is not the best one in this case. The Baltics want and should know. Our opponents should be aware either. Otherwise their respond could be unexpected and even destroying. Uncertainty causes panic and rejection among local population.
