NATO to Create Interim Rapid Response Force to Counter Russia

BRUSSELS — NATO will establish a prototype of a new rapid response force next year as it strives to improve its ability to deter a potential Russian attack, the alliance said on Tuesday.

The “interim spearhead force” will be made up of German, Dutch and Norwegian troops and is expected to be about the size of a brigade, or about 4,000 troops.

The new force responds to a proposal approved in September at a NATO summit meeting in Wales to establish a “high readiness” unit to defend the alliance’s Central European members.

Because of formidable operational and financial challenges, a permanent quick reaction force will not be established until 2016, the NATO secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said Tuesday during meetings here of the alliance’s foreign ministers.

“NATO hasn’t done this for two decades,” Douglas Lute, the United States ambassador to NATO, said on Monday. “What NATO faced in the last two decades was a different challenge. It faced a challenge on a very sort of deliberate, predictable calendar basis.”  Read More at NYTImes