How can Europe deter Putin? Revive the ‘Reforger'

With the demise of the Soviet Union and the reunification of Germany, Reforger exercises were deemed unnecessary. But given Putin’s willingness to invade his neighbours, we should ask whether it is time to bring Reforger back

- James Stavridis, Tribune News Service

When I was a junior officer during the Cold War, the biggest North Atlantic Treaty Organization military training exercises — perhaps the largest in history — were annual drills called Exercise Reforger. The goal was to ensure NATO's ability to deploy troops rapidly to West Germany if war broke out between the alliance and the Soviet Union’s Warsaw Pact nations.

“Reforger” was a loose acronym of “Return of Forces to Germany.” The first Reforger was held in 1969, and they ran annually through 1993, just after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact. Forces from every country in the alliance participated, although the bulk of them were American — drawn from the 400,000 US troops stationed in Europe at the height of the Cold War.

At the time, only 16 countries were in NATO (today there are 32). The event was not just an exercise — it was an actual planning and execution demonstration of NATO's defensive war plans. It required the forces to “marry up” with their huge stockpiles of equipment on NATO's eastern flank, called Prepositioning of Materiel Configured in Unit Sets (POMCUS) sites.

US Marines were also part of the flow of troops toward the potential combat lines, and the Navy's Sixth Fleet (focused on the Mediterranean) and Second Fleet (covering the North Atlantic) participated from sea. As a lieutenant junior grade onboard the US aircraft carrier Forrestal in the fall of 1980, I remember our participation in air sorties in support of ground operations. Even though we knew it was a drill, we took it with deadly seriousness; the intent was to be prepared to “fight tonight,” as the saying went in those days.