Six new NATO
command centres have become operational this week on NATO’s eastern flank in
response to the security challenges posed by Russia, said NATO. Romania, just
like Bulgaria, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, also hosts one of these
centres, whose mission is to facilitate the deployment of NATO’s new very rapid
response force and coordinate military exercises. Around 40 officers will be
working in each of these centres. The new structures opened this week are to
become fully operational by the next NATO summit held by Warsaw in July next
year, said a spokesperson for the North Atlantic Alliance.
In Romania, the NATO
Force Integration Unit is one of the two NATO command and control bodies to be
set up in Bucharest. The unit is responsible for liasing with the Allied Joint
Force Command Naples and planning operations, carrying out military exercises
and coordinating the deployment of NATO’s response forces when necessary. 42
military are part of this body, 27 of whom are from the host country Romania.
The NATO Force Integration Unit in Bucharest is run by colonel Catalin Ticulescu,
who previously served in Afghanistan, where he was wounded during a patrol
mission. The Multinational Division South East Command is also to become partly
operational next year, its task being to coordinate the allied force
integration units in Romania and Bulgaria.
These bodies form part of NATO’s
efforts to adjust to a changing security environment and its plans to increase
its role in Eastern Europe in order to discourage possible aggressors and
reassure its allies at a time when the situation in Ukraine is still unstable
following Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula last year in March. The
increased number of NATO exercises, the deployment of ships and aircraft and
Washington’s announcement about the creation of a weapons stockpile are also
part of these efforts. In an exclusive interview to Radio Romania, the director
general for strategic affairs in the Romanian foreign ministry Dan Neculaescu
said Romania is now at its highest level of security since joining NATO, in
particular as a result of recent moves to consolidate NATO’s eastern flank.