Six new NATO
\ncommand centres have become operational this week on NATO’s eastern flank in
\nresponse to the security challenges posed by Russia, said NATO. Romania, just
\nlike Bulgaria, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, also hosts one of these
\ncentres, whose mission is to facilitate the deployment of NATO’s new very rapid
\nresponse force and coordinate military exercises. Around 40 officers will be
\nworking in each of these centres. The new structures opened this week are to
\nbecome fully operational by the next NATO summit held by Warsaw in July next
\nyear, said a spokesperson for the North Atlantic Alliance. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In Romania, the NATO
\nForce Integration Unit is one of the two NATO command and control bodies to be
\nset up in Bucharest. The unit is responsible for liasing with the Allied Joint
\nForce Command Naples and planning operations, carrying out military exercises
\nand coordinating the deployment of NATO’s response forces when necessary. 42
\nmilitary are part of this body, 27 of whom are from the host country Romania.
\nThe NATO Force Integration Unit in Bucharest is run by colonel Catalin Ticulescu,
\nwho previously served in Afghanistan, where he was wounded during a patrol
\nmission. The Multinational Division South East Command is also to become partly
\noperational next year, its task being to coordinate the allied force
\nintegration units in Romania and Bulgaria. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
These bodies form part of NATO’s
\nefforts to adjust to a changing security environment and its plans to increase
\nits role in Eastern Europe in order to discourage possible aggressors and
\nreassure its allies at a time when the situation in Ukraine is still unstable
\nfollowing Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula last year in March. The
\nincreased number of NATO exercises, the deployment of ships and aircraft and
\nWashington’s announcement about the creation of a weapons stockpile are also
\npart of these efforts. In an exclusive interview to Radio Romania, the director
\ngeneral for strategic affairs in the Romanian foreign ministry Dan Neculaescu
\nsaid Romania is now at its highest level of security since joining NATO, in
\nparticular as a result of recent moves to consolidate NATO’s eastern flank. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of NATO’s six new command centers has become operational in Romania.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":108,"featured_media":63326,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[38138,38139,13794],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-65017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-command-centres","tag-multinational-division-south-east-command","tag-nato"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n