All-out war with Russia could develop within the next 20 years, a senior NATO official has warned as the bloc prepares for its biggest military exercises in decades.
“We have to realize that it is not a given that we are at peace,” Dutch Admiral Rob Bauer, chairman of NATO's military committee, told reporters after a meeting of the alliance's defense chiefs in Brussels.
“And that's why we [NATO forces] we are preparing a conflict with Russia,” he said.
His warning came ahead of the start of military exercises next week, involving some 90,000 troops and lasting months, to demonstrate that the alliance can defend its territory right up to the border with Russia.
Bauer also said that large numbers of civilians would also need to be mobilized in the event of war, and argued that alliance governments must start planning for such a massive mobilization.
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