Poland Deal Lays Groundwork For Division-Strength Deployment
A division-scale exercise next year in Europe, Defender 2020, will be the largest in a quarter-century.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. on June 13, 2019 at 5:33 PM
WASHINGTON: The new defense pact with Poland does more than add 1,000 US troops to the 4,500 already in the frontline NATO ally. It also lays the logistical groundwork for quickly deploying a heavy armored division, some 12,000 to 20,000 troops, for a crisis or a major exercise.
That would include the Defender 2020 wargames scheduled for next year, which the Army says will be “the largest in 25 years.†Army Undersecretary Ryan McCarthy said Defender would serve as a smaller version of the massive Cold War REFORGER exercises — Return of Forces to Germany — that rehearsed rapid deployment to Europe in event of a Soviet invasion.
https://breakingdefense.com/2019/06/poland-deal-lays-groundwork-for-division-strength-deployment/
