From today until June 23, the largest air exercise in the history of NATO will take place in the airspace of Germany.

25 countries, 250 aircraft and 10,000 soldiers will take part in the exercise, which has as its object the immediate response of the Alliance in the event of a crisis and the activation of Article 5 for a collective response in the event of an attack against allied territory. Problems are expected to arise in civil aviation, as commercial flights will be banned from time to time.

The German Air Force, which will act as host and technical hub, is facing, as military analysts estimate, its biggest challenge in decades. The preparation of the exercise has lasted about four years and six air bases will be used for the organization. The US alone is sending Germany 100 aircraft, including the “invisible” F-35, the Alliance’s most modern fighter, but also F-15, F-16, F-18, EA-18, A-10, C -13 and C-17, while Greece and Turkey will participate with F-16 fighters.

NATO’s goal is to send a political message about its deterrence capabilities. “We are showing that NATO territory is our red line and that we are prepared to defend every centimeter of it,” said Luftwaffe Vice Admiral Ingo Gerharts, presenting the exercise a few days ago. He clarified, however, that the Air Defender 23 is designed to show a “defensive” attitude towards Russia. “We will not fly over e.g. from Kaliningrad,” he clarified. The US ambassador in Berlin, Amy Guttman, however, said that the exercise will be an “impressive show of force towards other countries of the world”. The exercise will be “absolutely mind-blowing for anyone who watches it and we are not forcing anyone to watch it. It will show beyond any doubt the readiness and speed of our forces in immediate reaction. I would be very surprised if any leader did not realize what the exercise shows, in terms of Alliance strength. And that includes Mr. Putin,” he added.

Participants will take part in numerous exercises, some of which will take place on the ground, such as the “airport evacuation”, which was deemed necessary after the chaos caused in 2021 by the withdrawal of Western forces from Afghanistan. In other exercises, the support of ground forces from the air will be tested, as well as the countering of medium-range missiles with NATO bombers. Scenarios of an attack by ships or submarines in the North Sea will also be considered, since, as Torben Arnold of the German Institute for International Affairs and Security Affairs told Deutsche Welle, “the enemy can also attack from areas outside the continent.”

Forces from Belgium, Bulgaria, Britain, France, Germany, Denmark, Greece, Estonia, USA, Japan, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Latvia, Luxembourg, Norway, the Netherlands, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Slovenia, Turkey, the Czech Republic and Finland will participate in training scenarios simulating the activation of Article 5. They will be used as hub bases in Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony , in Bavaria, Rhineland-Palatinate, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic and the exercises will take place in the airspace of Germany, but also in the Baltic and Romania, with “out-and-back” flights. Operations will last two to four hours a day, during which, for security reasons, no civilian flights will be allowed. Exercises will not take place at night and on weekends.

Managing commercial flights is an important part of the exercise’s requirements, Vice Admiral Gerharts admitted, explaining that European airspace is among the busiest in the world. In order to avoid flight cancellations, German airports have extended their operating hours, especially on the days of the exercise. “I hope there will be no cancellations,” Mr. Gerharts said, but he did not rule out flight delays.

According to aviation expert Clemens Bollinger, for the past 30 years the task of air traffic control has been unified for civil and military aviation. Controllers are in constant communication with the Air Force so commercial flights don’t have to be canceled.