The next meeting of NATO defense ministers is expected to take place in mid-February in Brussels, during which NATO will simulate an attack on the alliance from the East and train a corresponding response, German newspaper Welt am Sonntag reported, citing high-ranking NATO officials.
"They will practice crisis management," a NATO spokesman told the newspaper, calling it a "standard procedure in the alliance."
According to the report, the simulation will take place at the end of the two-day meeting of defense ministers on 11 February.
"The ministers will have to make decisions under time pressure, about what NATO is going to do [in a certain situation], including the redeployment of forces," a NATO diplomat told the newspaper.
The decision to carry out such exercise was inspired by the desire of NATO members to be prepared for emergency situations at the highest political level.
In 2015, NATO carried out a series of military exercises and war games to prepare for what it perceived as a threat from the East. The "Trident Juncture 2015," which it described as the "largest and most ambitious exercise in over a decade," was aimed at preparing NATO military forces against "blatant invasion" by an imaginary neighboring country called Cerasia, which had a thinly veiled reference to Russia.
