On Sept. 1, the “Northern Coasts” exercise began in the Baltic Sea as part of the “Quadriga 2025” exercise series of NATO. About 8,000 soldiers from 14 nations are involved: Germany, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Poland, the Baltic states, France, Great Britain, the United States, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Canada. None of the last six nations borders the Baltic Sea.
Inspector-General of Germany’s Bundeswehr Carsten Breuer emphasized the strategic importance: “It’s about the reliability of the logistical hub for NATO, because de facto all supply routes run through Germany.” These exercises serve to improve availability of the infrastructure, particularly that of Germany, to handle the transfer of 800,000 NATO troops to the Eastern flank—doing that in six months, according to present plans. (If a Russian attack is, as some claim, really coming in 2026, the transfer of troops should start now.—ed.)
