NATO battle staff training „Griffin Lightning“ at Multinational Corps Northeast Headquarter 2019 at Szczecin, Poland – foto: ©HQ MNC NE / STRATCOM

To affiliate military formations is the take of the hour when it comes to shape better European defense structures on the Eastern flank. The bulky term means as yet mainly the incorporation of brigades from East European countries into division structures of Germany and newly also NATO over ramped up training cooperations. This should lead to concerted practices and thereby enhanced interoperability which leads to better fitness to fight – so the theory went. The respective affiliated brigade stays under national subordination without any organic changes in the command structure.

This affiliation network becomes denser and denser. Recently NATO announced that Poland affiliated its 15th Mechanized Brigade to the Multinational Division North East (MND-NE) and Lithuania its „Iron Wolf“ Brigade. The MND-NE – a pure corps staff – coordinates activities of the enhanced NATO Forward Presence Battle Groups deployed in Lithuania and Poland. A spokesperson of the Lithuanian MoD to the author: „The signed document identifies three areas of affiliation which include training and exercises, strategic communication and situational awareness. It means that the affiliation creates conditions for the training of MND-NE Headquarter.“ Weiterlesen →