Admiral Giampaolo di Paola, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, visited Georgia to meet with the country's defense and foreign ministers and the chief of the Joint Staff of the Georgian Armed Forces and to inspect the NATO-supported Krtsanisi National Training Center, the newly established NATO Liaison Office in the nation's capital, and the "33rd Battalion of the III Infantry Brigade going to replace [the] contingent of the 32nd Battalion currently deployed in Afghanistan." [13] Georgia fought a five-day war with Russia in August of 2008 and NATO is training its armed forces for more than just the war in Afghanistan.
U.S. Special Operations Command recently concluded training exercises for troops from the Czech Republic, Lithuania and Poland in Germany. The Pentagon described their purpose as follows:
"Coordination and synchronization between conventional and special operations forces (SOF) is crucial on the modern battlefield since both share integral roles within an area of responsibility whether it involves intelligence gathering or conducting combat operations".[T]he training event was part of an annual brigade-level mission rehearsal exercise"to prepare conventional force units assigned to the U.S. European Command area of operations for deployment to Afghanistan." [14]
Lithuania and Poland have borders with Russia and both host NATO forces, at an air base in the first and a training center in the second nation. Earlier this month the Czech parliament approved the deployment of additional troops, including special forces, to Afghanistan next year, raising the nation's NATO contingent to 720 soldiers.
Two F-15 Eagles and Lithuanian L-39 Albatross during exercise on November 11 conducted from Siauliai Air Base in Lithuania as part of NATO Baltic air policing mission
Also this month, Polish troops trained at an Illinois Army National Guard base an hour's drive from Chicago, and a Polish officer involved in the training stated: "We train together because we fight together. If we train together we fight and work better in Afghanistan. It is good idea to train together before we deploy. We are good soldiers and our brigade was deployed in Iraq two times and in Afghanistan so we work at a high level. We are ready." [15]
The connection between nations supplying troops for the war in Afghanistan and the U.S. committing to intervene on their behalf in conflicts with neighboring states was recently affirmed by Philip H. Gordon, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs.
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