General Maxim: Goal of Troop Transfers Is Mobility Practise
Bratislava, January 30 (TASR) – Transfers of allied troops due to take place in 2018 are aimed at mobility training and removing possible obstacles that could exist on the way, stated Chief of General Staff of the Slovak Armed Forces Milan Maxim after a regular conference of chiefs of general staff of central European countries in Bratislava on Tuesday.
“One of the prerequisites for a successful military operation is the ability of forces to move quickly from point A to point B, deploy and be ready to act,” said Maxim at a press conference.
“Every country has its own legislation, its own rules for crossing state borders. Our goal is to identify possible problems, try to eliminate them and ensure smooth movement, the mobility of troops,” he added.
The regular conference at the Slovak Foreign and European Affairs Ministry was attended by generals from Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria and the American command in Europe.
Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) of NATO Allied Command Operations Mike Scaparrotti expressed his satisfaction with Slovakia’s latest commitment to increase its defence expenditures to 1.6 percent of GDP by 2020. Scaparrotti said that there’s a need to respond to current challenges. “The environment in which we’ve been living has changed and is completely different from how it was four years ago. This not only includes various issues that we have to address, but there are completely different information technologies or even disinformation techniques,” said Scaparrotti, adding that how troops are trained in such an environment is very important.
“We used to have more time, but now it’s necessary to do everything very quickly, and it’s partly a matter of the relevant budgets that should contribute towards this,” he said.
The participants in the conference also familiarised themselves with a strategy for carrying out transfers of allied troops in the region, planned joint exercises, information on integrated airspace protection and missile defence as well as the need to transform and modernise the armed forces of individual countries in light of the current security situation in the region.
Conferences of chiefs of general staff are organised annually by the US Force commander in Europe in one of the central European countries.
