Vilnius
(AFP) - A senior NATO official on Friday called Washington's
deployment of an armoured brigade to Poland and other eastern allies
a "proportionate and measured" response to Russian military
activity near the region.
"Through
the so-called Atlantic Resolve operation there is US armour coming
back to Europe and it is a response to what Russia has been doing,"
NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller told the Baltic news
agency BNS.
US
troops and tanks began streaming into Poland Thursday as part of one
of the largest deployments of US forces in Europe since the Cold War,
an operation that Russia angrily branded a security "threat".
"I
do want to emphasis that it is proportionate and measured,"
Gottemoeller said of the deployment of some "3,500 personnel, 87
tanks and 144 Bradley fighting vehicles."
"This
is an important step, but it is meant for deterrence and defence,"
she added.
The
Atlantic Resolve mission will see US soldiers and heavy equipment
also deployed in NATO partners Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania,
Bulgaria and Hungary on a rotational basis.
Last
year Moscow deployed nuclear-capable Iskander missiles into its
Kaliningrad outpost and has frequent military drills in the Baltic
region rattled neighbouring NATO members Poland and Lithuania.
Gottemoeller
said she saw "legitimate possibilities for future dialogue"
between NATO and Russia, but insisted the Western alliance needed to
be very "clear-eyed" about reducing risks on its eastern
flank.
"We
want to reduce risks so that we do not have a possibility of a crisis
emerging that could possibly escalate into conflict," the NATO
official told BNS speaking on the sidelines of an informal security
policy summit in Lithuania.
Last
summer, NATO leaders endorsed plans to rotate troops into Poland and
the three Baltic states to reassure them they would not be left in
the lurch if Russia was tempted to repeat its Ukraine intervention.
The
former top US general in Europe told AFP on Friday that dialogue with
Russia was "inevitable" after President-elect Donald Trump
takes office, but recommended taking small steps.
"What
we need to do is begin a series of dialogues and address small
incremental things that we see as mutually beneficial," said
retired general Philip Breedlove, who was also attending the security
conference in the resort town of Trakai on the outskirts of the
Lithuanian capital Vilnius.
"If
we have success... then we move on to something a little more
challenging," Breedlove said.
A person close to the transition said transition officials wanted
to keep Schwartz in the job for continuity, but the Army pushed to
replace him.
