In the year after Russia launched outright war on Ukraine, NATO leaders approved a set of military plans designed to repel an invasion of Europe. It was the biggest shake-up of the alliance’s defense readiness preparations since the Cold War.
The secret plans set out how Western allies would defend NATO territory from the Atlantic to the Arctic, through the Baltic region and Central Europe, down to the Mediterranean Sea. Up to 300,000 troops would move to its eastern flank within 30 days, many of them American. That would climb to 800,000 within six months.
