Military vehicles during combat shooting as part of the Resolute Warrior exercise. During the maneuver, the multinational NATO brigade stationed in Latvia, which is now being formed, trained together at full strength for the first time. REUTERS
THE WATCH STAFF
Latvia marked a critical milestone in November 2024 as the Canadian-led NATO Multinational Brigade Latvia (MNB-LVA) conducted its first major exercise as a complete brigade. Exercise Resolute Warrior 2024 was held November 1-14, 2024, across central and northern Latvia.
The MNB-LVA includes personnel from 13 member states, highlighting the alliance’s commitment to NATO’s central tenet of collective defense. Canada’s contributions to the brigade are coordinated under Operation Reassurance, the Canadian Armed Forces’ (CAF) largest overseas mission. As part of that operation, the CAF is integral to the largest reinforcement of alliance collective defense in a generation.
The MNB-LVA will see a greater buildup of personnel and equipment through 2026. That year, the CAF will have its full brigade commitments, with up to 2,200 CAF members persistently deployed.
Resolute Warrior was the first Canadian-led brigade field exercise held in Europe in over 30 years, emphasizing Canada’s resolve to strengthen NATO’s defense of alliance territory. Canada, as the framework nation for NATO MNB-LVA, supplies the largest portion of personnel and equipment to the brigade, including its command position.
“Exercise Resolute Warrior 2024 demonstrates our collective efforts and our commitment to strengthening the security of Latvia and NATO borders,” said Col. Cédric Aspirault, commander of the MNB-LVA. “Each of the NATO Multinational Brigade Latvia contributing nations brings a wealth of experience and expertise that is invaluable to NATO’s defense and deterrence mandate. We are part of an active buildup with a level of multinational cooperation never seen before. This exercise has one clear message on behalf of the brigade: We’re ready!”
NATO MNB-LVA’s 13 contributing nations are Albania, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain. The CAF’s first deployment on Operation Reassurance, in 2014, came as a response to instability in Eastern Europe caused by Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea, a region in Ukraine. This deployment included a CF-18 Hornet fighter aircraft task force, a land task force based in Poland, and a maritime task force, with a Royal Canadian Navy frigate, in the Black and Mediterranean seas.
After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Canada committed to significantly boost its military footprint in Latvia. Since then, Canada has more than doubled its military personnel there, deployed more than 1,000 additional vehicles and built significant amounts of infrastructure to defend NATO’s eastern flank.
Gen. Gregory M. Guillot, commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), testified in March 2024 before the House Armed Services Committee, saying, “Russia remains the greatest military threat to the homeland today. Despite the degradation of its ground forces resulting from two disastrous years of combat in Ukraine, Russia seeks to rapidly rearm and retains the world’s largest arsenal of strategic and nonstrategic nuclear weapons and a still formidable capability to threaten North America with precision-strike conventional weapons. Russia has gained extensive operational experience with its most advanced non-nuclear weapons in Ukraine, and has had the opportunity to refine tactics, techniques, and procedures that it could employ in a direct conflict with the United States or our NATO allies.”