Coincidence or not, at the historical moment of greatest military tension between the West and the Russian nuclear power since the end of the Cold War, after on February 24 Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion and bombing of a democratic country like Ukraine – tension that is going on the rise after putting Russia on alert yesterday to its nuclear forces—, it is up to the Valencian base of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), based in Bétera, to be in charge of directing the rapid deployment force (NRF) before “possible high-intensity combat” in the event that NATO’s supreme allied commander, General Tod Wolters, so determines.
The NATO base on Valencian soil, in Bétera, has been since January 1 the nerve center that would coordinate the main response force of the Atlantic Alliance in the face of a hypothetical Russian attack on one of its 30 member countries. The High Readiness Land Headquarters in Bétera would be able to lead a combat force in high-intensity operations of up to 120,000 troops in the event of a war between Russia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Every twelve months, the command of the land component of the NRF, NATO’s response force, corresponds to one of the nine High Availability General Headquarters and in this 2022 it has been the responsibility of the Bétera Headquarters to be in standby mode in the face of any crisis that requires military intervention. ANDhe reaction time to deploy these first Rapid Deployment Corps battalions would be ten days and the entire force would be up and running in two months, according to information from NATO itself.
At the head of this contingent for NATO High Intensity Operations, is Lieutenant General Fernando García-Vaquero, who two years ago took command as head of the High Availability Land Headquarters. In the act carried out in the ‘Santo Domingo’ barracks, headquarters of the former Captaincy General of Valencia, García-Vaquero already gave the keys to the importance of the Bétera Headquarters “the highest level of operational character of our Army, prepared, capable of planning and conducting operations, always ready to be employed, in the national or NATO framework, wherever we are required and in the shortest time available”.
Relay in early December
The 60,000-strong international force which is capable of mobilizing the Valencian NATO headquarters, this year doubles to 120,000 soldiers by relieving the British Rapid Deployment Headquarters as a base for conducting “high intensity military operations”. Italy, Turkey, Germany, France, Greece and Poland also have NATO rapid reaction bases.
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Said relief was formalized at the beginning of December after the Bétera barracks passed the evaluation in up to 50 areas that accredits it as capable of leading up to 120,000 international military personnel in the event of a crisis. Among the training received for six months, the members of the Bétera barracks, from twelve different nations, were adapting their procedures to counteract new factors that influence military operations, such as cyberspace, new technologies, or disinformation.
To finalize this preparation, the so-called ‘Steadfast Leda 21’ exercise was deployed, in which a fictitious scenario in the base of Araca (Álava) simulated a conflict with high-intensity combat. More than 1,000 people from 17 countries participated in this drill, although computer simulations were used to recreate units of thousands of soldiers.