来自31个北约和伙伴国家的大约5万人星期四展开“三叉戟2018”军事演习，这是自冷战结束以来北约最大规模的演习。
演习在挪威及其周边地区进行，有大约65艘船只、250架飞机和10,000辆车参加。
北约盟军作战司令部指挥官Davor Petek少校在接受美国之音独家采访中表示，这次大型防守性演习发出了一个“非常简单的信息”。
他说，“我们已做好准备，我们有能力应对任何对北约边境的安全威胁，”他说， “没有人会愿意给拥有如此大的潜力和能力的联盟惹麻烦。”
北约表示，这次演习不是侵略行为，演习指挥官称北约邀请俄罗斯作为观察员参加。
美国海军欧洲司令部及那不勒斯盟军联合部队司令部司令、海军上将詹姆斯·福格戈本月早些时候在五角大楼告诉记者说：“我很高兴我们请了观察员，因为他们会看到我们非常擅长我们的工作。这将对任何想跨越这些边界的人，特别是某个国家，产生威慑作用。”
俄罗斯和西方世界仍然对俄罗斯非法吞并乌克兰克里米亚半岛一事存在严重分歧，一些北约国家担心莫斯科可能会试图侵占他们的主权领土。
“三叉戟2018”演习预计将持续到11月7日。
About 50,000 NATO personnel from 31 NATO and partner countries are springing to action Thursday at the start of the alliance’s Trident Juncture exercise, its largest drills since the end of the Cold War.
The massive exercise takes place in and around Norway and involves about 65 ships, 250 aircraft and 10,000 vehicles.
NATO’s Command Senior Enlisted Leader for Allied Command Operations, Command Sgt. Maj. Davor Petek, told VOA in an exclusive interview that the large-scaled defensive games send a “very simple message.”
“We are ready, and we are capable to meet any possible security threat coming to our NATO borders,” he said. “Nobody’s willing to mess with an alliance that has so much potential, so much capability.”
NATO said the drills are not an act of aggression, and the exercise’s commander said the alliance has invited Russia to observe.
“I’m happy that we have observers because they’re going to see that we’re very good at what we do. And that will have a deterrent effect on anybody who wants to cross those borders, but one nation in particular,” U.S. Navy Adm. James Foggo, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Europe and NATO’s Allied Joint Force Command Naples, told reporters at the Pentagon earlier this month.
The exercise comes with Russia and the West still bitterly divided over Russia’s illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula, with some NATO countries worried Moscow may try to encroach on their sovereign land.
Trident Juncture is expected to run through Nov. 7.