For the first time on soil, NATO soldiers will hold a peacekeeping exercise with troops of the former Warsaw Pact, the Pentagon has announced. The exercise, called Cooperative Nugget '95, will be held Aug. 6-28 at Fort Polk, La., the Pentagon said Friday. About 4,200 troops from 14 central and eastern European countries as well as the United States, Canada and Britain will participate. The Clinton administration had wanted Russia to participate, but Moscow has made no commitment. A joint peacekeeping exercise, separate from the Fort Polk event, is to be held in Kansas in Oct


For the first time on soil, NATO soldiers will hold a peacekeeping exercise with troops of the former Warsaw Pact, the Pentagon has announced. The exercise, called Cooperative Nugget '95, will be held Aug. 6-28 at Fort Polk, La., the Pentagon said Friday. About 4,200 troops from 14 central and eastern European countries as well as the United States, Canada and Britain will participate. The Clinton administration had wanted Russia to participate, but Moscow has made no commitment. A joint peacekeeping exercise, separate from the Fort Polk event, is to be held in Kansas in October. The non-NATO countries participating in the August exercise are members of NATO's "Partnership for Peace," a new arrangement designed to encourage Russia and other former Soviet republics, as well as the newly democratic East European nations, to adopt Western democratic practices such as ensuring civilian control of the military. This will be the sixth military exercise held as part of the Partnership for Peace, but the first in the United States. The scenario at Fort Polk will be a fictional border dispute between two hypothetical countries. Of the approximately 2,500 troops participating, most will be from the Army's 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment based at Fort Polk. The non-NATO countries scheduled to participate are Albania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, the Slovac Republic, Slovenia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.


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Location: Ft. Polk, Louisiana
Photo credit: © Stephen Jaffe / Alamy / Afripics
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Keywords: 1995, cooperative, exercise, force, ft., general, nato, nugget, partnership, peace, peacekeeping, polk, shalikashvili, soldiers, war