USNI News Video: High North Exercise Tests Cold-Weather Skills of Navy, Marine Corps

US Marines with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) are in Iceland preparing for NATO’s Exercise Trident Juncture 2018. The main phase of Trident Juncture will start in Norway on October 25. US Marine Corps Photo

ABOARD USS IWO JIMA, OFF THE COAST OF ICELAND – Today’s sailors and Marines have grown proficient at operating in the heat and sands of the Middle East, but the bitter cold and jagged lava rocks of Iceland in October is a new challenge to most of them.

The U.S. military has placed a...

https://news.usni.org/2018/10/23/usni-news-video-high-north-exercise-tests-cold-weather-skills-navy-marine-corps

Foggo: U.S., NATO Naval Forces Pushing Back Against Russian Harassment

The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Ross (DDG 71), right, approaches the Lewis and Clark-class fleet replenishment oiler USNS Medgar Evers (T-AKE 13) and the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Arleigh Burke (DDG 51) for a replenishment-at-sea in the Mediterranean Sea, Oct. 6, 2018. Ross, forward-deployed to Rota, Spain, is on its seventh patrol in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations in support of U.S. national security interests Europe and Africa. US Navy photo.

T...

https://news.usni.org/2018/10/09/foggo-us-nato-naval-forces-pushing-back-russian-anti-access-behaviors

Trident Juncture Exercise Will Test NATO’s Ability to Repel Invasion of an Ally

Marines with Marine Rotational Force-Europe 18.1 prepare to bound across a road during a live-fire range at Giskas, Norway, Aug. 21, 2018. US Marine Corps Photo

THE PENTAGON – The upcoming Trident Juncture 2018 exercise will be the first opportunity to test out the premise of NATO’s new “Four Thirties” initiative – the idea that NATO may need to move a lot of people and platforms quickly to defend an ally whose sovereignty has been violated – the head of naval forces in Europe said today.

Adm....

https://news.usni.org/2018/10/05/trident-juncture-exercise-will-test-natos-ability-repel-invasion-ally

Panel: Military Tensions in Europe Continue to Run High Between NATO, Moscow

A Danish soldier (left) coaches a U.S. Army Soldier with the 82nd Brigade Engineer Battalion, 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, as he uses a Danish M60 Machine Gun during a multinational weapons training session in Tapa, Estonia on March 10, 2018. US Army Photo

The admission of the Baltic nations of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia to NATO was the “fattest of red line” warnings to Russia to stay clear of the western European military, a transatlantic expert on foreign policy...

https://news.usni.org/2018/10/04/panel-military-tensions-europe-continue-run-high-nato-moscow

Report to Congress on U.S.-Turkey Relations

The following is the Aug. 31, 2018 Congressional Research Service report Turkey: Background and U.S. Relations.

From the report

Turkey, a NATO ally since 1952, significantly affects a number of key U.S. national security issues in the Middle East and Europe. U.S.-Turkey relations have worsened throughout this decade over several matters, including Syria’s civil war, Turkey-Israel tensions, Turkey-Russia cooperation, and various Turkish domestic developments. The United States and NATO have...

https://news.usni.org/2018/09/20/report-congress-u-s-turkey-relations-2