NATO war games about to begin
| Brussels
More than 45,000 troops from the United States and Britail will descend on Europe next week to join other allied forces in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's annual large-scale war games, stretching from Norway to Turkey.
It is the sixth successive year that NATO has coordinated a series of national excersies under a common umbrella, a concept initiated by Gen. Alexander M. Haig Jr., former supreme allied commander in Europe.
A total of 25 exercises, involving more than 200,000 men, will be held from early September to mid-November, and will coincide with air and sea maneuvers. The aim of the exercises, nicknamed "Autumn Forge," is to improve realistic training and coordination between allied forces, often using widely different weapons and materials.
As usual, the exercise is expected to attract major Soviet interest, and a dozen uninvited Soviet ships and submarines will probably watch the maneuvers, military sources here say.
The maneuvers will coincide with the Warsaw Pact's biggest war games organized in East Germany for 10 years.
