Operation Atlantic Resolve, refers to military activities in response to
Russia
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
n operations in
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...
, mainly the
War in Donbas
The war in Donbas, or the Donbas war, was a phase of the Russo-Ukrainian War in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine. The war Timeline of the war in Donbas (2014), began in April 2014, when Russian separatist forces in Ukraine, Russian para ...
. It was funded under the
European Deterrence Initiative. In the wake of Russia's 2014 invasion of Ukraine, the US and the UK took several immediate steps to enhance the deterrence posture along the eastern flank of the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental transnational military alliance of 32 member states—30 European and 2 North American. Established in the aftermat ...
(NATO), including augmenting the air, ground and naval presence in the region, and enhancing previously scheduled exercises.
The US described the activities as taking measures to enhance NATO military plans and defense capabilities and maintaining a persistent presence in
Central Europe
Central Europe is a geographical region of Europe between Eastern Europe, Eastern, Southern Europe, Southern, Western Europe, Western and Northern Europe, Northern Europe. Central Europe is known for its cultural diversity; however, countries in ...
and
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountain ...
.
Atlantic Resolve rotations are overseen by a regionally aligned headquarters there.
Airborne operations
On April 30, 2014
United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...
and
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...
(USAF) military members were sent to
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
and the Baltic States of
Latvia
Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...
,
Lithuania
Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...
, and
Estonia
Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...
to conduct military exercises with partner nations in an immediate response to Russian illegal annexation of the Crimean Peninsula on March 18, 2014. This was on done on a bilateral basis, not as part of a larger NATO action.
The force consisted of four companies of approximately: 150 soldiers from the 173rd BCT (Brigade Combat Team, airborne) out of
Vicenza, Italy and supporting Air Force JTACs (Joint Terminal Attack Controller) from the 2nd ASOS (Air Support Operations Squadron) out of
Vilseck, Germany. Troops were transported with assistance from the USAF
37th Airlift Squadron based out of
Ramstein Air Base
Ramstein Air Base is a United States Air Force installation located in Rhineland-Palatinate, southwestern Germany. It serves as the headquarters for the United States Air Forces in Europe – Air Forces Africa (USAFE-AFAFRICA) and NATO Alli ...
, Germany. The four companies were rotated out every ninety days through to the end of 2014 when a more formal version of Operation Atlantic Resolve was put into place.
Road march
In March 2015, a U.S. Army spokesman in
Wiesbaden
Wiesbaden (; ) is the capital of the German state of Hesse, and the second-largest Hessian city after Frankfurt am Main. With around 283,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 24th-largest city. Wiesbaden form ...
announced that a convoy of
armored fighting vehicle
An armoured fighting vehicle (British English) or armored fighting vehicle (American English) (AFV) is an armed combat vehicle protected by armour, generally combining operational mobility with offensive and defensive capabilities. AFVs can b ...
s, including
Stryker
The Stryker is a family of Eight-wheel drive, eight-wheeled armored fighting vehicles derived from the Canadian LAV III. Stryker vehicles are produced by General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada (GDLS-C) for the United States Army in a plant in L ...
s, would return via road to their garrison at
Vilseck after manoeuvres in Poland, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania – . The road march started a week later.
Assets
Aerial
The aerial assets are mostly deployed to
Ämari Air Base,
Graf Ignatievo Air Base,
Mihail Kogălniceanu Air Base,
Papa Air Base, and
Illesheim Army Airfield.
Air Force
The first aerial units were the
159th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron (159th EFS) with
McDonnell Douglas F-15C Eagle's and the
123d EFS with F-15C's and a single F-15D from April 2015, who stayed for six months.
This was added to by the following units:
*
355th Fighter Wing =
354th EFS with 12 x
Fairchild Republic A-10C Thunderbolt II's between February
and July 2015,
initially at
Spangdahlem Air Base
Spangdahlem Air Base (International Air Transport Association airport code, IATA: SPM, International Civil Aviation Organization airport code, ICAO: ETAD, former code EDAD) is a NATO air base with the United States Air Force as a tenant constru ...
before forward deployed to an Eastern European Air base.
*
442nd Fighter Wing =
303d EFS with 8 x A-10C Thunderbolt II's from August 2015 at Amari.
*
23d Fighter Group =
74th EFS with 12 x A-10C Thunderbolt II's between September 2015
and March 2016 at various bases.
*
104th Fighter Wing =
131st EFS with F-15C's between April
and September 2016.
*
144th Fighter Wing =
194th EFS with F-15C's and D's from April 2016.
*
122d Fighter Wing =
163d EFS with A-10C Thunderbolt II's until August 2016.
*
442nd Fighter Wing =
303d EFS with A-10C Thunderbolt II's from July 2016.
*
140th Wing =
120th EFS with
F-16C Fighting Falcons between July 2016 and August 2016.
*
48th Fighter Wing =
493d EFS with F-15C's between August and September 2016.
*
144th Fighter Wing =
194th EFS with F-15C's between August and September 2016.
*
125th Fighter Wing =
159th EFS with F-15C's between Unknown and August 2017.
*
159th Fighter Wing =
122d EFS with F-15C's between Unknown and August 2017.
*
180th Fighter Wing =
112th EFS with F-16's from January 2018.
*
301st Fighter Wing =
457th EFS with F-16's from April 2019.
Army
* Task Force Brawler, 4th Battalion, 3rd Aviation Regiment, 3rd Combat Aviation Brigade (First RAF unit for OAR), from March 2015 to November 2015
*Task Force Spearhead, 3rd Battalion, 227th Aviation Regiment, 1st Air Cavalry Brigade, from November 2015 to August 2016.
*Task Force Apocalypse, 3rd Battalion, 501st Aviation Regiment, 1st Armored Combat Aviation Brigade, from August 2016 to March 2017.
*
10th Combat Aviation Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, from March 2017 to October 2017.
**1st Battalion, 501st Aviation Regiment, 1AD CAB, Ft Bliss, TX (OPCON'd to 10th CAB, 25x AH-64s, 400x Soldiers)
*
1st Air Cavalry Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, from October 2017 to July 2018.
*
4th Combat Aviation Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, from July 2018 to March 2019.
* 1st
Combat Aviation Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, from March 2019 to November 2019.
*
3rd Combat Aviation Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division from November 2019 to July 2020.
* 101st
Combat Aviation Brigade, 101st Airborne Division from July 2020 to March 2021.
*
1st Combat Aviation Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, from March 2021 to December 2021.
*
1st Air Cavalry Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, from December 2021 to September 2022.
*
Combat Aviation Brigade, 1st Armored Division (United States) from September 2022 to May 2023.
*
3rd Combat Aviation Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division from May 2023 to February 2024
Ground
In January 2017, there were 3,500 troops from the
3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, 87 tanks and 144
Bradley fighting vehicles there. They initially gathered in
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
, before spreading out across seven countries from Estonia to
Bulgaria
Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...
. The brigade is headquartered in Germany. An armored brigade will constantly rotate deployment every nine months. The equipment will be permanently based in
Żagań
Żagań (French language, French and , ) is a town in western Poland, on the Bóbr river, with 25,731 inhabitants (2019), capital of Żagań County in the Lubusz Voivodeship, located in the historic region of Lower Silesia.
Founded in the 12th ce ...
in western Poland alongside a Polish armored division seemingly
34th Armoured Cavalry Brigade,
11th Armoured Cavalry Division. This unit has been replaced by
2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division in September 2017.
As of May 2018, the rotational force was changed to the
1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division. The
1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division completed their rotation during October 2019 and were replaced by the
2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division. 2BCT, 1CAV was replaced in approximately November or December 2020 by 1ABCT, 1CAV. In June, 2021 it was announced that 1ABCT, 1ID would replace 1ABCT, 1CAV in August 2021.

On 4 September 2020, the US Army deployed the 2nd Battalion of the
69th Armor Regiment, part of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Division, for training in
PabradÄ—. They deployed with
M1 Abrams
The M1 Abrams () is a third-generation American main battle tank designed by Chrysler Defense (now General Dynamics Land Systems) and named for General Creighton Abrams. Conceived for modern armored ground warfare, it is one of the heavies ...
,
Bradley Fighting Vehicle, other vehicles, and material.
On 8 March 2022,
V Corps' main headquarters forward deployed to Germany to provide additional command and control of U.S. Army forces in Europe as part of a larger personnel build up in response to the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...
.
Reactions
82% of Czechs approved and supported the United States Army-NATO convoy that partook in
Operation Dragoon Ride, in an
opinion poll
An opinion poll, often simply referred to as a survey or a poll, is a human research survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of qu ...
that was conducted by the independent
STEM
Stem or STEM most commonly refers to:
* Plant stem, a structural axis of a vascular plant
* Stem group
* Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics
Stem or STEM can also refer to:
Language and writing
* Word stem, part of a word respon ...
agency in 2015.
A NATO deployment in the early January 2017 was welcomed by Polish officials, who described it as a necessary response to Russian military exercises near its border and
its military intervention in Ukraine and members of the public as the materiel crossed into south-western Poland from Germany. The same deployment sparked protests in Germany and prompted a critical reaction among the country’s centre-left political parties, but was defended by the country’s ruling
CDU/CSU coalition and German military officials.
An article about the deployment that was published by the Donbas News International (DNI) agency and its subsequent circulation in the Western conspiracy-theory cybersphere and Russian mediasphere was cited as an example of
the creation and spread of fake news. An editorial by the ''
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The ''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'', also known simply as the PG, is the largest newspaper serving Greater Pittsburgh, metropolitan Pittsburgh in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Descended from the ''Pittsburgh Gazette'', established in 1786 as the fi ...
'' cautioned anyone against using the deployment as a domestic political tool.
See also
*
NATO Enhanced Forward Presence
*
Fort Trump
References
External links
*
Operation Atlantic Resolve OCTOBER 1, 2024–DECEMBER 31, 2024*
{{Ukraine–United States relations
2010s in Europe
Atlantic Resolve
Atlantic Resolve
Russia–United States relations
Ukraine–United States relations
War in Donbas