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la Merkel, born in the country's communist east, has few illusions about Mr Putin but is rarely willing to get very far ahead of pacifistinclined public opinion. A naive new Italian government, acutely conscious of its fragile economy's dependence on Russian gas, also hoped to avoid confrontation.

NATO can only act by consensus, and some members feared that basing troops in Poland and the Baltic states would breach agreements reached with Russia in 1997 under the Founding Act, which formally declared an end to hostile relations. At a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in April, a call from Poland for 10,000 NATO troops to be stationed on its territory was rebuffed. Some did not want to hear Mr Rasmussen's message that years of attempts by NATO to make Russia a strategic partner had failed, and that under Mr Putin Russia saw NATO only as an adversary.

But as evidence mounted of Russia's engagement in the increasingly bloody insurrection in east Ukraine, the arguments of NATO's doves seemed ever more feeble. The big shift in public opinion came in July, when separatist rebels shot down Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 with advanced weapons supplied by Russia. “Those clinging to an optimistic view of Russia had to recognise it had not worked; they had no answer,” says a senior NATO diplomat. The alliance must be prepared to deal with an antagonistic Russia for a long time, says Mr Rasmussen. “I would caution against thinking this is just about Putin. It is deeper-rooted in Russian society.”

The result is that General Breedlove is unlikely to face much political resistance to the deterrence package he sets out at the Newport summit. A “readiness action plan” has been drawn up with the aim of enabling NATO to respond rapidly to an Article 5 crisis. A compromise has been reached between those who think basing NATO forces permanently in the east and north of Europe, close to Russia's borders, would breach the Founding Act, and those who argue that Russia's own actions mean the act is already a dead letter: General Breedlove will propose pre-positioning command and control, logistics specialists, heavy weapons and ammunition, probably at an existing base in Szczecin in Poland (see map). The idea, he says, is to be able to “travel light but strike hard if needed”. The base is likely to be staffed on rotation, with troops from different member countries moving in and out. Frequent, large-scale exercises will signal NATO's preparedness and maintain the crucial interoperability between national forces that was forged in Afghanistan.

An important element of the plans is to hold the newish NATO Response Force (NRF), which has 13,000 well-equipped troops provided on a rotating basis by members at its disposal, at a much higher state of readiness than before as the “spearhead” for the alliance's future deployments. Within it a multinational force of brigade size (about 5,000 troops) will be deployable at the first sign of trouble, possibly within hours, on the order of the SACEUR without the usual requirement for consensual political approval.

The intention, says Mr Rasmussen, is to ensure that “any potential aggressor will know that if they are to attack one of our allies, they will not just meet本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。