The annual exercise involves more than seventy aircraft and two thousand people from fourteen countries. The airbase in Volkel is the base of operations for Steadfast Noon, but airfields in Denmark, England and Belgium are also used.
De Kruif already indicated that no nuclear bombs will be dropped, but that does not mean no bombs will be dropped at all. “They are throwing practice bombs,” said defense expert Peter Wijninga of The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies. These have the same size and weight as the “tactical nuclear weapons” located in the Netherlands, among other places. In Volkel, to be exact. “That is an open secret,” Wijninga said.
Because those nuclear bombs are here, the Netherlands has “a core task,” Wijninga argues. “The Netherlands has to be able to throw those bombs and, of course, that has to be practiced.” By dropping dummy bombs, for example, the “throwing technique” is trained. But the step before may also be practiced. For example, the bombs in Volkel are guarded by American military personnel. They have to hand them over to Dutch technicians, who hang them under the planes.
De Kruif adds that it goes far beyond installing a nuclear weapon under a plane and starting to fly. So there is “a whole package of aircraft flying around it.” Like refueling planes, so refueling can be practiced in the air. And “misleading aircraft,” which can distract a potential enemy from the aircraft carrying the nuclear weapon.
Aircraft are also needed that can shoot enemy aircraft out of the sky. “So it is not about a pilot who is going to test whether he knows everything,” emphasizes Leiden University professor Frans Osinga (war studies). “It’s about a whole system.”
That whole system comes into play at the “enormously weighty” decision to deploy a nuclear weapon, Osinga argues. “In fact, you practice that whole decision-making cycle. There are all safety checks in there, with codes and such.” Wijninga: “All the procedures that exist about that are also checked: does it still work, is it still correct?”
All this is done under the supervision of “international referees.” There are “certainly Americans” among them, says Wijninga. A report is produced from which lessons can be learned for the following year’s exercise. It also provides insight into the readiness of the air base where the nuclear weapons are located. “In that sense, the exercise is also a kind of exam,” he said
According to Osinga, secrecy is also an important part of the test. “It is highly confidential information that is communicated at such an air base. No information should leak out.” So one of the final steps in “that whole logistics train” is actually what this story began with: dropping the practice bomb.
NATO conducts exercises annually, but all interviewees noticed that more attention is paid to them. “At least they are announced more,” De Kruif states. “Now also in the person of the Secretary General of NATO himself,” Wijninga adds. Indeed, Mark Rutte spoke in advance in a video about an “extremely realistic” operation, showing that “we will and can protect and defend all allies against all threats.”
NATO stressed that no war with Russia or other existing adversaries would be simulated during the exercise. That statement, according to Wijninga, is mainly intended to make it clear to Russia that NATO has no plans to attack that country. But at the same time, an important goal of the exercise is to send a signal to Russia. “That is explicit, deliberate communication,” Osinga said.
“You can arm yourself to the teeth and train people to the hilt, but of course you have to show and also say that you are prepared to take up arms,” says Wijninga. Or in the words of NATO boss Rutte, make sure the “nuclear deterrent remains as credible, safe and effective as possible.” The exercise actually has something quite paradoxical, Wijninga concludes. “That you prepare to shed a nuclear weapon, with the goal of avoiding having to do so.”
