SZCZECIN, Poland -- NATO's new rapid-reaction "spearhead" force, meant as a deterrent to Russian aggression, should be up and running with initial capabilities in less than a year, a top alliance official said Thursday.
The creation of a 4,000 to 5,000 troop response force, which will be able to respond to a crisis in eastern Europe within two to three days, was a key decision taken by NATO leaders earlier this month in Wales.
The force represents a calculation by NATO that Russian President Vladimir Putin won't risk going head-to-head with the Western alliance.
Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow, the highest-ranking U.S. civilian at NATO, said on the sidelines of a symposium in Poland that military planners are now "working seven days a week" to finalize details of the force.
Those details should be in place to be approved by a defense ministers meeting in February, and implementation will move quickly ahead after that, he said.
"There's an expectation we will have at least an initial capacity with this much more rapid response time in less than a year from the Wales summit," he said. "It won't be all finished, but we recognize that the threats are here, we can't put this on the slow track."
Meanwhile, NATO's Multinational Corps Northeast headquarters, where the symposium was being held, is being upgraded to a "high readiness" force headquarters under the guidance of Germany, Poland and Denmark as part of the moves being made to reassure allies.
Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine earlier this year, and signs indicate that it has funneled troops, tanks and artillery to the pro-Moscow separatists who were fighting government forces in eastern Ukraine over the past five months.
Ukraine is not a NATO member and not directly under its defense umbrella, but three other former Soviet republics have joined the alliance since the end of the Cold War, as well as the former Soviet satellite states of Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria.
In the wake of the Ukraine crisis, NATO already has increased the number of aircraft, ships and troops it has operating in the region.
It's not yet determined where the "spearhead" troops will be located, though Vershbow said the "most likely" scenario is that those from eastern Europe will be based in their home countries, while U.S. troops might be in Germany or Italy.
They would train regularly together and be able to rapidly deploy to eastern European NATO countries in time of need, where the alliance will preposition supplies, logistical hubs and command and control operations, Vershbow said.
"Having a forward presence provides a deterrent; a demonstration that if you, Russia, or any other aggressor, cross the border you're not just going to encounter Latvians or Estonians or Lithuanians or Poles, you're going to encounter Americans, Brits, Germans -- in other words you're going to be encountering NATO," he said. "Backing that up with the spearhead, which means forces that can arrive within a matter of days, adds to the deterrent effect that we would be there in time ... to deal with all kind of contingencies."
Meanwhile, frustrated by the United Nations' passive response to Russia's aggression in Ukraine, President Bronislaw Komorowski of Poland has said he intends next week in New York to call on the organization to change its rules to prevent Moscow from vetoing Security Council actions on the region.
"My main message will be that perhaps the United Nations should be reformed to make the institution capable of addressing the threats that really exist today," Komorowski said. "I think blocking the Security Council on Ukraine is a token, a symptom, of the general weakness of the U.N."
Like the other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- Britain, China, France and the United States -- Russia has the power to veto any of the Council's actions. But under the organization's charter, removing the veto right would require both a vote of two-thirds of the General Assembly and ratification by whatever constitutional process is in place in two-thirds of the member nations, including all five permanent Council members.
In other words, Russia has a veto over removing its own veto.
Still, Komorowski's call is a sign both of Poland's unease over the international response to the Ukraine conflict and of the country's growing confidence and rising profile in European and trans-Atlantic affairs.
Komorowski will make his call in an address to the U.N. General Assembly on Monday, part of the parade of dignitaries that ushers in every September assembly gathering.
Information for this article was contributed by David Rising of The Associated Press and by Rick Lyman of The New York Times.
A Section on 09/19/2014