NATO Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) has published a Twitter from its official account to underline that Turkey is leading VJTF this year. It said, "Watch more and meet the VURAN armoured vehicle that is essential for this mission." Vuran armoured vehicle is manufactured in Turkey. Vuran can reach the max speed of 110 km/ h. It has a range of 600 km and has 8 mm thick armour.
Steadfast Defender 2021 is a NATO-led exercise involving over nine thousand troops from more than 20 NATO Allies and partners. The objective is to ensure that NATO forces are trained, operate together, and be ready to respond to any threat from any direction.
The NATO Response Force (NRF) is a technologically advanced, multinational force made up of land, air, maritime and Special Operations Forces components rapidly deployable. It provides collective defence and rapid military response to an emerging crisis. In addition, it can perform peace-support operations, protect critical infrastructure and support disaster relief.
The NRF was created in 2002. Overall command belongs to Supreme Allied Commander Europe. NATO's Joint Force Command Brunssum and Joint Force Command Naples assume the operational command on a rotational basis, with Brunssum leading for 2018.
The NRF structure is comprised of 4 parts:
Command and Control element: based on a deployable Joint Task Force HQ
Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF)
Initial Follow On Forces Group: These are high-readiness forces that can deploy quickly following the VJTF in response to a crisis
Response Forces Pool: NATO retains a broad spectrum of military capabilities encompassing command and control, combat and support units through the Responses Forces Pool (RFP). The forces are drawn from the much wider pool of Allied or Partners National deployable forces.
Allies and partner nations have to meet strict standards to participate in the NRF. As a result, during the 6-18 month period before assuming the role of an NRF high-readiness unit, various training and exercises are held to integrate the national contingents and standardize their procedures.
Following the Wales Summit in 2014, Allies decided to enhance the NRF by creating a Spearhead Force. The Very High Readiness Joint Task Force was formed to better respond to the changing security environment to the east and south of the Alliance's borders.
