US military exercises in Europe that were suspended because of the coronavirus pandemic will go ahead next month but in a scaled-back format, the Army said Wednesday.

US-Polish exercise Allied Spirit, originally planned for May, will see the mobilization of 6,000 soldiers from the two countries from June 5-19 at the Drawsko Pomorskie base in the north of Poland, the army said in a statement.

"All COVID-19 precautionary measures will be taken to ensure the health and protection of participating armed forces and the local population," it said.

The 4,000 US soldiers that will take part had already traveled to Europe for Defender-Europe 20, the biggest US military deployment in Europe in 25 years.

But the pandemic prompted the Pentagon to freeze all US military movement around the world.

The new exercise will feature a Polish airborne operation and a US-Polish division-size river crossing.

By the time US troop movements to Europe were halted in early March, more than 90 percent of the equipment earmarked for Defender-Europe 20 had been loaded on aircraft or ships bound for Europe.

More than 6,000 soldiers and 3,000 pieces of equipment arrived in Europe, and over 9,000 vehicles were moved to training areas in Germany.

"Overall, despite the adjustment to the exercise due to COVID-19, many of the strategic readiness objectives were met," the army statement said.

Over the coming months, more exercises will be held to use the resources mobilized for Defender-Europe 20, which originally called for the dispatching of 20,000 US troops as far afield as Ukraine and the Baltic states.

This amounts to a daunting logical challenge and a special deployment that reflects the strategic upheaval triggered by Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Army cancels ROTC Cadet Summer Training camp, citing COVID-19 concerns
Washington DC (UPI) May 13, 2020 - The U.S. Army will not send 10,000 ROTC cadets to Fort Knox, Ky., for its annual Cadet Summer Training exercises because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The announcement on Tuesday came 12 days before the Reserve Officer Training Corps members were to arrive at Fort Knox for training aimed at preparing them to shift from college students to Army officers.

Army analysts spent weeks considering how to safely move the cadets from over 900 school campuses to the base and back, in light of the pandemic, and chose not to risk their exposure to the virus.

"We were concerned that if the worst were to happen, we might send out a large group of cadets that might be carrying the infection -- they may even be asymptomatic -- back out into their college populations," Maj. Gen. John Evans, chief of the U.S. Army Cadet Command, said on Tuesday. "We felt that risk was just too great."

Cadets generally attend the camp, which assesses their preparedness, fitness and weapons proficiency, between their junior and senior years of college.

Required training exercises will be expanded during the upcoming school year. An annual 48-hour field training event, typically performed in a weekend, will be expanded to 96 hours over a four-day weekend, for example, and additional on-campus ROTC instruction will be made available.

Evans said that his command has reached out to affected colleges, seeking leniency for cadets who will miss class time.

"I've asked our cadets to stay the course with their academic curriculum and their ROTC requirements," Evans added. "Success of this plan will require individual focus and effort to make it work. It won't always be easy, we will ask much of them over the next year, but the reward will be worth the effort."

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China threatens countermeasures over US visa rule for Chinese journalists
Beijing (AFP) May 11, 2020
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