Hundreds of thousands of NATO troops will be put on a higher state of alert amid growing tensions with Russia, the head of the alliance has indicated.

NATO commanders want to prepare a substantial land force capable of deterring Russian ­aggression.

NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg did not give precise figures, but Adam Thomson, Britain’s outgoing permanent representative to the alliance, said the goal was to speed up the response time of up to 300,000 military personnel to about two months. At present a force of this size could take up to 180 days to deploy.

The troops would act as a ­“follow-on force” to NATO’s existing response force, which can be deployed to a war zone within days. The personnel will come from nations across the alliance.

“We have seen Russia being much more active in many ­different ways. We have seen a more assertive Russia implementing a substantial military build-up over many years; tripling defence spending since 2000 in real terms; developing new military capabilities; exercising their forces and using military force against neighbours. We have also seen Russia using propaganda in Europe among NATO allies and that is exactly the reason why NATO is responding. We are responding with the biggest reinforcement of our collective defence since the end of the Cold War,” Mr Stoltenbergsaid in an exclusive interview.

The measures, drawn up after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the conflict in east Ukraine, include the deployment of 4000 NATO troops to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland from next year. NATO has already created an emergency response force of 5000 ground troops, backed by air, sea and special forces, which is able to mobilise within five days.

In addition, the 28 member states agreed to triple the size of an incumbent response force to 40,000 troops. They can be moved in quickly as reinforcements after the initial wave.

Mr Stoltenberg said NATO was looking at improving the readiness of many of the alliance’s three million soldiers, sailors, ­airmen and Marines.

“We are ... addressing what we call the follow-on forces,” he said. “There are a large number of people in the armed forces of NATO allies. We are looking into how more of them can be ready on a shorter notice.”

The issue was discussed at a meeting of NATO defence ministers last month. Sir Adam said all allies had agreed it was necessary to increase the deployability of large numbers of ­alliance troops. “I am not sure that everyone has realised how difficult and how expensive it is going to be, but it is part of that concept agreed in February of this year,” Sir Adam said, referring to a previous meeting of defence ministers.

After the Soviet Union ­collapsed, defence budgets in most NATO states were slashed. Most of those forces still in uniform were put on a lower state of readiness. But ­Russia continued to train its military at scale, with exercises of more than 100,000 personnel taking place each year. NATO is also responding to an increase in espionage, hybrid warfare and cyber attacks. One step has been the creation of an intelligence division.

Source: The Times