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As many as 1,000 Canadian troops at a time are expected to soon be constantly rotating through Europe. It will be the first time that Canada has so many troops across the pond since it closed two bases in Germany’s Black Forest when the Cold War ended.

The Canadians are to be part of an urgent NATO plan to try to rein in Vladimir Putin’s revanchist ambitions in eastern Europe, which appears to be rapidly transitioning this week from a covert to an overt war for eastern Ukraine with the opening of a new front south of Donetsk.

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The alliance is following the Pentagon’s script for the forward deployment of U.S. Marines in northern Australia because of its relative proximity to China. NATO’s civilian boss, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, told me in an interview a couple of months ago that what the Marines were doing Down Under was a likely model for alliance deployments in eastern Europe.

Rasmussen confirmed to European journalists ahead of next week’s NATO summit in Wales that the alliance will open new bases in eastern Europe. Troops from countries such as Canada will rotate through these bases for stays of several months at a time. But Rasmussen went further, declaring the creation of a spearhead within an existing rapid reaction force to deal with potential emergencies in the east.