NATO launches Steadfast Dart exercise without U.S. participation

NATO is conducting a cross‑continent military exercise called Steadfast Dart that will move a Pan‑European flotilla from a Spanish port northwest of Gibraltar to Germany’s Baltic coast, The New York Times reported on Jan. 29, 2026. About 10,000 troops from 11 nations are to take part, and no U.S.

weapons or soldiers will be involved. Four Turkish Navy ships, including a new amphibious assault ship, were set to join Spanish vessels after weather delays, then rendezvous with French, German, Polish and Dutch ships. The operation will carry tanks, landing craft, helicopters, drones and troops from southern Europe to northern Germany, the report says.

On paper, Steadfast Dart is designed to test how quickly NATO countries can move military assets across the continent as part of the Allied Reaction Force. The exercise includes sea, road and air transport as well as commercial shipping, stipulates that some units must arrive within 10 days, and will culminate next month in a landing and live‑fire exercises on Germany’s Baltic coast led by Turkish marines.

The operation, the largest NATO exercise planned for the year, was conceived before recent tensions with Washington but is being watched for what it may signal about European capabilities without the United States. "This exercise could well give an impression of the future of a Europeanized NATO," said Lukas Mengelkamp, an analyst at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg.

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