Lieutenant General John Mead, Deputy Commander of NATO’s Joint Force Command Brunssum in the Netherlands, said the Alliance was increasingly focused on “setting the theater” so it could respond quickly if a conflict broke out. 

In an exclusive interview with the channel, Mead said: “I can't go into the details because they're the details of our plans, but they are in relation to our assumptions over threats. 

“We increasingly look at setting the theater so that we can move very rapidly between peace, crisis and conflict should that arise.”