The UK is to commit warships, Typhoon fighter jets and almost 3,000 troops to the biggest Nato military exercise to take place in 13 years.
Exercise Trident Juncture will feature 36,000 service personnel from more than 30 nations, and has been organised to test how the allied group will respond to crisis situations.
Armed forces from the Navy, Army and RAF will take part in the five-week exercise which begins tomorrow in Italy, Portugal and Spain.
It is the biggest Nato exercise since 2002 and will feature the UK's two largest warships - helicopter carrier HMS Ocean as well as HMS Bulwark, which was rescuing migrants from the Mediterranean earlier this year.
Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said it was "vital" that the UK work with Nato partners in a "darker and more dangerous world".
He added: "The UK will be right there at the heart of Exercise Trident Juncture - contributing nearly 3,000 troops, our two largest warships and our Typhoon fighter jets."
The training exercise will feature 230 military units, 140 aircraft and more than 60 ships from various nations and will test the readiness of a new task force set to be launched.
The Spearhead Force, Nato's new rapid reaction task force, will become fully operational next year and will feature UK troops.
In total the UK will commit around 2,800 personnel to Trident Juncture, including an Army Brigade Headquarters and Battlegroup, three Royal Navy warships and aircraft, including Typhoon fighter jets and helicopters.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article