Daily Archives: February 23, 2017

Polands conservative government has replaced almost all of its military leadership after hundreds of officers left, an exit that coincides with a call from Warsaws to its NATO allies for help boosting its defense.

With the government moving to rid institutions of officials appointed by the former ruling Civic Platform party, which it defeated in 2015 elections, 90 percent of the General Staff leadership and more than 80 percent of the armys top brass have gone, according to the Defense Ministry. They include Chief of Staff General Miroslaw Gocul, who stepped down last month and Army Commander General Miroslaw Rozanski.

The ruling Law & Justice Party has pledged to purge government of what its leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski has called the worst type of Poles -- people with ties to Civic Platform or the communists who ruled the country last century. It is also thinning out experienced soldiers who have served in wars alongside their allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which Poland joined with other former eastern bloc states in 1999.

Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz has conducted a widespread change at top positions in operating units, each time replacing officers selected by the Civic Platform with experienced officers trained in Iraq and Afghanistan and trained by NATO, the ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

Among the departures are 26 generals and more than 250 colonels, about a quarter and a sixth of the armys total, TVN24 television reported. While media say the numbers are higher than compared with previous years, the ministry says the total size of the army increased to 106,000 in 2017 from 96,000 in 2015.

Probably part of the departures are natural, but theres also part thats forced, for example by transfer orders sending officers into reserves, retired Brigadier General Stanislaw Koziej, who was head of the National Security Bureau under the Civic Platform government from 2010 to 2015, said by phone. The worrying element is that some departures are at the highest level where the military command links with political leadership. This is a bad signal.

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The government in Warsaw is also pushing to bring more U.S. troops to Poland as it warns against what it says is an increasing security threat from an expansionist Russia and the war in Ukraine.

A soldier has no other means of protest besides taking off the uniform, Koziej said.

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Exit by 80% of Polish Top Brass Guts Command on NATO Front Line - Bloomberg

Candidate Donald Trump set off a furious controversy when he said NATO countries should pay their "fair share" of mutual defense costs and, later, that the treaty organization was "obsolete" because not enough of its efforts were directed against radical Islamic terrorism.

On Monday, Vice President Mike Pence took the Trump message to NATO headquarters in Brussels. And after all the controversy and complaining, NATO's response could be boiled down to a single sentence: Yes sir, Mr. Trump.

News reports from Pence's news conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg focused on Pence's effort to "reassure" nervous NATO officials that the U.S. will stand behind its treaty commitments. "It is my privilege here at the NATO headquarters to express the strong support of President Trump and the United States of America for NATO and our transatlantic alliance," Pence said. "I can say with confidence, America will do our part."

But at least as newsworthy was what happened next. Pence dropped the hammer of Trump's demands, and NATO quickly went along.

"Europe's defense requires Europe's commitment as much as ours," Pence said. He reminded the group that in 2014 all 28 members of NATO promised to try to spend two percent of their GDP on defense by 2024. Only four countries, in addition to the U.S., are now meeting that standard. As a candidate, Trump repeatedly called for NATO to pay more, Pence noted.

And now Trump is president. "So let me say again what I said this last weekend in Munich," Pence said "The president of the United States and the American people expect our allies to keep their word and to do more in our common defense, and the president expects real progress by the end of 2017. ... It is time for actions, not words."

Just in case anyone missed the message, Pence encouraged the NATO countries that don't spend two percent on defense to accelerate their plans to get there. "And if you don't have a plan," Pence said, "get one."

To which NATO quickly acceded. "I fully support what has been underlined by President Trump and by Vice President Pence today, the importance of burden sharing," Stoltenberg said. "I expect all allies to make good on the promise that we made in 2014 to increase defense spending and to make sure to have a fairer burden of sharing."

On the issue of terrorism, Stoltenberg said yes again. First, he noted that NATO is helping train security forces in Afghanistan and Iraq and is contributing surveillance planes to the fight against the Islamic State. Then he added what Pence wanted to hear: "But we agree that the alliance can, and should do more, in the fight against terrorism."

It's hard to overstate the near-hysteria that met Trump's "fair share" and "obsolete" comments. But the fact is, burden sharing is an old idea, and a non-controversial one. Modernizing NATO's approach in the age of the Islamic State is also eminently reasonable. And now NATO, facing the reality of a Trump presidency, has little choice but to go along.

The bottom line is that Donald Trump moved the NATO debate. After much fretting, and complaining, and denouncing, NATO did the simplest thing: It went along.

Byron York is chief political correspondent for The Washington Examiner.

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NATO to US: Yes sir, Mr. Trump - Meridian Star

Many fear electronic voting machines can be hacked and tampered with.

The hacking campaign around the US presidential election, cyberattacks against Ukrain's power grid, and even the internet crippling Mirai botnet DDoS attack all demonstrate how cyberattacks have grown to threaten the very fabric of society itself, NATO has warned.

Citing the impact of high profile incidents like these, Jamie Shea, deputy assistant secretary general for emerging security challenges at NATO, suggests that hackers aren't just a threat to individuals and organisations, but to the fundamental nature of democracy as a whole.

No smoking gun for Russian DNC hacks

The Russian government may have hacked Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to support Donald Trump's campaign, but there's no hard technical proof.

"Cyber is facilitating more advanced and more effective psychological warfare, information operations, coercion and intimidation attacks. We used to worry about [hackers targeting] banks or credit cards or inconvenience to customers, now we worry about the future of democracy, the stability and health of our institutions," he said, speaking at the European Information Security Summit in London.

Russian-backed interference in the US Presidential election has already caused some other countries to rethink the use of electronic ballot boxes. The Netherlands, for instance, is reverting back to traditional vote tallying by hand due to fears that electronic votes could be manipulated or tampered with.

"It's quite remarkable that the Netherlands is going to have an election and they've decided not to bother with electronic counting. After what happened in the US, the credibility is too risky," said Shea. "We are essentially, with democracy, somewhat losing the faith in the very instruments we've created to spur our economy and spur globalisation."

The attacks against the Democratic National Committee aren't an isolated incident. Shea detailed cases in France and Germany where politicians have been warned of hacking campaigns looking to "destabilise organisations, publicly undermine their reputation, undermine public confidence in the democratic systems and meddle in elections".

German intelligence services have reported attempts to hack into the systems of the Bundestag and the German political parties, while Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French Defence Minister, called all of the French parties together ahead of the Presidential campaign in order provide information about hacks against French political parties.

"Only two sites needed to be hacked in order for Russian intelligence services to acquire compromising data, which they used at judicious points during the campaign to inflict maximum damage," said Shea.

"The threat was not to a bank or an institution or an individual, the threat was to society itself, its ability to function and the trust that we have in the credibility and integrity in our democratic model."

In an effort to combat the threats posed by cyberattacks and hackers, NATO has declared cyber a domain of operation alongside land, air, sea and space. It has also recognised the role it will play in the security of all of those areas, as military equipment and infrastructure will need to be continually updated in order to fight off cyber threats

"All of our current weapons programmes -- whether it be missile defence, joint information reconnaissance, drones, and so on -- have to now retrofit cybersecurity in a way that possibly wasn't planned in the outset," said Shea.

It might be a difficult task to carry out, but NATO must undertake it, to ensure that it has the ability to fight cyber attackers and remain on top.

"There's no doubt that cyber is going to have an impact on our military strategy and if we don't dominate it, then sooner or later an adversary is going to come up with a method to ensure it dominates us," Shea said.

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Cyberattacks threaten democracy itself, warns NATO - ZDNet

Germany is to increase its army by 5,000 soldiers, the country's defence ministry has announced, bringing the total to 198,000 in 2024, at a time when USpressure is mounting on European Nato members to raise military spending.

The German army faces demands like never before, Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement, adding that the army had to be able to respond in an appropriate way to developments abroad and security concerns.

Germany, reluctant for decades after the SecondWorld War to get involved in military missions abroad, has in the last few years become more active in supporting international deployments such as in Afghanistan, Mali and against Islamic State militants.

In January, Germany sent a battlegroup of more than 1,000 to Lithuania as part of a Nato mission to protect its eastern border with Russia in response to its annexation of Crimea and its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine.

It will now dispatch a number of tanks and armoured vehicles to Lithuania to support its existing defence deployment in the country.

On top of the 5,000 extra soldiers, Germany will further add 1,000 civilians posts and about 500 reserves to its ranks at home.

The increase, long flagged by von der Leyen, comes at a time when USPresident Donald Trump is pushing Nato members, especially from Europe, to raise their military spending.

A map showing Nato's military buildup in Eastern Europe (Statista)

The defence alliance in 2014 agreed to end years of defence cuts and meet a target of spending 2 percent of economic output on defence by 2024. German defence spending is currently at 1.22 percent.

A defence ministry spokeswoman said provided the plan goes ahead, the increase would mean additional costs of about 955 million euros ($1.01 billion) per year from 2024.

Reuters

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Germany to expand army and send tanks to Lithuania as Nato ... - The Independent

Islamic preacher Fethullah Glen is pictured at his residence in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania, in 2013. REUTERS.

Ted Malloch, President Trumps presumptive pick to be ambassador to the European Union, has reportedly said that he expects the Trump administration to extradite US-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Glen. Here, for example, is a report from Sabah, a paper which Erdogan confiscated, transferred to his son-in-law, and transformed into the Turkish equivalent of the old Soviet Pravda:

US President Donald Trumps potential pick for EU ambassadorship Ted Malloch said that he believes the new US administration will likely extradite Glenist Terror Group (FET) leader Fetullah Glen, saying the new administration will have better relations with Turkey. Speaking in a live, televised interview on Turkish broadcaster NTV on Monday, Malloch said that he believes, [Trump] will get along really well with President [Recep Tayyip] Erdoan. Malloch went on to say that Turkey is a member of NATO and our strategic partner, while emphasizing the importance of Glens extradition and acknowledging that he was behind the July 15 failed coup attempt. He continued by saying that President Trump and his Turkish counterpart have held very constructive meetings over the phone and may meet in person in the coming months.

It is possible that Malloch is just speculating, projecting his own opinion onto Trump, and/or seeking to ingratiate himself with the Turkish press. If he speaks the truth, however, Trump is on the verge of a huge mistake.

Erdogans obsession with and hatred of Glen has many reasons. The basic fact remains, however: While there is much to criticize with regard to the Glen movements past actions, the Turks have yet to offer any proof that Glen himself was involved in the coup. Some soldiers involved were his followers, but others were not, and some may even have been Erdogan supporters. Many of the deaths on the evening of the coup appear to have been caused by snipers or members of SADAT, an Islamist militia run by the man subsequently appointed Erdogans military counselor.

Sacrificing Glen, however, will not bring Turkey in from the cold. The purge in which Erdogan has engaged has been immense. While the pretext might have been rooting out Glens followers, the reality is that Erdogan has used the purge to target secularists, liberals, and those officers whose training and experience in NATO he believes make them prone to oppose his vision and goals for Turkey.

Heres the problem: To appease Erdogan by extraditing Glen might seem like an easy solution to bilateral strains but, in reality, Erdogan would use his return to affirm to the public the wisdom of his purge and justify the arrests after the fact. In effect, Trump would be handing a death sentence not only to Glen but also to hundreds of officers whose only crime was service in NATO.

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Deporting Glen would undercut NATO - American Enterprise Institute

Edmonton Sun

Canada's commitment to NATO mission in Poland continues Edmonton Sun Since the operation began in May 2014, about 1,600 Canadian troops have rotated through the region to improve "interoperability" between NATO nations and to act as an "assurance and deterrence measure" against Russian aggression in the region. Edmonton-based soldiers head to Poland for NATO missionGlobalnews.ca all 3 news articles »

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Canada's commitment to NATO mission in Poland continues - Edmonton Sun