Daily Archives: June 18, 2022

In the margins of the NATO Defence Ministerial meeting on 16 June, the Ministers of France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom dedicated 26.7 million EUR to define the future of their helicopter fleets under NATOs Next Generation Rotorcraft Capability (NGRC) project. In cooperation with industry, the participants will start from a clean sheet to explore how to match their needs with the latest technology on the market, looking at options such as hybrid and electric propulsion, a systematic open system architecture, and the delivery of radically improved flight characteristics.

This is a clear example of NATO and Allies working together to harness fast-changing technology for the benefit of our military capabilities. By investing our resources and channelling our development through a multinational framework, we are making sure Allies will be equipped with the best available equipment, stressed the NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoan.

Medium multi-role helicopters have a wide range of civilian and military uses, including transportation of people and equipment, medical evacuation, search and rescue. A lot of this type of rotorcraft currently operated by Allies will reach the end of their lifecycle in the years ahead. The NGRC Concept Stage will provide the foundation for Allies to develop and field the next generation of these indispensable workhorses. The NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) will execute the Concept Stage on behalf of the participants.

The NGRC constitutes one of NATOs multinational High Visibility Projects and demonstrates NATO Allies commitment to maintain a technological edge and to pursue multinational cooperation.

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Six Allies to explore innovative solutions for their future helicopters - NATO HQ

As the military conflict in Ukraine bogs down on a slice of the embattled nations eastern and southern periphery, the geopolitical shift sparked by Russias Feb. 24 invasion keeps gaining new ground. This week, it emerged that the leaders of Japan and South Korea will attend a NATO summit, as observers, for the first time. Its another sign of Western-style democracies teaming up to meet the bellicose challenge of Moscow and the growing global assertiveness of Beijing.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced on Wednesday that he would attend the June 28-30 gathering of the 30-strong military alliance in Madrid. The attendance of South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol was confirmed earlier by his presidential office. Both leaders have legitimate reasons to consider their nations threatened by Russian aggression. Japan has a sea border and is locked in territorial disputes with Russia. The Kremlins historic backing of North Korea is meanwhile a perennial security concern for Seoul.

Commenting on his historic visit, Kishida told reporters that he intended to highlight common security concerns in Europe and Asia. As the only Asian country in the G7, Japans diplomatic capabilities are being tested, he said.

Read More: Bidens Moves on NATO Come Amid Fears Russia Will Expand Its War Past Ukraine

The news is a geopolitical blow to Russian President Vladmir Putin. Already, formerly neutral European nations Finland and Sweden have applied to join the bloc, while Denmark recently voted to align with the E.U. on defense matters. The presence of Kishida and Yoon in Madrid is also an unwelcome development for Beijing, which has refused to condemn Moscow for the war, arguing, as many Western thinkers have, that Russia was provoked by NATOs eastward expansion.

Mieko Nakabayashi, a professor at Tokyos Waseda University and a former Japanese lawmaker, says that Kishidas attendance at the meeting is a turning point for Japan, which still officially has a pacifist constitution. Japanese people realize the world is changing and Japan is pretty vulnerable, she says. The Ukraine war was so incomprehensible for many Japanese people that it served as a wake-up call. The decline of American hegemony has convinced Japanese people that just being with the U.S. is not safe enough.

As a result, Asias delicate security architecture may now be in the process of change. At the Shangri-la Dialogue security summit in Singapore on June 11, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III insisted we do not seek a new Cold War, an Asian NATO, or a region split into hostile blocs.

Critics say thats exactly what NATO risks by expanding its remit beyond a European security mission.

Japanese airborne troops take part in a military review in suburban Tokyo on Oct. 14, 2018.

YOSHIKAZU TSUNO/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

Over the last few weeks, Kishida has hosted a summit of the Quad security dialoguealongside the U.S., Australia and Indiaand given the keynote speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue, warning I myself have a strong sense of urgency that Ukraine today may be East Asia tomorrow.

Had this outreach been made by Japans hawkish former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Nakabayashi says there probably would have been more domestic pushback. However, Kishida is perceived as being more dovish than Abe and his rhetoric on defense has more credibility. Already, Japan has promised to boost defense spending to 2% of GDP in line with NATO targets, with Abe saying the nation would be a laughing stock if it didnt.

To be clear, South Korea has had extremely robust relations with Moscow, driven chiefly by economics and the confluence of South Koreas New Northern Policy and Russias Turn to the East. Seoul didnt impose its own sanctions against Moscow in response to the 2014 annexation of Crimea. But a tilt towards NATO risks upsetting that mutually beneficial detente. South Koreas spy agency has already joined NATOs cyber defense unit.

If South Korea is going to burn those bridges with Moscow, Im concerned that the situation could escalate in the Korean peninsula with Russia playing a more robust role to support Pyongyang, says Lyle Goldstein, director for Asia engagement at the Washington D.C.-based Defense Priorities think tank and a visiting professor at Brown University. No doubt, Pyongyang is one of the big winners in the whole Ukraine war.

The perception in Beijing is that Tokyo and Seouls participation in Madrid is directed at China. NATO is headed by the United States, says Zhou Bo, a retired PLA senior colonel and senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University. Therefore, if the United States concludes that China is a more serious threat than Russia, then of course it will just make use of NATO.

Read More: Bidens Vow to Defend Taiwan If China Invaded Is Risky

China has previously enjoyed friendly relations with NATO, frequently partnering with the bloc on joint exercises like anti-piracy missions in the Gulf of Aden. In addition, NATO delegations have attended the influential Xiangshan Forum in Beijing and engaged in many official exchanges.

Yet NATOs attitude to China is turning more hostile. Zhou, who during his PLA career was for a period in charge of relations with NATO, says that the bloc used to describe China as an opportunity, but under U.S. direction has tellingly shifted to using the term challenge.

The irony is the U.S. actually poses a problem for NATO member states, because most of them are European countries still friendly with China, says Zhou. These are just countries wearing too many hats in different capacities.

While Goldstein says there are positives to Japan and South Korea taking their own defense more seriously, he cautions that coalescing a bloc of Asian allies with China on the outside risks recreating the same alienating circumstances for China that Russia felt preceding the Ukraine war.

One of the problems with European security is that it increasingly became purely about trying to deter Russia, which became convinced that it was on the outside and had nothing to lose in using force, says Goldstein.

The nightmare scenario in East Asia is that China decides they have nothing to gain from actively participating in this [security] architecture so they basically have to destroy the architecture.

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Write to Charlie Campbell at charlie.campbell@time.com.

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Here's Why Japan and South Korea Are Attending a NATO Summit - TIME

President Joe Biden in a new interview with the Associated Press said that Russian President Vladimir Putin's goal of preventing NATO expansion by invading Ukraine backfired.

"The reason Putin said he was going to go in was because he didn't want them to join NATO," Biden said. "He wanted the sort of the Finlandization of NATO. He got the NATO-ization of Finland, instead."

Finlandization is a term that refers to the state of relations between Finland and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. During that era, Finland agreed to remain neutral and militarily non-aligned in return for the USSR, its dominating neighbor, pledging not to invade. The Finns and Soviets fought a short but brutal war during World War II known as the Winter War, which saw Finland lose a significant chunk of its territory. Finland wanted to avoid another invasion and maintain its sovereigtny, which is why it agreed to remain neutral. That said, Moscow had a significant influence over Helsinki's politics over the course of that period.

Finland became a NATO partner country after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but stopped short of pursuing full membership. But Russia's unprovoked war of Ukraine rapidly changed that, and Finland alongside Sweden, another historically neutral country has moved to join NATO. The alliance is now working to add the Nordic countries to its ranks, but objections from Turkey have stalled the process. Any decisions on NATO enlargement require unanimous agreement from all current members, who pledge that an attack on one is an attack on all.

In the lead-up to the invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin demanded that the West agree to various security guarantees. This included permanently barring Ukraine and Georgia another former Soviet republic Russia has invaded in recent history from joining NATO. The alliance firmly rejected this demand, maintaining that its open-door policy was non-negotiable.

Finland and Sweden pursuing NATO membership is one of the more significant examples of the ways in which Russia's invasion of Ukraine has backfired on Putin.

But that does not mean the war has not also been tough on the West, which rapidly came together to impose tough sanctions on Moscow in response to the invasion. The economic fallout from the conflict has raised questions as to whether the Western alliance can maintain the political will to continue its support for Kyiv and penalties against Moscow.

The war has caused a global oil crisis, and the rising gas prices on top of high inflation have placed pressure on Biden with midterms on the horizon late this year. But in the interview with the Associated Press, the president said that the consequences of supporting Kyiv were worth it.

"Gasoline went up...$1.25 right off the bat" when "Putin's war started," Biden said, adding "I made it clear with helping Ukraine, and organizing NATO to help Ukraine, that this was going to cost. There was going to be a price to pay for it."

"This is not going to be cost-free" Biden said, but added that "the option of doing nothing was worse" and would have sowed "chaos in Europe."

"What happens if the strongest power, NATO, an organizational structure we put together, walked away from Russian aggression of over 100,000 troops marching across a border to try to, to occupy and wipe out a culture of an entire people? What, then, then what happens? What happens next? What do we do next?" Biden said, suggesting that if the West had not stepped up then it would've raised the chances of Russia targeting other countries in the region.

Biden also suggested standing by as Russia invaded would've sent dangerous signals to China about Taiwan, as well as North Korea in terms of its nuclear ambitions.

"I've done foreign policy my whole career. I'm convinced that if we let Russia roll and Putin roll, he wouldn't stop," Biden said.

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Biden: Putin wanted 'Finlandization of NATO' but got 'NATO-ization of Finland' - Business Insider

With rifts busting out among European allies over the war in Ukraine, the touted unity of NATO is looking tattered.

Leading the parade of disunion is Germany, despite its self-declared psychological turning point regarding getting involved in conflict after Russias February invasion of Ukraine. Chancellor Olaf Scholz is declining to provide heavy armaments and dithering over other weapons Kyiv says it needs.

Poland, whose eastern border touches Ukraine, fears that Germany, along with France and Italy, might ask Ukraine to make territorial concessions in return for peace. The leaders of the three were meeting Thursday with Ukraines President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev.

Polish President Andrzej Dud has raised the specter of Western appeasement, in the style of Europes notorious concession of Czechoslovakian territory to Nazi Germany in advance of World War II.

Zelensky is adamant about keeping Ukraine whole.

The three Baltic states all of which were once Soviet republics fear that economic costs to Europe due to the sanctions placed on trade with Moscow might outweigh the Wests declared determination to help Ukraine.

Our goal must be for Putin to lose the war, Krisjanis Karins, Latvias prime minister, told the Financial Times. If its going to take some time, its worth it. In the West, we pay with our wallets. The Ukrainians are paying with their lives.

Clear planning on how to deter Putin seems out of the questions. Domestic politics and fears of a wider war get in the way.

For almost two months after Russia invaded Ukraine, France kept secret its delivery of light rockets to Ukraine. President Emmanuel Macron feared upsetting anti-intervention voters in advance of presidential elections, which he won. Macron also refuses a long-standing request from Spain to construct a natural gas pipeline to eastern Europe that could ease dependence on Russian energy.

Meanwhile, Italy, which is ruled by a government that is divided among supporters of Russia and others that back Ukraine, speaks only in vague terms about the need for peace talks. Prime Minister Mario Draghi declines to specify exactly what weaponry his country is providing the Ukrainians.

Germany, France and Italy are all the object of suspicion among their neighbors to the east. Macron, Scholz, and Draghi visited Kiev Thursday for talks with Zelensky.

Poland expressed exasperation about the visit. I am bewildered given all these talks with Putin at the moment, said President Andrzej Duda. They only lead to a legitimization of a person who is responsible for the crimes that the Russian army is committing in Ukraine

Its been remarkable that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, with 32 members that possess differing concerns, has helped keep Ukraines outgunned army afloat with weaponry. The notion that three Western non-frontline states somehow speak for the continent irks Eastern Europe.

Duda rejects treating Putin as a reputable negotiating partner. Did anyone talk to Adolf Hitler like this during the Second World War? Did anyone say that Adolf Hitler must save face? That we should act in a way that is not humiliating for Adolf Hitler? Duda said to Bild, the German newspaper.

Germanys position inspires the most doubts. Is Germany unwilling to put its weight behind Ukraine because of its post-WWII pacifism? According to Der Spiegel magazine, Scholz refuses to supply tanks to Ukraine for fear they might cross into Russia and revive memories of Hitlers eastward invasion.

Or is it simply a comfortable device that leaves the heavy lifting to US and smaller NATO members, all the better to leave unsullied its commercial business with Russia to resume at a later date?

Part of the German economic sector doesnt care at all about what happens to Ukraine, complained Duda. They say: We want to do business and earn money.

Although Germany seemed to have shed its myopic view of Russia after the February 24 invasion, it took three days for Scholz to publicly react with anger and begin to provide military aid to Ukraine. Until February 27, the Germans had decided only to provide 5,000 military helmets.

Scholz was prompted to deliver arms after the Netherlands asked permission to send German-made anti-tank weapons by train across Germany. The request highlighted the German unwillingness to do the same.

Scholz ordered up a shipment of a few hundred anti-tank rocket launchers and Stinger surface-to-air missiles, to send them by land to Poland. Then he made his turning point speech.

Unsure about what to do next, he ordered an analysis from Germanys foreign intelligence office, which apparently said more weapons were useless in the face of Russias more numerous arms and troop levels. In particular, heavy weapons, including tanks, were precluded from consideration.

More weapons were eventually promised, but what Germany actually delivered is secret and what is known is sometimes fogged by confusion.

Germany continues to resist calls to supply tanks and other armored vehicles. In May, Scholz told a parliamentary committee that tanks created questions of risks and military efficiency but then stopped short of ruling them out forever.

And instead of providing heavy fighting vehicles vehicles from its arsenal directly to Ukraine, Germany agreed to replenish supplies of such weapons sent by other countries notably Estonia, Czech Republic and Poland.

Last month, when the US decided to send medium-range missiles to Ukraine, the Germans again moved to at least provide token new supplies this time four MARS II multiple rocket launchers and ultra-modern IRIS-T SLM air-to-air systems. But a week ago, Germany said the MARS was not being sent due to some technical problem it would take months to fix. Now its been reported that theres to be a partial shipment eventually but it may not arrive before November.

Frankly speaking, we are not surprised by another refusal, because despite all the promises from the beginning of a full-scale invasion, Germany has supplied Ukraine with zero samples of heavy weapons, wrote Mezha.Media, a Ukrainian information technology website.

NATO leaders are scheduled to meet at the end of this month in Madrid. Zelensky is going to speak and will have a chance to repeat his frequent appeals for heavier, long range weapons.

US President Joe Biden, Ukraines biggest weapons benefactor, is expected to attend. But is he already making excuses just in case Ukraine loses?

Earlier this month, Biden suggested that Zelensky had failed to heed wisdom from Biden himself, offered before February 24. I know a lot of people thought I was maybe exaggerating, but I knew [Putin] was going to go in, he told a group of well-heeled donors in Los Angeles. There was no doubt and Zelensky didnt want to hear it.

The statement seemed to ignore the fact that Ukraine had been training its troops with US and NATO help since 2014, when Russia conquered Crimea over a space of three days.

In any event, Zelensky wasnt willing to take the fall. Spokesman Serhiy Nykyforov responded by saying that, before the war, the Ukrainian president had asked Biden at least three times to place preventive economic sanctions on Russia before fighting broke out. Therefore, the phrase did not want to hear probably needs clarification, Nykyforov said testily.

On Tuesday, Biden announced plans to provide Ukraine with $1 billion worth of anti-ship missiles and other weapons. But the US has refused to deliver long-range missiles the Ukrainians say they desperately need to counter Russias long-range arsenal.

Just as Scholz fears Ukrainians would drive German tanks into Russia, so does the United States worry that Ukraine would bombard Russia with Washington-supplied missiles and set off a wider war.

That means Ukraine has no counter to Russias bombardments of towns and cities all over Ukraine. Russia said Thursday one such missile hit a depot of NATO arms in western Ukraine.

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Germany's the weak link in teetering NATO - Asia Times

During a recent visit to Iceland, the Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday emphasized the islands importance to North Atlantic and Arctic security.

Iceland is the geostrategic linchpin for NATO in the Arctic region and I am grateful for their partnership and collaboration, said Gilday in a U.S. Navy statement. The Arctic is an opportunity to work collaboratively with Allies and partners to keep this a secure and stable region, and we are committed to working together to address challenges and strengthen our collective deterrent against strategic challenges, he continued.

Located in the far north, Iceland is an important refueling location for NATO aircraft and a vital port for allied ships transiting the northern Atlantic Ocean. Its a confident feeling to be aware of a great ally with large-scale resources available to back up and assist the Icelandic Coast Guard when and if the scope of its challenges exceeds the capability of the organization and the Icelandic safety system on the ocean around Iceland, said Director General of Icelandic Coast Guard, Rear Admiral Georg Kristinn Lrusson. It is also very beneficial to receive training, education, and development assistance in fields in which the Iceland Coast Guard is not fully developed.

The island also forms an important part of the GIUK Gap, a naval choke point in the North Atlantic, midway between Greenland and the United Kingdom. NATO effectively exploited this choke point during the Cold War, building a gauntlet of acoustic listening devices to listen for and monitor Soviet submarines transitioning the Norwegian Sea for the Atlantic Ocean.

The Navys role has never been more consequential or more expansive, and we need a combat credible naval force that can protect our interests in peace and can prevail in combat, while supporting our Allies and partners, said Adm. Gilday. The Sailors here in Iceland are just that, they remain postured, and ready, with a credible force to assure, deter, and defend in an increasingly complex security environment, which is possible because of the support and partnership we have with Iceland.

With war raging in Europe, the importance of Iceland and the GIUK Gap is once again at the forefront of NATO concerns, a fact reflected in recent military exercises involving the island nation. In April, the U.S. and Icelandic navies conducted the Northern Viking 2022 exercise, an interoperability and command-and-control exercise that focused on the defense of Iceland as well as maintaining communication and sea lines in the GIUK Gap.

Caleb Larson is a multimedia journalist and defense writer with the National Interest. A graduate of UCLA, he also holds a Master of Public Policy and lives in Berlin. He covers the intersection of conflict, security, and technology, focusing on American foreign policy, European security, and German society for both print and radio. Follow him on Twitter @calebmlarson

Image: DVIDS.

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NATO Reliance On Iceland Grows Amidst War in Ukraine - The National Interest Online

The Orbn administration changed its mind on a crucial issue. According to a government decree published on March 7, NATO could deploy armed forces only in Dunntl (Transdanubia) in Hungary. However, the administration modified that this Tuesday but did not explain why.

Mfor.huspotted first that the Hungarian government modified the regulation on NATO armed force deployment in the country. The military alliance, which Hungary has been a member of since 1999, had permission to deploy troops in Hungarys Transdanubia until this Tuesday.

Based on a March 7 government decree,

NATO was allowed to cross Hungary on land or air.

Furthermore, they were permitted to deploy arms and armed forces in the Transdanubia. However, that decree was in effect for only three months. From this Tuesday on, the Hungarian government allows NATO to have armed forces everywhere in Hungary. That means the military alliance can perform movements, training, drills, and deploy troops anywhere in Hungary.

444.huwrote that the government did not give an explanation why they changed their previous regulation. However, the media outlet reminded us that the Orbn administration insisted on strengthening Eastern European NATO battlegroups during the last session of the Bucharest Nine. NATO Secretary-Generalannouncedyesterday that they would do so.

The new Hungarian rule means that NATO may deploy troops near the Ukrainian-Hungarian border.

Portfolio.hureported that American and Hungarian troops started a joint military exercise at a training base in Hajdhadhz on Wednesday.Defence minister Kristf Szalay-Bobrovniczky said there that soldiers in the region had the dual task of carrying out humanitarian activities while also protecting the borders of Hungary. Hungary, as a NATO member, can rely on its allies in fulfilling these tasks, he said.

Szalay-Bobrovniczky said that there were domestic and international exercises, joint training and preparation events and tasks each year which involved soldiers from NATO member countries arriving in Hungary. Protecting the security of Hungarians is a priority for the government, and the Hungarian and US soldiers carryingout joint patrols under the arrangements of NATO also serve this purpose, he said, noting that Hungarian and US soldiers serve together in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Featured image: US military vehicles in Hajdhadhz.

Source: 444.hu, Npszava, mfor.hu, DNH

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What are they up to? NATO can deploy troops anywhere in Hungary! - dailynewshungary.com