Category Archives: NATO

The head of NATO said on Sunday that he absolutely believes President Trump is committed to the historic alliance.

The president stated that he is committed to NATO and his security team has also stated that very clearly, Jens Stoltenberg, the organizations secretary-general, said on CBS Face the Nation.

Trump rankled the NATO members during their summit in Brussels on May 25 when he lectured the leaders for not paying their fair share to bolster their defense and declined to endorse the treatys Article 5 that says that an attack on one is an attack on all.

In the organizations 68 year history, it was been invoked only once after Sept. 11, 2001.

But UN Ambassador Nikki Haley said Trump supports the mutual assistance pledge.

Of course we believe in Article 5, Haley told CNNs State of the Union. I just met with all of my NATO ambassadors yesterday. We said a threat on one of us is a threat on all of us.

She said that despite Russias efforts to divide member nations, NATO will remain unified.

NATO is going to continue to be strong. Its going to continue to be united. Russias going to try and divide it, but the truth is weve never swayed from Article 5. We honestly still believe it, she said.

Asked about Trump scolding NATO member leaders about not meeting their obligations to increase spending on their defense, Haley said the president was just reminding them of their need to support the organization.

His intent was to make sure that the burden sharing was happening, Haley added.

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Head of NATO: I believe Trump is committed to alliance - New York Post

Montenegro will take a giant step toward integrating with the West when it officially becomes the 29th member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) at a ceremony in Washington on June 5.

The small Balkan country is joining at a time when the alliance -- created to counter Soviet aggression -- looks to curb Russian attempts to increase its influence in Eastern Europe.

Prime Minister Dusko Markovic is to officially hand over Montenegros accession instrument at a ceremony at noon in the U.S. capital.

Montenegro's flag is to fly over NATO headquarters in Brussels for the first time on June 7.

Montenegro has achieved a "civilizational turning point, attaching itself to the Western system of values," a government statement said in announcing the ceremony.

Nestled on the Adriatic Sea between Croatia and Albania, tiny Montenegro and its $69 million annual defense budget may appear to have little military value.

Its army of some 2,000 soldiers will barely make a ripple in NATO forces, but its 293-kilometer coastline is a strategic parcel of real estate -- the penultimate piece in the Adriatic puzzle.

With the former Yugoslav republic securely in the fold, NATO will control the entire coast of the Adriatic, from the heel of Italy's boot to the rugged shores of Greece, except for a 20-kilometer stretch of land held by Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Montenegros accession "reaffirms to other aspirants that NATOs door remains open to those countries willing and able to make the reforms necessary to meet NATOs high standards, and to accept the risks, responsibilities, as well as benefits of membership," the U.S. State Department said in a statement.

Montenegros accession also marks the end of a long and often arduous road to membership that the Kremlin has repeatedly tried to derail.

Moscow has said in various contexts that Podgorica's NATO course runs counter to hundreds of years of "fraternal relations" between the two mostly Slavic, Orthodox Christian nations.

Russia also wields considerable economic power, as it is the largest investor and an estimated 7,000 Russian nationals permanently reside in the nation of about 620,000.

Russians own about 40 percent of the country's desirable Adriatic Sea coast and Russian tourists account for as much as one-third of overnight visits in Montenegro.

Despite all its saber rattling, analysts said it is unlikely Moscow will take any real action over Montenegros accession.

"The Kremlin isn't ready to commit significant resources to keep Montenegro out of the U.S. orbit," said Maksim Samorukov, an analyst at the Moscow Carnegie Center.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg will also participate in the Washington ceremony to welcome Montenegro as the alliances newest member.

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In Giant Step Toward West, Montenegro Joining NATO On June 5 - RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty

In his weekly address, Donald Trump praised Saudi Arabia for fighting extremism in the region and said he was the one to make North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) members spend more on defence.

He said he was responsible for the 28 members of the military alliance "to do more and pay their fair share" to fight terrorism during his visit to the Brussels meeting.

He also praised Saudi Arabia for opening a centre on fighting extremism in the region but ignored the fact that members of the royal family have been found to funnel money to extremists and terror groups as well as the country's dominant faith in the Wahhabism branch of Islam which many see as extreme.

This is why several Muslim groups argued that though Saudi Arabia contains the holy pilgrimage site of Mecca, it is not a true representation of the diversity of the faith globally despite what the White House touted.

Mr Trump also claimed that he created "hundreds of thousands of American jobs" during his Saudi Arabia visit. He failed to mention in the weekly address that this is through one of the largest arms deals in US history - to the tune of $350bn over ten years - and the jobs created would be "highlyskilled" per defence contractor Lockheed Martin.

He has touted this fact as if they are the manufacturing and lower skill jobs he repeatedly promised to bring back to economically disadvantaged parts of the US.

Some have argued that US arms sales are a net positive for the US in terms of jobs and influence, however the terms of the deal

Mr Trump described his nine-day trip which included visits to Israel, Italy, and the Vatican as well as an "unprecedented success".

Mr Trump also claimed that he was the catalyst for getting members of Nato spend more on defence to make it more "fair" for the US.

Of the 28 members of the military alliance, only five are meeting the pledge to spend four per cent of GDP on military and defence.

However, Mr Trump kept referring to the increase in spending as "contributions" to the 28-member military alliance, which is not how the organisation operates. Members do not contribute to a common fund to be redistributed to other members.

They spend on defence what they deem necessary for national and regional security and the alliance serves as an important vehicle for in-theatre coordination among militaries.

This was especially true when allies responded to help the US and lost soldiers in Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11th attacks, a fact Mr Trump did not acknowledge during his speech at the summit.

World leaders did not feel Mr Trump's trip was all that successful.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel commented that Europeans can longer rely on the US after Mr Trump returned to the US. Pope Francis had a sour look on his face during his meeting with Mr Trump according to official pictures and presented the President with a 2015 papal letter in which the pontiff explained in nearly 200 pages the need to fight climate change.

Emmanuel Macron, the newly-elected French President, had a tense and awkward handshake with Mr Trump ahead of the Nato summit making it clear the pair did not have a friendly relationship. Mr Macron believed that Mr Trump openly supported the French leaders extreme right wing opponent, Marine Le Pen.

Mr Trump also shoved Duko Markovi, the Prime Minister of Montenegro, during a photo opportunity at the Nato summit. Mr Markovic, whose country is the newest member of the alliance,called it a "harmless situation" but it proved to be an embarrassment on the world stage for Mr Trump.

The US president has also received nearly global criticism for his withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on climate change this past week, which he did not mention in his weekly address.

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Donald Trump praises Saudi Arabia and claims he put Nato nations ... - The Independent

Alexander Shcherbak/TASS

MOSCOW, June 5. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that he will discuss with his Belarussian counterpart Vladimir Makey coordinated action in relations with NATO in the wake of the latest decisions taken at the alliances summit.

"We are going to discuss with NATO coordinated action in relations with the North Atlantic Alliance," he said. "In the wake of the latest NATO summits we have to state that the attempts being made to change the existing balance of force in Europe, the alliances military buildup, which is unprecedented since the end of the Cold War, and the growing scale of military training activity, just as the continuing efforts to build a US missile defense destabilize the situation in Europe."

Lavrov said such policies "contradict decisions adopted by the OSCE and Russia-NATO summits on creating an integral space of peace, security and stability in the Euroatlantic region and directly affect the national interests of Russia and Belarus. "Concerted action by our countries, including those within the CSTO, where Belarus holds the rotating presidency this year, acquires special importance," he stated.

Vladimir Makei said the deployment of missile defense elements in Europe and the reinforcement of the NATO eastern flank are undermining the strategic balance of forces in this region.

"The deployment of missile defense elements in Europe and the reinforcement of NATOs eastern flank are becoming the factors that provoke the disruption of the strategic balance of forces and, largely speaking, a new arms race," the minister said.

The argumentation of such actions is well-known and the alliance polishes it fromsummitto summit, he said. "But this does not make it look any more convincing,"Makeisaid. "Mildly speaking, NATO does not want to see an equitable partner in Russia today," the Belarusian foreign minister said.

"This sharply narrows variants for cooperation and leads to the persistence of the high level of tension in the region," he said.

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Lavrov believes NATO buildup destabilizes Europe - TASS

Washington Post

Trump's NATO Bombast Gets Us Where Statesmanship Can't - The ... New York Times Whither NATO is probably the greatest snoozer headline of the past half-century. It has been used on editorials, op-ed articles, think-tank reports anyplace ... Trump on NATO funding: Still misleading after months of fact checksWashington Post Real victim of Trump's NATO outburst: The USPOLITICO.eu It's Long Past Time for Our NATO Allies to Meet Their Defense-Spending CommitmentsNational Review New York Post -Boulder Daily Camera -The Hill (blog) all 2,471 news articles »

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Trump's NATO Bombast Gets Us Where Statesmanship Can't - The ... - New York Times

Michael Kappeler/dpa/picture-alliance/NewscomBoth Trump and his mainstream critics are wrong about trade and NATO, writes Sheldon Richman. And Trump's cluelessness is no help whatever in making the case against NATO and all such alliances. He is both a NATO critic and a liability to the anti-NATO argument.

Trump, in keeping with his absurd aggrieved-America shtick, would have us believe that western Europe free-rides off the American taxpayers. The taxpayers are indeed victimized, argues Richman, but the victimizer is Amerca's ruling elite and its bipartisan imperial foreign policy.

NATO was never about protecting western Europe, writes Richman. Rather, it had (and still has) two other purposes: first, to give a multilateral mantle to essentially unilateral U.S. imperial actions; and second, to prevent other countries from forging their own peaceful bilateral relations with, previously, the Soviet Union and now Russia.

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Trump Is A Liability to the Anti-NATO Argument: New at Reason - Reason (blog)

News & Observer

Trump sets back NATO and deterrence News & Observer So what if, in his speech last week to NATO, President Donald Trump didn't explicitly reaffirm the provision that an attack on one is an attack on all? What's the big deal? Didn't he affirm a general commitment to NATO during his visit? Hadn't he ... How Trump has turned his back on Europe and NATORaw Story US Accused of Shortchanging NATO as Spain Reacts to Trump SpatBloomberg NATO Summit underscores Durable AllianceThe Commercial Appeal Reuters -CNBC all 147 news articles »

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Trump sets back NATO and deterrence - News & Observer

Arthur I. Cyr, Guest Columnist 6:00 a.m. CT June 3, 2017

In the Middle East, the enemies of our enemy are enemies.(Photo: Scott Olson, Getty Images)

The NATO summit in Brussels on May 25 has received relatively little attention, thanks to the crowded schedule of President Donald Trumps visit to the Middle East and Europe.

The diplomatic whirlwind commenced with the Arab Islamic American Summit in Riyadh Saudi Arabia. Leaders from 55 nations addressed the threat of terrorism. The NATO summit was followed almost immediately by a meeting of the G7, comprised of the worlds principal industrial nations, in Taormina Italy. Main agenda item was the continuing debt problems of Greece.

The brief Brussels meeting nevertheless contained heavy symbolism. Remnants of the Berlin Wall, and World Trade Center destroyed in the 9/11 attacks, were dedicated.

The NATO meeting probably will prove the most significant, simply by confirming the solid durability of the alliance. NATO demonstrates unity, and these summits are positive for international stability, especially long-term. The media should focus on these realities.

Warsaw Poland was the site for the May 2016 NATO summit, which linked the present with the past. Invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany in 1939 sparked World War II in Europe.

The Warsaw delegates agreed to commit troops to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. Montenegro was formally invited to join NATO.

NATO also underscored commitment to Afghanistan, confirming involvement there until 2020. The senior civilian NATO representative in the country at that time was Turkeys diplomat Ismail Aramaz. This is a particularly important point, given Turkeys crucial front-line position against the Islamic State, and Ankaras vexed relationship with the rest of Europe and the U.S.

British voters narrow but clear decision to leave the EU has generated alarm, notably among business executives as well as politicians and civil servants. They fear economic instability and even recession may result. So far, these fears have not by realized, except for the decline in value of the British pound.

One important neglected point is that Britains long-term role as military leader in Europe and the wider Atlantic area will probably be reinforced. Starting with World War I, Britain has encouraged United States engagement with Europe, in military and also economic terms. Creation of NATO followed a series of more limited steps, preliminary building-blocks on which the final structure was created.

Article 51 of the United Nations Charter explicitly supports collective self-defense. In March 1947, representatives of Britain and France signed the Treaty of Dunkirk. The main perceived potential threat at that time was Germany. The text of the treaty stated the signatory nations would protect one another from any threat arising from the adoption by Germany of aggression ....

By then, severe strains were growing between the Western allies and the Soviet Union. In March 1948, the Dunkirk alliance was widened into the Brussels Pact. The resulting Western Union included Belgium, Britain, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, and was a positive precursor to the European Economic Community established in the following decade.

Britain steadily fostered cross-Atlantic military cooperation as the Cold War developed. Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin kept the far left of his Labour Party at bay. He was effective in dealing with European leaders in forging the European Coal and Steel Community and forming NATO. Institutional collaboration was reinforced by interpersonal dynamics, starting with Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt in World War II.

NATO continues to provide transatlantic cooperation. The current Britain-U.S. rift over publication of Manchester bombing photos by The New York Times is especially unfortunate.

Arthur I. Cyr is Clausen Distinguished Professor at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He can be reached at acyr@carthage.edu

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NATO Summit underscores Durable Alliance - The Commercial Appeal

So what if, in his speech last week to NATO, Donald Trump didnt explicitly reaffirm the provision that an attack on one is an attack on all?

Whats the big deal? Didnt he affirm a general commitment to NATO during his visit? Hadnt he earlier sent his vice president and secretaries of state and defense to pledge allegiance to Article 5?

And anyway, who believes that the United States would really go to war with Russia and risk nuclear annihilation over Estonia?

Ah, but thats precisely the point. It is because deterrence is so delicate, so problematic, so literally unbelievable that it is not to be trifled with. And why for an American president to gratuitously undermine what little credibility deterrence already has, by ostentatiously refusing to recommit to Article 5, is so shocking.

Deterrence is inherently a barely believable bluff. Even at the height of the Cold War, when highly resolute presidents, such as Eisenhower and Kennedy, threatened Russia with massive retaliation (i.e., all-out nuclear war), would we really have sacrificed New York for Berlin?

No one knew for sure. Not Eisenhower, not Kennedy, not the Soviets, not anyone. Yet that very uncertainty was enough to stay the hand of any aggressor and keep the peace of the world for 70 years.

Deterrence does not depend on 100 percent certainty that the other guy will go to war if you cross a red line. Given the stakes, merely a chance of that happening can be enough. For 70 years, it was enough.

Leaders therefore do everything they can to bolster it. Install tripwires, for example. During the Cold War, we stationed troops in Germany to face the massive tank armies of Soviet Russia. Today we have 28,000 troops in South Korea, 12,000 near the demilitarized zone.

Why? Not to repel invasion. They couldnt. Theyre not strong enough. To put it very coldly, theyre there to die. Theyre a deliberate message to the enemy that if you invade our ally, you will have to kill a lot of Americans first. Which will galvanize us into full-scale war against you.

Tripwires are risky, dangerous and cynical. Yet we resort to them because parchment promises are problematic and tripwires imply automaticity. We do what we can to strengthen deterrence.

Rhetorically as well. Which is why presidents from Truman on have regularly and powerfully reaffirmed our deterrent pledge to NATO. Until Trump.

His omission was all the more damaging because of his personal history. This is a man chronically disdainful of NATO. He campaigned on its obsolescence. His inaugural address denounced American allies as cunning parasites living off American wealth and generosity. One of Trumps top outside advisers, Newt Gingrich, says that Estonia is in the suburbs of St. Petersburg, as if Russian designs on the Baltic states are not at all unreasonable.

Moreover, Trump devoted much of that very same speech, the highlight of his first presidential trip to NATO, to berating the allies for not paying their fair share. Nothing particularly wrong with that, or new half a century ago Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield was so offended by NATO free riding that he called for major reductions of U.S. troops in Europe.

Thats an American perennial. But if youre going to berate, at least reassure as well. Especially given rising Russian threats and aggression. Especially given that Trumps speech was teed up precisely for such reassurance. An administration official had spread the word that he would use the speech to endorse Article 5. And it was delivered at a ceremony honoring the first and only invocation of Article 5 ironically enough, by the allies in support of America after 9/11.

And yet Trump deliberately, defiantly refused to simply say it: America will always honor its commitment under Article 5.

Its not that, had Trump said the magic words, everyone would have 100 percent confidence we would strike back if Russia were to infiltrate little green men into Estonia, as it did in Crimea. But Trumps refusal to utter those words does lower whatever probability Vladimir Putin might attach to America responding with any seriousness to Russian aggression against a NATO ally.

Angela Merkel said Sunday (without mentioning his name) that after Trumps visit it is clear that Europe can no longer rely on others. Its not that yesterday Europe could fully rely and today it cannot rely at all. Its simply that the American deterrent has been weakened. And deterrence weakened is an invitation to instability, miscalculation, provocation and worse.

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Trump Has Weakened America, NATO - Lynchburg News and Advance

The leader of the next European Union presidency says that several EU nations which were publicly scolded by U.S. President Donald Trump about their defense expenditure will be reaching a key NATO target next year.

Estonian Prime Minister Juri Ratas said in an interview with The Associated Press on Friday that NATO nations spending 2 percent of gross domestic product could almost double from the current five to possibly nine by the end of 2018, including two other Baltic nations, Latvia and Lithuania.

Pressed by a United States taking on most of the spending in the 28-nation alliance, NATO set the 2-percent target for its members to move toward by 2024.

Estonia, Britain, Poland and Greece are already hitting the mark. Some barely spent about half that up to a few years ago.

"The most important is the message that we all are, little bit, but we are going to catch this 2 percentage level," Ratas said.

Trump insisted at a NATO summit last week that 2 percent was a bare minimum and lashed out at those European nations that he believes have been dragging their heels, arguing it was unfair to the United States.

The latest U.S. figures put its defense spending at 3.2 percent of GDP. The latest NATO figures for major EU nations are 0.91 percent for Spain, 1.11 percent for Italy, 1.19 percent for Germany and 1.78 percent for France.

The discrepancy was a hot debating point at the NATO summit dinner last week, Ratas said.

"Some very big states from Europe, they said during this dinner that the next three or four years we will have this level for the defense expenditure," Ratas said. He did not elaborate.

Ratas will take over the rotating six-month EU presidency at the end of the month, and the 28-nation bloc has been stressing that the defense capabilities of EU nations should improve and that cooperation should be streamlined to cut out wasteful spending overlaps.

With Estonia and several other NATO nations bordering an increasingly belligerent Russia, many had been hoping that Trump would again public commit to NATO's "all for one, one for all" Article 5 in case of attack.

His refusal to do so raised questions about U.S. commitment, but Ratas said a public message of support from Trump was not necessary.

"Is U.S. behind NATO or not? He said the United States is very strongly behind NATO," Ratas said. "If the president is saying that `we are very strongly behind NATO,' it means all the articles including (Article) 5."

Ratas also held out a hand to Turkey, a key NATO ally and a longstanding applicant nation for EU membership.

Those EU talks have been quasi-dormant for many years and relations have deteriorated under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Some EU nations are now openly calling to end the membership talks, but Ratas disagrees.

"We must keep this relationship between (the) European Union and Turkey also during our presidency," he said.

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Next EU Presidency: Nations Moving Toward NATO Spending Goal - Voice of America