Category Archives: NATO

By Paul McLeary, Foreign Policy

After months of harsh rhetoric and threatening tweets, some NATO allies are preparing to spend big on defense.

The Romanian government already uneasy over Russian activities in the Black Sea announced it will spend tens of millions of dollars on advanced weaponry to join just five other NATO countries that have reached an elusive spending goal that Trump has used as a cudgel to criticize the alliance.

NATO is already as a whole stepping it up because theyve been hearing Trumps rhetoric, so while there is no new grand strategy, theres a feeling that allies are looking for ways to do more, and quickly, said a former defense official who spoke under the condition of anonymity.

In fact, the alliance was already shifting before Trump entered the White House. The Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 and war in Ukraine galvanized member countries, which gave NATOs military commander, Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, more flexibility to deploy forces. Thousands of troops have taken up positions in the Baltics as part of multinational units.

Trumps influence will be tested when he attends a meeting of NATO leaders in Brussels on May 25, marking the first time many allies will interact with him face-to-face. The meeting will give him the opportunity to speak directly to the alliances heads of state, where he is expected to call again for increased military spending to meet the alliances goal of each member spending 2 percent of its GDP on defense.

For NATOs newest members, however, it is Russia, not Trump, that is motivating their spending. Romanian officials point out that Crimea sits less than 200 miles from its shores, and their country shares a long border with Serbia, which has moved closer to the Kremlin as it buys Russian warplanes and air defense systems. And when NATO opened a missile defense site in Romania last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared the country to be in Moscows crosshairs.

In response, Romania surprised many last month when it announced plans to buy the Patriot missile and air defense system, a U.S.-made platform already in the inventories of 13 allies in Europe and the Middle East.

We need a serious posture of deterrence, Romanias ambassador to the United States, George Maior told FP. Crimea is being militarized by Russia and it can be used as a platform for power projection not only into the Black Sea, but to the southeastern Mediterranean.

The ambassador, who helped shepherd the country into the NATO alliance in 2004 and led the Romanian Intelligence Service from 2006 to 2015, said his government sees the Black Sea as a demarcation line between various threats emerging from the eastern frontier of NATO.

With the fastest growing economy in the European Union, Romania has put together a shopping list that includes small, fast corvettes to patrol its coastline, armored troop carriers, multiple-launch rocket systems, and the latest surveillance and communications equipment.

But Russian officials are pushing back, complaining loudly that the existing missile defense installation already in Romania, called Aegis Ashore, lowers the threshold for a nuclear exchange and breaks a decades-old arms control treaty. Another Aegis Ashore system is slated to open in Poland in 2018.

The Aegis Ashore site includes a powerful radar and air defense missiles that can take down long-range ballistic missiles launched from the Middle East, and is described as a defense against a potential attack from Iran.

The Kremlin says the system violates the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty, which bans land-based cruise missiles with a range from 300 to 3,400 miles, but NATO rejects the claim.

Weve been very clear, about what Aegis Ashore can and cant do, said U.S. European Command spokesman Capt. Danny Hernandez. And we have consistently and openly said this system is not capable of intercepting Russian ICBMs, and any claim otherwise by the Russian government is baseless.

The Russians are pursuing their own missile defense sales to international clients, however. Belarus has taken possession of four battalions of the Russian-made S-300 air defense system and Serbia is currently in talks to buy several of the long-range interceptors.

In August, Russia also deployed an advanced S-400 surface-to-air missile battery to the Crimean peninsula. The weapons can hit targets over 150 miles from its launch site, putting aircraft flying inside Ukraine, and over the Black Sea, well within range.

The deployment underscored Romanias increasing unease over Russia. Once Crimea happened, the new NATO allies scrambled to figure out what their priorities should be, and air defense is a big part of that, said Jim Townsend, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for European and NATO policy from 2009 to 2017. Romania shows that they take their defense seriously, because the Black Sea has become an important front with Russia.

In addition to the likely deployment of a Patriot battery to Romania, Moscow has bristled at Polands widely publicized $7.6 billion deal for eight Patriot batteries, which is expected to be finalized in the coming weeks. There are also growing indications that Sweden a non-NATO country and Lithuania may be looking to buy the Patriot system in the coming months several sources told FP, though no announcements have been made.

Though the administration may claim these investments are in response to his strong arming, others say it differs little in substance with the prior administration.

Trumps demands that NATO open its wallet just continues building off of what Obama did, said Jackie Ramos, an advisor to the assistant secretary of defense for International Security Affairs under Barack Obama. The administration pushed hard to get nations to reach the 2 percent spending goal.

The effort wasnt a secret. In April 2016, Obama declared in an interview with The Atlantic that free riders aggravate me. Obama also complained that some NATO allies, along with several Gulf states, were piggybacking on the security that America provides. He even warned then-U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron that London needed to increase its investment in NATO. You have to pay your fair share, Obama said.

Source:http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/05/03/with-demands-for-more-nato-spending-romania-steps-up/

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Romania steps up on demands for more NATO spending - AmeriForce Publishing, Inc.

NATO Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy Tacan Ildem attended the Fourth World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue organised by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the government of Azerbaijan in Baku from 4 to 6 May 2017. The event aims to promote intercultural dialogue as a tool to improve human security, the conditions for peace, and sustainable development.

Ambassador Ildem spoke at the plenary session on Promoting Dialogue and Building Bridges as a Tool to Preventing Violent Extremism on 5 May. He stressed that the challenges all international organisations face today are not exclusively political or military, so addressing them requires a comprehensive approach.

Radicalisation is the biggest challenge that the rules-based international system that organisations like the United Nations, the European Union and NATO help to govern, is facing today. It is a threat to open societies, to democracy, to the culture of tolerance and respect of the other that are the conditions sine qua non to preserve peace across the globe.

NATO participates and supports the fight against ISIL by providing AWACS surveillance planes. But this is not a battle to be won by military means only. Allies are cooperating closely with partner countries in the MENA region to project stability, to help building sustainable institutions and state structures that can enhance the countries own capacities to protect their populations.

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Promoting intercultural dialogue - NATO HQ (press release)

Nato 'wants more Brit soldiers on the ground as the US considers increasing its military presence'

THE UK has been asked to send more troops to Afghanistan, reports claim.

Nato wants more Brit soldiers on the ground as the US considers increasing its military presence, the BBCreports.

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Theresa May is due to meet Natos secretary general next week and the pair are expected to discuss the topic.

The US are sending at least 3,000 more soldiers to the Middle Eastern country to fight the Taliban, according to US reports.

Around 500 British soldiers remain in Afghanistan to train at the Afghan Officer Academy, advise local forces and provide security in Kabul.

Fifty of the remaining soldiers were sent to battle terrorism and train Afghan leaders.

The last UK combat troops left in October 2014.

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UK 'asked to send more troops to Afghanistan' - The Sun

NATO was primarily founded by the US with then-12 members in 1949 as a bulwark against Soviet aggression. NATOs mission terminated following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of Warsaw pact in 1991. At that time, there was no giant beyond Soviet Union to take up position, though the US scrambled to keep NATO running, otherwise the disbandment of NATO could mean a recipe for the USs shrinking of supremacy over the world.

The other advantage by maintaining NATO is that it is a combined force that allows US to hold an overall grip on the European region. NATO involves 25 European member states among others while the European Union and the NATO have 22 members in common. In this row, France, Britain and the US are nuclear powers.

According to NATO treatys article 5,

if a member of the organization faces direct incursion from outside powers, the rest of members shall spring into its defense.

The most spectacular example and the only tragedy ever seen that represents this article was 9/11 attacks. The NATO powers were, indeed, on their own to go for helping the US, yet the enormity of world trade centers havoc earned their sympathy to join US forces in the invasion of Afghanistan.

NATOs latest mission began in 2003 in Afghanistan where it deployed thousands of troops through International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). By the term NATO, the finger is pointed at those few member states that really run things and hold a massive stake on the ground. The US and UK are the only two spearheads when it comes to the Afghan war. The rests below these two in the list are just operating under NATO with far fewer troops or some may even contribute to appease the US.

The US deployed NATO forces in Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan and Indian Ocean, of which Uzbekistan demanded several million dollars as payment for exploitation of its soil against Afghanistan.

The second to US at the helm of NATO is the UK. This leading NATO member played more like an influential conduit for the passage of NATOs proposals and plans into the European Union. But this trend seems to start faltering after the revolutionary Brexit referendum in the UK last year. Although the NATO and UK officials have ruled out a likely split of UK from the NATO following Brexit, it is presumed that the deadlock would start to loom in the longer term if not in near one.

NATO binds its members to dedicate at least 2 percent of their GDP for defense spending, while only five members including the US, the UK, Greece, Poland and Estonia are less or well above the target. Amazingly, the powerful economies such as Germany and France are falling short in this area.

As aftereffect of the Brexit referendum, the UK could lose the most senior military position of Deputy Supreme Allied Commander which it held for more than 60 years. The deputy leadership among other key roles could possibly slip to France.

The other turning point triggered by Brexit is the EUs intention to speed up the creation of independent military headquarters outside NATO. This idea, however, was frequently downplayed and turned down by the UK which it saw as a threat to the role of NATO. The UK had said last year it would veto such a proposal, because it may possibly undercut UKs vigorous engagement in NATO.

Given the pre-emptive use of force, NATOs chief Jens Stoltenberg last year in a meeting in Brussels urged allies to keep anti-Russian sanctions alive. He said:

The international community must keep pressuring Russia to respect its obligations.

If it sees all this allegations to be hurled at Russia over Ukraines standoff, then NATO too has to end a protracted and costly war in Afghanistan, which Russia terms as offensive.

It was until Russias annexation of Crimea when NATO and Russia led easy marriage and would strike several cooperation deals. In the wake of Crimeas annexation whose reason was inferred as Russias fear over NATOs plan to build military headquarters there the organization froze relationship with Russia.

As a major determinant of NATO, Germany press for exercising of sanctions against Russia at a time this country is Russias largest trade partner, followed by France and Italy. By all this, we discover that the NATO and the EU go on the same trajectory after the latter approved anti-Russian bans and embargoes over Ukraines crisis which was sparked by NATO in the first place. While others believe the EU is NATO in the guise of a Union.

Given the EUs drastic need for Russias energy resources as well as the broad Russian markets for European products, the EU, more or less, is eager to cut the intensity of sanctions and edge it towards the end. Moreover, the German businessmen and economists have vocalized opposition to further and tougher sanctions on Russia.

On the heyday of NATO deployments and engagements in Afghanistan, some wrecked sectors of this victimized country were shared out among a number of members for the purpose of revival. The US assumed the training and strengthening of the Afghan Army, Japan was handed over the Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) project, Germany undertook training of the Afghan police, the UK picked war on narcotics and stationed only in southern Helmand province despite having second highest number of troops following the US, and Italy took on the responsibility of the justice sector reform.

Fewer would fit into their tasks, as Japan had no servicemen or armed forces at the time to forcefully disarm the militias. And the UKs failure to tackle narcotics is largely on display in the eyes of world as Afghanistan still ranks the first for feeding world habits of addiction, let alone the booming drug business worldwide. Lastly, Italy was a poor choice for the justice sectors reform thanks to being a big law-breaker and Mafia country in the Europe.

On the Syrian side, the latest chemical attack bears out the fact on the collusion and conspiracies of critical NATO members behind peppering of blames on Assads regime. First the US used every effort at disposal to direct the blame on Syrian government. Later the UKs also first in toeing the USs line foreign minister Boris Johnson meaninglessly called off an official trip to Russia allegedly over this countrys involvement in Syria and the gas attack. In third place, France inconsiderately released a report blaming Syrian government for chemical gas attack without a shred of evidence.

All these concurred attacks come as the international neutral investigators as well as Russian team sought to inspect the chemical attack for findings, but they said the US blocked them from participating in a formal investigation.

If it was not for NATO or concerted conspiracies, the UKs Boris Johnson or French report had nothing to do with a far-regional chemical weapon attack, even if it was perpetrated by very Assads government.

The NATOs pro-war European members are the cornerstone of the USs decision-making process on waging a war or invading a country. North Korea, for example, might be on the brink of bursting into a war with US. Apart from South Koreas opposition to the US-DPRKs likely armed strife, the US might still strongly hesitate to instigate another endless conflict without consent of leading NATO members, importantly because it is unwilling to bear the brunt of costs and arms alone, and thats why compelling of the NATO members to raise defense spending matters.

Back in 2003, France and Germany stood critical to the US war plans against Iraq. The Wall Street Journal at that time accused Germany of actively promoting American defeat. It concluded by declaring

What President Bush calls a coalition of the willing will become Americas new security alliance, even though the two states continued to take several diplomatic initiatives to avert a military strike against Iraq which were not well covered in media.

The same year, French president Jacques Chirac and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin presented a joint declaration by France, Germany and Russia calling for extended weapons inspections in Iraq. It said:

There is still an alternative to war. The use of violence can only be the last resort.

It was a riposte to President Bushs remarks just a week earlier that said,

The game is over.

After NATO representatives from Germany, France and Belgium vetoed military preparations for the protection of Turkey in case of war in Iraq, President Bush publicly accused Berlin, Paris and Brussels of damaging NATO.

Most NATO allies were distaste to the USs invasion of Iraq, because the ploy to draw them into this [Iraq] war was not as elaborate as that of Afghanistan [9/11 attacks] and unconvincing for the European members. More than a decade later now, we notice a U-turn or a fair degree of rotation in some European and NATO members posture towards globalization of war and warmongering. It can be concluded that if major aides of the US the UK, France and Germany withhold military and non-military support to this superpower, the peace may descend into the earth over the long haul.

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The US Without NATO Could Mean No Wars and Terrorism in the World - Center for Research on Globalization

THUNDER BAY - As a way of strengthening ties with partnering nations under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, several members from the local Canadian Forces regiment travelled to Europe to participate in a joint operation.

In a ceremony on Sunday, five members of the Lake Superior Scottish Regiment were awarded Special Service Medals with Bar NATO for their deployment overseas with NATO as part of Operation Reassurance.

The recipients included Cpl. Gabriel Green, Cpl. Ben Deley, Cpl. Allan Faykes, Cpl. Andrew Biscardi, and Master Cpl. Billy McElroy.

Its a great honour to be here and its great to be here in front of the civilian population that is here, said Cpl. Gabriel Green after receiving his medal.

The five members travelled to Poland last August where they were deployed for six months. During their deployment, they participated in exercises with fellow NATO armies throughout Eastern Europe.

The biggest thing I learned over there is just how different the Canadian army is compared to most other nations, Green said. The Romanian army, the Polish army, the Lithuania army, even the German army were very different in terms of the way that they operate, the equipment they use, and some of the tactics they employ.

But those differences could be beneficial, Green added, saying he brought home a lot of great experiences and ideas after training with the Romanian army.

It was great to see and experience the way that the Romanias, for example, employ their armored vehicles, he said.

Cpl. Andrew Biscardi was also deployed to Eastern Europe and he said the entire experience was very rewarding.

You get to meet a lot of different cultures and its interesting to see what other parts of the world are like, he said.

As with any military exercise, its not going to be a walk through the park, but both Green and Biscardi said they did not face too many challenges.

Other than the normal military challenges of living in the field and enjoying the weather, it was good, Biscardi said.

During the ceremony on Sunday, the Lake Superior Scottish Regiment also promoted chief warrant officer Harry Kaucharik to the rank of regimental sergeant major.

This is the top of the career for a non-commissioned officer, Kaucharik said. Thirty-three years of service and Im very proud to finally become the RSN, to take over the job of caring for the welfare of the men.

Kaucharik has served three peacekeeping tours, a tour in Afghanistan, and served with NATO. Seeing young members of his regiment receive honours for their own overseas service is a very proud moment for Kaucharik.

I know what it feels like it, he said. They had a special bonus, normally a solider gets his medal in country, and his family doesnt get to see that. So its a special bonus for families to watch their family member get a medal for their service overseas.

Even though his family couldnt be at the ceremony because they live in Ottawa, Green said there was no shortage of pride from his family.

My mom was extremely proud and very happy, he said. She wouldnt get off the phone with me when I told her.

You are very proud and you feel like youve contributed, Kaucharik added. These medals are awarded for service in other countries and helping other people.

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Local soldiers recognized for NATO operation - Tbnewswatch.com

124RF/STAFF ILLUSTRATION

Its just 5.56 centimeters long about 2 inches and only 5.7 millimeters in diameter at its business end. In its most common American variant, it weighs 12.3 grams. It can reach a muzzle velocity of over 3,000 feet per second, and it is designed to penetrate three-eighths of an inch of steel at 350 meters.

It is, of course, a bullet.

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In 1980, after decades of development and negotiation, the NATO member states agreed to use this particular cartridge and it is now one of the most common small-arms munitions in the world. The argument for such standardization is obvious: In combat, being able to share ammunition can make the difference between surviving a firefight and being overrun. The argument against standardization is that should one nation want to deploy another option a more powerful bullet, for instance it cant. At least not within the confines of the alliance.

NATO has been a central pillar of US security policy since the Cold War. In 2016, candidate Donald Trump proposed upending that 70-year consensus, calling the alliance obsolete a statement repeated by President-elect Trump on Jan. 15. But such a claim ignores whats really lost when such common ventures break apart.

An alliance, like any collaboration, doesnt work simply because its members agree on a course of action. It requires much more: Standardization of equipment served as a force multiplier for Western armies against the Soviet Union. But when humans succeed in striving toward a common goal, much more than mere common gear is involved: practices, processes, and a shared vision of risk and reward. This cohesion creats powerful intellectual bonds and, over time, lead to the accumulation of knowledge.

Europe is quite capable of shaping and paying for its own security, but NATOs structure remains in place.

Consider the scientific alliance through which a group of men set out to measure the weather.

The story of what made the world modern is often told in heroic terms, tales of grand ideas, or battles, or inventions and inventors. Isaac Newton, Gottfried Leibniz, Galileo Galilei these are the kind of figures remembered as the leaders of the scientific revolution. But a host of others built an intellectual infrastructure vital to the ongoing advance of science for over three centuries. At the heart of that effort: agreed standards for both material and habits of mind that have propelled the transformation in human knowledge over the last four centuries.

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Thomas Tompion, for example, is hardly as celebrated as Robert Hooke, Englands Galileo. But he built the first watches driven by the balance spring mechanism that Hooke had invented, which yielded far more accurate time-keeping than prior approaches. Tompion was hugely prolific his workshop produced roughly 5,500 watches but perhaps his most wholly original idea had nothing to do with the mechanical side of his designs. From the 1670s forward, Tompion inscribed numbers on each watch and other devices that emerged from his shop, in the first known use of serial numbers.

In the 1670s, neither Tompion nor anyone else produced perfectly replicated devices. Serial numbers were thus not an assertion that each of his watches would measure time to a specific standard of accuracy. Rather, subjecting his creations to the rule of number advanced the possibility of such standardization, providing the first piece of data needed to ensure that one measurement matches another to be confident a second is a second is a second no matter who is observing and no matter where the observation is taking place.

While this first step toward the standardization of the tools of science was a milestone, it took the development of a common process shared habits, ways of working to truly transform the eager curiosity of the 17th and 18th centuries into a revolutionary new approach to knowledge, the one we now call science. In 1705, the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society published an article by the philosopher John Locke. It was a modest work, just a weather diary: a series of daily observations of temperature, barometric pressure, precipitation, cloud cover. He was a careful observer, working with the best available instruments, a set built by Tompion himself. On Sunday, Dec. 13, 1691, for example, Locke left his rooms just before 9 a.m. The temperature was 3.4 on Tompions scale a little chilly, but not a hard frost. Atmospheric pressure had dropped slightly compared to the day before, 30 inches of mercury compared to 30.04. There was a mild east wind, 1 on Lockes improvised scale, enough to just move the leaves. The cloud cover was thick and unbroken which is to say it was an entirely unsurprising December day in the east of England: dull, damp, and raw.

On the pages of the Royal Societys journal, though, these perfectly banal details coalesce into a more significant advance. Locke described his methods and approach, what instruments he used; how he used them; when, each day, he made his measurements; everything anyone would need to interpret his data or to observe on their own. That made Lockes report more than a mere list of facts about local weather patterns in Essex. It described a method, a process that could produce new knowledge.

The creation of standards, for equipment and for process, was and remains central to what makes science work as an institution, an enterprise, and not simply as a siloed exercise in individual curiosity. It was designed that way from the start: Locke got inspired to tackle meteorology when Robert Hooke published a call in the Royal Societys journal, seeking volunteers who would buy instruments, calibrate them, and take weather data every day.

To put this move into the jargon of the NATO alliance, Hooke set out to forge the scientific revolutions own force multiplier. His army of citizen scientists committed to a shared use of the apparatus of inquiry thermometers and the like and to a social compact: how they would collect new knowledge (in scientific reports) combined with the obligation to share, to publish, all to come up with a picture of the natural world that no one of them could possibly have assembled on their own.

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A US soldier with the 101st Airborne Division fires an AT-4 as Combat Outpost Nolen on the outskirts of the village of Jellawar came under Taliban attack on September 11, 2010.

Fundamentally, NATO works in much the same way, however much its scale and complexity exceed Hookes network of weather watchers. The NATO round is an example of the more obvious parallel, the need to ensure that everyones tools work together. A common cartridge hits the highest level of cooperation it is truly interchangeable. Much of the time, though, NATO allies look for interoperability, ways to ensure different systems can still function on the same battlefield, just as researchers from the 17th century onward must work out how to compare observations acquired on different instruments.

Such interoperability depends on a huge number of often seemingly small choices. Tanks need regular refueling, for example, but NATO allies deploy several different types of tanks. So resupply operations have to bring not just the fuel, but various filters, too, so that one tanker truck can serve every piece of armor in need. When a battery dies? To get a jump from a European tank to an American one, soldiers must use a variety of cables and adapters. Such details matter in action, lives may depend on having the right electrical connector and given the amount of equipment used to fight modern war, there is a lot of specific hardware that has to be identified, agreed on, and deployed. But even so, this is the easier side of what it takes to make NATO go.

The more complicated and more important task: forging a common approach to thinking and communicating across the alliance. Common material is important, but whats vital is a common methodology, a common language. Sometimes, its purely vocabulary at issue. You have to be proficient in language in English to have a common perspective particularly in combat, says Colonel Ivan Mikuz, formerly a NATO strategic planner, now the Slovenian defense attach in Washington.

Just as essential, and more difficult to achieve, NATO over the decades has developed common habits of thought, the procedures its personnel use to work together on every level from small unit operations to strategic planning. You have to find agreement in a structured way, Mikuz says. Doctrine and tactics that are commonly shared.

This plays out from the top down, where strategic planning is (or at least is supposed to follow) a shared formal decision making process, complete with checklists and a sequence of problems to be solved. The same enforced common approach extends to combat. When a wounded soldier needs to be evacuated from the battlefield, for example, there is a standard nine-line form that must be filled out in English. The form tells the medical team where they need to go, how to contact those in need, the severity of the wounds, whether enemy troops are nearby, and so on. Interoperability is much more than technical. It connects people on many levels, Mikuz says. When those connections fray, it can cost lives.

Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images

Cartridges lie in the sand as Canadian Task Force Kandahar soldiers take part in a shooting exercise at Camp Nathan Smith on June 7, 2010.

None of this is to say that collaboration within NATO works perfectly. Since 1989, the fall of the Berlin wall, NATO has atrophied, says US Army Colonel Mark Aitken. War today moves quickly, he says, and NATO hasnt kept up not on the hardware, nor the human part of collaboration. Member armies use a variety of digital systems to control artillery fire, for example, and many of the systems dont talk to each other. On the human side different NATO members take different approaches to making sure a fire mission will hit what its aimed at, and nothing else. The US standard says that it should take no more than three minutes to make sure the downrange area is clear and fire a shell. In a recent multinational exercise, the fastest we got, the colonel says, was just under an hour.

That failure illustrates just how much work goes into making even long-established alliances function effectively. Arguments for preserving NATO tend to focus on the larger issues of international security. Aitken emphasizes that leaving NATO would damage US relations with Europe, risking the destabilization of the continent. One retired military officer puts it this way: Whats the cost of walking away from the alliance? 40,000 guys. Thats what the Europeans put into Afghanistan and thats 40,000 Americans that didnt have to show up.

Behind such strategic questions, though, theres this to consider: Should the alliance shatter, all the social infrastructure that allows people to collaborate will break with it. On the most obvious level, different nations could, for example, begin using weapons that dont fire the NATO round. There isnt an infinite supply of jumper cable adapters. More deeply, the human systems, all the formal and informal lines of communication NATOs officers and enlisted forces have worked out over the decades can fall apart much more quickly than they can be remade. How long would it take before a wounded soldier dies en route to care because the habits embedded in that nine-line form no longer hold?

On April 12, after a meeting with the NATO secretary general, President Trump announced, I said it was obsolete. Its no longer obsolete. While the ease with which Trump stuck his back-flip doesnt yield much confidence, for now it seems the United States intends to remain in the alliance. But even as a thought experiment, recognizing what truly is required to sustain complex human collaborations suggests how much there is to lose.

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John Locke died in October 1704, seven months before his weather diary appeared in print. In what can thus be read as late, if not last words, he there allowed himself to dream of what might come from his having indulged his Curiosity. His intellectual heirs, he wrote, could accumulate enough data in enough places so that several Rules and Observations concerning the extent of Winds and Rains, [and could] be in time established, to the great advantage of Mankind.

Over the three centuries since those words appeared, we have done just that, and so much more. We abandon the kinds of connections that produce such accomplishments at our peril.

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Why we need NATO in a single bullet - The Boston Globe

Chancellor Angela Merkel sharpened her tone against President Donald Trumps demands that Germany spend more on defense, saying shell keep insisting that targets on development aid are just as important.

The U.S. administration has ruled out counting foreign aid toward the North Atlantic Treaty Organizations target of spending 2 percent of gross domestic product in member states on defense. Trump has said Germany owes vast sums of money on security.

Angela Merkel in Hamburg, May 5.

Photographer: Daniel Reinhardt/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Photos

As much as the U.S. government demands meeting NATOs 2 percent defense spending goal by 2024, we will stand just as much by our 0.7 percent spending on development aid, Merkel told an industry club in Hamburg on Friday. Germany spends about 1.2 percent of GDP on defense.

Merkel has said Germany will live up to its commitment to NATO burden-sharing, though shes stuck to the language in a 2014 pledge that alliance members will move towards the 2 percent goal over a decade.

Germany has always made clear that diplomacy and development aid have to be deployed in addition to defense expenditures,Merkel said in Hamburg. So I want to make it very clear, Germany stands by what we call our comprehensive approach, which is not confined to military deployments.

Germany spent 0.5 percent of GDP on development in 2015, compared with 0.17 percent by the U.S., Germanys Ministry for Economic Cooperation said in data published in January. The United Nations has set a target of 0.7 percent for member countries.

Military spending has become an election-year topic in Germany as Merkel seeks a fourth term. Her main challenger for the chancellorship, Martin Schulz, and her foreign minister, Sigmar Gabriel -- both Social Democrats -- have virtually ruled out reaching the 2 percent target.

The issue has driven a wedge between Berlin and Washington. A day after Merkels first meeting with Trump at the White House in March, the president said in a Twitter post that Germany owes vast sums of money to NATO and the U.S. must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany!

German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen retorted that there is no debit account in NATO and that the military alliances spending goal must go beyond investment in weapons to a modern concept of security.

Germany increased its defense budget by 8 percent this year to about 37 billion euros ($40.1 billion). Schulz and Gabriel have said that increasing that figure to 70 billion euros within a decade would be unrealistic and wasteful. Like Merkel, they argue that development aid should be counted as a security component.

Excerpt from:
Merkel Takes on Trump Over Demands for German NATO Spending - Bloomberg

Russiaposes an existential threat to the West's military and political influence around the world, prompting NATO to assume a more militant mission, according to the head of the U.S. military in Europe.

In his testimony to lawmakers Wednesday, Army Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti, who serves as both chief of U.S. European CommandandNATOs Supreme Allied Commander Europe,told the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and RelatedAgencies that Moscow was responsible for frustrating Western security goals in Europe during one of the tensest periods in the region since the Cold War. Both NATO and Russia have lined up troops and armaments along their mutual bordersand have accused the other of provoking a potential conflict. Scaparrotti told legislators that Moscow's campaign to expand its own interests as a global player was damaging to the West's regional dominance.

Related:Russia denies secret nuclear bomb threat to U.S. involving 'mole' missiles

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"In the East, a resurgent Russia had turned from partner to protagonist as it seeks to undermine the Western-led international order and reassert itself as a global power, Scaparrottisaid, according to the Department of Defense.

People watch Russian military vehicles driving along Tverskaya street before the rehearsal for the Victory Day parade in central Moscow, Russia, May 3, 2017. Both Russia and Western military alliance NATO accuse one another of igniting an international arms race across Europe's borders. Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters

The general cited Russia's involvement in conflicts in Ukraine and Georgia, as well as a deteriorating security situation in areas of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East due to conflict and jihadist activity, as contributing to NATO's shift in focus from "security cooperation and engagement to deterrence and defense." Last year, the 28-member Western military alliance, to which the U.S. is by far the largest contributor, established four major battle groups in Estonia,Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. NATO has since deployed extensive resources to these countries as well as an extensive missile defense shield that the U.S. argues is necessary for countering perceived Russian aggressions, but Moscow contends is a ploy to contain the nation's military capabilities.

"We are adjusting our plans, our posture, our readiness to remain relevant to combat the threats we face," Scaparrotti said. "In short, we are returning to our historic role as a warfighting command."

NATO was established in 1949 as a Cold War-era military alliance against the former Soviet Union and its allies, which later formed the rival Warsaw Pact. While the two global factions never fought in a direct conflict, their members engaged in multiple proxy wars beginning with the Korean War in the decades prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. NATO expandedits membership to a number of former Soviet satellite states and became directly involved in the Bosnian War after the breakup of socialist Yugoslavia. After supporting U.S.-led interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan and later assisting rebels in toppling Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi in 2011, the multinational military pact has attempted to take on Moscow's military ambitions in Europe.

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Russia Is a Threat To NATO's World Order In the West, Top U.S. ... - Newsweek

Since the onset of civil war in Syria, the United Statess only military action has been airstrikes and very limited special operations missions targeting ISIL. On April 6, that changed.

For the first time since the conflict broke out, the U.S. took direct military action against the Assad regime following a brutal sarin attack in Khan Sheikoun that killed more than 80 people and has been attributed to Damascus. The Syrian government and Russia, its most powerful backer, denies Assads responsibility.

Washingtons choice to bomb the Syrian government base from which the sarin attack was allegedly conducted is a significant departure from the Obama era policy of avoiding direct confrontation with Damascus. A week after the U.S. airstrikes were conducted, Secretary of State Tillerson remarked that Assads rule is coming to an end before flying to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Assads most powerful ally.

Six years into the civil war, massive violence persists despite Russias intervention and some gains against ISIL in Iraq and Syria. Considering the strong U.S. reaction to Assads latest chemical weapon attack on innocent civilians, heavier action in the region is on the horizon.

Considering this, NATO should do more to help bring the Syrian war, which has already resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, to an end. NATO can have a much greater impact than U.S. unilateral missile launches against Assad, and NATO should not only stand with United States but also take action. Specifically, NATO should create a no-fly zone on the Turkish-Syrian border and put boots on the ground.

Responsibility to Protect

A NATO intervention in Syria would have precedent. In 1999, NATO intervened in Kosovo to prevent ethnic cleansing of Albanian Kosovars at the hands of dictator Slobodan Milosevic. Without Western intervention, some experts speculate that Kosovars would have been eliminated from Serbia. Nonetheless, the atrocities of the Balkan Wars most notably the Srebrenica massacre were not halted in time to save thousands of lives. The international communitys failure to respond in the Balkans in part sparked the creation of a new paradigm: Responsibility to Protect (R2P).

It was with this principle in mind that the U.S. and NATO intervened in Libya in 2011 due to fears of a massacre of innocent civilians in Benghazi at the hands of dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi. The death toll could have been catastrophic as Qaddafi vowed to cleanse the rats of Libya house by house.

But R2P has hardly been uniformly followed. In 2013, when the United Nations confirmed that Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad had used chemical weapons against his own people, the international community ignored a previously announced red line. In 2012, President of the United States Barack Obama announced that the use of chemical weapons would not be tolerated, and yet tolerance was the exact policy pursued by the alliance toward Assad after he killing his own innocent citizens. Syria agreed to dismantle their chemical weapon stockpile by mid-2014 through an agreement with the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). However, the April 4 attack in Khan Sheikoun proved what the rest of the world didnt want to believe: these deadly weapons remain in Assads arsenal.

Aside from the Assad regime, ISIL now controls swaths of land in Syria, where it is brutally killing civilians as well as opposing militants through barbaric practices. This terrorist group has also claimed responsibility for attacks in the U.S., Brussels, Paris, Turkey, Iraq, and elsewhere in the region. As an alliance, however, NATO has yet to make any significant effort aside from Global Coalition to Counter ISIL action in Syria.

Inaction is just encouraging more and more refugees to flee to Europe. (Ben White/CAFOD)

Today, over 470,000 Syrians have died due to the conflict. More than one in ten Syrians have been wounded or killed. Additionally, there are over 4.8 million registered Syrian refugees and over 6.6 million internally displaced persons in Syria. Aleppo stands as just one symbol of the Syrian civil war: a once vibrant city left in ruins, reduced to concrete and steel falling on those city residents who remain. The catastrophic loss and degradation of life in that city reflects the countrywide devastation. Considering these astounding statistics and atrocities, it is shocking that NATO invoked R2P in Libya yet remains complacent on Syria.

By not making a decision of whether or not to take action in Syria, the U.S. and its NATO allies opened the door to a Russian intervention on behalf of the Assad regime. Russias backing of Assad would have been much harder to realize had NATO taken action sooner. With this lack of response, countries like Russia are better able to pick the winners and losers of this conflict. Furthermore, Russias aircraft have primarily bombed anti-Assad forces, striking ISIL only when it suits Moscows public messaging campaign or when ISIL threatens Assads forces. NATO should take further action in the region in order to ensure a resolution that favors its interests. As of now, NATO has no say in the outcome of the Syrian civil war.

After the Cold War, NATO took on a variety of new roles; one was as a protector of human rights across the globe. This was exemplified during interventions in Bosnia, Kosovo, Libya, and Mali. The R2P principle, endorsed by all members of the United Nations at the World Summit in 2005, was taken particularly seriously by the transatlantic alliance.

It is time for NATO to take it seriously again. In Iraq, an ISIL suicide bomber walked into the middle of a childrens neighborhood soccer game and blew himself up, killing 41 people. ISIL draws its strength from its hold in Syria, while wreaking havoc on other parts of the world. When children are no longer safe to play soccer and thousands of innocents are slaughtered, it is time for NATO to invoke R2P in Syria. If NATO fails to intervene in the conflict, then its post-Cold War mission of humanitarianism will have been a sham.

No-Fly Zone

NATO member Turkey has called for NATO or other Western partners to create a no-fly zone on Turkeys southern border with Syria that stretches over 500 miles.

Criticisms of a no-fly zone note the risks given Russias deployments in Syria. However, as a former Obama administration official at the State Department argues, Russia would likely adhere to a no-fly zone. After Turkey shot down a Russian jet that had violated its airspace in November 2015, the lack of hard military response from Russia indicated that it greatly feared larger NATO involvement in the region.

Turkey would greatly benefit from the creation of a no-fly zone on its border. With nearly 3 million Syrian refugees in Turkey, the government has previously pleaded to the international community to create such an area. The most recent stream of fleeing refugees has come from Russias bombing of Aleppo. Assads bombing campaigns prior to Russias assistance were intermittent. Assad was not able to bomb at night or in bad weather. When Russia entered the conflict, a 24/7 bombing campaign took place, making it impossible for civilians to live in the areas being attacked by Assads forces. The number of refugees fleeing to Turkey and surrounding areas soared. Making this area safe for refugees would decrease the number of civilians migrating out of Syria.

Furthermore, the U.S. and Turkey currently clash over the formers support of the Peoples Protection Units (YPG), the Kurdish fighting force in Syria, as well as the presence of self-exiled Muslim cleric Fethullah Glen in Pennsylvania. The YPG is the sister organization of the PKK in Turkey, named a terrorist organization by the United States and the EU. Currently, the PKK has resumed fighting with Turkish authorities with the goal of creating a Kurdish autonomous region in Turkey. By arming the YPG, the United States is backhandedly supporting the PKK, angering Turkey. Additionally, the Turkish government blames Glen for orchestrating the attempted coup detat in summer 2016; he currently lives in Pennsylvania. The U.S. government is reluctant to extradite Glen needing time to conduct a fair process within the rule of law. By creating a no-fly zone, the U.S. would garner better will with Turkey at a time of considerable tension.

Lastly, Turkey has seen action on its border. Mortar fire from within Syria has landed in Turkey, killing and injuring Turkish citizens. The Assad regime, an enemy of Turkey, could be purposefully harming Turkey to engulf Ankara in the war. ISIL has also brought fighting to the Turkish border and beyond; it claimed responsibility for a New Years terror attack in Istanbul that killed 39 people. Beyond the Assad regime, the likelihood that the violence in Syria will spill into Turkey is becoming more likely with each passing day as varying insurgency groups fight for control over territory. Given that Turkey is a member of NATO, the alliance should not allow for the possibility of instability to reach Turkey; otherwise, Turkey could eventually evoke Article 5 and force NATO assistance.

Controversy with the YPG

NATO members currently involved in the Syrian conflict have chosen to back insurgency groups in Syria and Iraq. The U.St. has worked closely with the YPG and the Peshmerga, the Kurdish fighters of Iraq, in order to fight ISIL. The U.S. created a train-and-equip program for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF); however, this group is mostly made up of the YPG, meaning that a byproduct of supporting the YPGs fight against ISIL could also mean supporting the creation of an independent Kurdistan.

NATO faced a similar challenge years ago in Kosovo. NATOs support for the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) legitimized the organization and encouraged its terrorist tactics. It also proved that the West could not support a fighting force claiming independence without also subsequently supporting that independent state. Furthermore, the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have criticized the YPG for arbitrary arrests, abuse in detention, due process violations, unsolved disappearances and killings, and the use of children in YPG security forces. The YPG denied basic rights and gave unfair trials to members of the Kurdish Democratic Party of Syria (KDPS), the Yekiti Party, and the Azadi Party in Syria. Western support of the YPG could later create more trouble in the region, and the YPG has not shown itself to be anything other than a strong fighting force against ISIL. In fact, some speculate that the YPG has coordinated with the Assad regime. As YPG forces moved into an area, the Assad militia knowingly retreated, indicating that the YPGs goals in Syria diverge from those of NATO. It would not be wise for NATO to support such an organization to such a great extent.

Although NATO could easily continue its support for the Peshmerga in Iraq through train-and-equip to fight ISIL, it would have to take a new and innovative approach to Syria considering it needs to fight both ISIL and Assad. Although a no-fly zone may allay Turkeys objections to aiding the YPG, it may also be in the U.S.s best interest to no longer support a Kurdish insurgency group. Although wildly unpopular, NATO forces on the ground in Syria may be the only way to fight ISIL, retain positive relations with partners in the region, and not enable a possible terrorist organization.

Counter ISIL coalition airstrikes are not enough to bring an end to the Syrian crisis. NATO should launch a true humanitarian effort in the region to bring about stability. It can start by creating a no-fly zone on the Syrian-Turkish border. NATO can also put boots on the ground to fight against ISIL and Assad. Finally, Europe and NATO can take a more humanitarian approach to the refugee crisis, whether by taking in more refugees or providing more material support to countries like Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon, which already host large Syrian refugee populations.

This is a bold strategy, and there are many hurdles in carrying out these plans, as Assad is supported financially and militarily by Russia and Iran. It would not be met without opposition from some key NATO members. However, action in Syria is vital for global security. The U.S. has now for the first time stood up to the Assad regime and taken considerable unilateral action. Perhaps now, more than ever before, there is the political will to take action These mandates have not yet been met, but considering the horrific scenes unfolding day after day in Syria, it is time for the international community to meet these requirements, and soon.

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A Greater NATO Role in Syria - International Policy Digest (press release) (blog)

Top national defence procurement officials discussed innovation and new initiatives to support NATO capability efforts at the Conference of National Armaments Directors (CNAD) held at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium on 4 May 2017.

Multinational efforts are not only an efficient use of resources, they also strengthen the bond amongst Allies, said NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller during the opening of the spring conference. Highlighting the value of the CNADs contributions to NATO through national, multinational and common-funded projects, she commended the Conference for contributing to the strength of the Alliance by striving to deliver the required capabilities.

National Armaments Directors identified a number of avenues to explore to lower the barriers for multinational cooperation to occur, and they responded positively to the International Staffs efforts for advancing and expanding existing projects and adding new initiatives to the inventory of opportunities.

Allies also approved a framework for CNAD efforts to facilitate innovation and provided guidance on the development of a specific work programme by which to implement the recommendations outlined in the framework. This work is meant to assist Allies in keeping the military advantage, including the technological edge.

CNAD Permanent Chairman and NATOs Assistant Secretary General for Defence Investment, Camille Grand, underlined the need for adequate resources to deliver capabilities, stating that the 2014 Defence Investment Pledge was a positive signal for us, and importantly, we are now seeing that Allies are implementing the pledge. He added that National Armaments Directors would now need to decide how to make best use of the additional resources.

Defence procurement officials were updated on the status of the major programmes under CNAD governance (Ballistic Missile Defence; Alliance Future Surveillance and Control; Joint Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance; and Alliance Ground Surveillance), as well as on successful multinational efforts currently underway in areas such as Anti-Submarine Warfare, Suppression of Enemy Air Defence and Helicopter Operations in Degraded Visual Environments.

The next CNAD meeting will be held in autumn 2017.

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National Armaments Directors discuss defence spending, innovation and multinational cooperation - NATO HQ (press release)