Category Archives: NATO

The troops have been deployed to reassure allies fearful of Russia in what Forces TV called 'Britains biggest mission since Afghanistan.'

The 150 Light Dragoons have joined a 1,100 strong American-led forces which will be based just 100 miles from Russian territory.

In total at least 1,350 American, British and Romanian soldiers have been sent to Poland from a base in Germany.

Brigadier General Timothy McGuire, the US Army's Deputy Commander in Europe, spoke to soldiers shortly before their departure reiterating the purpose of their mission.

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He said: This is no invasion force but if necessary it will deter threats.

US army commander Lt. Col. Steven Gventer, insisted that the mission was not being treated as a drill by troops.

He said: You never start a fight but you always finish it.

We'll always be prepared to do that but that's not our desire.

The decision from NATO comes as Putin moved missile systems and troops into the Kaliningrad oblast, which borders Poland and Lithuania. The outcrop of Russian territory is a relic of the Soviet Union and is seperated from the rest of Russia by other Baltic states.

Around 4,000 Nato troops have been placed across Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

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Members of the U.S. 173rd Airborne Brigade fire blanks from a machine gun during a simulated attack

This is no invasion force but if necessary it will deter threats

US army commander Lt. Col. Steven Gventer

A fleet of 300 UK military vehicles are set to be delivered to Estonia including Challenger 2, Titan and Trojan tanks and AS90 self-propelled artillery pieces.

A 450 strong German force has been sent to Lithuania to work alongside Belgian and Danish soldiers in the region.

Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said: In the face of an increasingly assertive Russia, Nato is stepping up its commitment to collective defence.

British troops will play a leading role in Estonia and support our US allies in Poland, as part of wider efforts to defend Nato.

Our rising defence budget means we can support those deployments in the long-term and strengthen our commitment to European security.

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'Biggest mission since Afghanistan' British troops mass in Poland to 'deter Russia' - Express.co.uk

By Robin Emmott | BRUSSELS

BRUSSELS NATO plans to spend 3 billion euros ($3.24 billion) to upgrade its satellite and computer technology over the next three years as the Western military alliance adapts to new threats, a senior official said.

Seeking to deter hackers, and other threats including Iranian missiles, the investments underscore NATO's recognition that conflicts are increasingly fought on computer networks as well as in the air, on land and at sea.

A senior official at the NATO Communications and Information Agency said the plans include a 1.7-billion-euro investment in satellite communications to better support troops and ships deployed across the alliance, as well as aiding the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or drones.

It was not immediately clear if NATO allies would fund a new military communications satellite to be launched into space or if an increase in broadband capacity could be gained from existing U.S. and other allied satellites.

Non-NATO member Japan launched its first military communications satellite in January.

The proposals, for which some funding must still be approved by NATO governments, also envisage spending about 800 million euros on the computer systems that help command air and missile defenses, said the official, who declined to be named.

Seventy-one million euros will go to improving the protection of NATO's 32 main locations from cyber attacks.

NATO says it has seen a five-fold increase in suspicious events on its networks in the past three years, while Russian group APT28 is blamed by Western intelligence for the hacking of the U.S. Democratic Party during last year's U.S. election.

NATO officials have told Reuters they suspect Russia sponsors attacks against their networks before major summits.

Another 180 million euros are to be spent to provide more secure mobile communications for alliance soldiers in the field.

NATO will present its needs in detail at a conference in Ottawa in April and then begin launching the bidding process.

It is likely to attract major Western defense contracts including Airbus Group, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin Corp, the official said, in part because "there cannot be content that does not come from NATO nations."

NATO rules prohibit Russian or Chinese suppliers unless there is a specific need that allied companies cannot provide.

(Reporting by Robin Emmott; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

TABQA DAM, Syria Spillways at the Tabqa Dam in Syria are working normally after engineers managed to carry out repairs, a local alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias said on Wednesday, despite shelling by Islamic State that temporarily halted their work.

ROME A rubber boat packed with 147 migrants sank in the Mediterranean and all but one of its passengers drowned, the sole survivor - a 16-year-old Gambian boy - told rescuers, the International Migration Organization (IOM) said on Wednesday.

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NATO to spend 3 billion euros on satellite, cyber defenses - Reuters

NATO Invests in More Bandwidth for New Data-Hungry Drones Wall Street Journal (subscription) BRUSSELSThe North Atlantic Treaty Organization is preparing to expand its satellite communications capability with contracts worth about $1.85 billion later this year as it prepares to field a new fleet of drones. The alliance's demand for satellite ...

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NATO Invests in More Bandwidth for New Data-Hungry Drones - Wall Street Journal (subscription)

Boris Johnson reportedly urged David Cameron to apply for the role of Natosecretary-general, when the pair met for dinner in New York.

The Foreign Secretary and former Prime Minister were seenleaving the Red Rooster restaurant in Harlem earlier this week.

As the pair shared a meal, Mr Johnson is said to have urged his former schoolmate to consider the senior role with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato).Itcomes with a tax-free annual salary of 222,019.

The pair's relationship is known to have become strainedafter Mr Johnson opted to join the Leave campaign during the EU referendum.

Boris Johnson and David Cameron leaving restaurant in New York separately (Twitter/Joanna Geary)

Whitehall figures say Mr Cameron is the British Governments first choice for the position, which is generally appointed through the back channels of the most influential member states.

Mr Cameron has kept a relatively low profile afterresigning as Prime Minister and quitting as an MP in the aftermath of the Brexit vote.

But he has emerged as a front-runner for the Natorole with the incumbent,former Norwegian Prime Minister JensStoltenberg, expected to stand down in the next two years.

Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has said the UK will play a bigger role in Natoto make up for its withdrawal from the EU.

Both Mr Fallon and Chancellor Philip Hammond are said to be keen that Mr Cameron should throw his hat into the ring for the role,which is regarded as the top defence position inthe organisation.

It has been claimedthat Mr Johnson broached the subject overdinner, although the Government has yet to make any official statement on the role.

The Foreign Secretarys spokesman denied the pair had been dad-dancing aftera picture emerged of Mr Johnson apparently standing on a chair during the meal.

Mr Cameron has not publicly ruled out considering the role and is understood to have met former Natosecretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen in January.

Those who champion Mr Cameron believe he has the ideal experience to lead the alliance at a time when its importance has beenquestioned by some, includingDonald Trump, who recently branded itobsolete.

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Boris Johnson 'said David Cameron should take Nato role' - The Independent

Former Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif seems set to take charge of the 39-nation military alliance of Muslim states headed by Saudi Arabia. On Saturday, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said that the government had agreed in principle to the appointment which required a little tweaking of rules although the official procedures havent been completed yet. The former COAS announcement to join the alliance without seeking government clearance became a political flashpoint and sparked criticism of the general a few months ago, but Raheel Sharif finally seems to have had his way.

There was little the civilian government could have done to oppose the move without publicly opposing the military, a notion it has always balked at. It struggled with elucidating reasons to oppose the move apart from the procedural problems and a general indignation at not being kept in the loop.

However, that does not mean the move is without consequences. The fledgling alliance, dubbed the Muslim NATO in the west, is not truly Muslim and the alliance aspect of it is also vague. Iran and other Shia countries are conspicuously missing from this decidedly Sunni alliance and it has been viewed by many as a move to counter growing Iranian influence in the Middle East. Pakistan, which has always struggled to maintain a balance between its Saudi ally and neighbouring Iran, might find the task even more difficult with a recent Pakistani general heading a military alliance based in Riyadh.

How the military and government manage to walk that wire remains to be seen.

A lot will depend on the nature of this alliance. The parliament and the people expressed a strong rejection of the invite to join Saudi Arabias coalition war in Yemen Raheel Sharif must make sure that he respects the wishes of the people and decision of the government in this regard. The former COAS has the opportunity to oversee the formative years of this alliance and he must make sure that it does not take a sectarian hue and remains focused on terrorism in the same way he managed his tenure as head of Pakistans army.

These are valid apprehensions on how this appointment will affect the Sunni-Shia divide in Pakistan and beyond, but at the same time it also represents an opportunity for Pakistan to shore up its relations with the Muslim world and to create a group that can participate in intelligence sharing and anti-terror operations in the Middle East. As such, Raheel Sharif must appreciate the nature and responsibility of his role.

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The Muslim NATO - The Nation

Top Tories believe Cameron landing the job will improve Britain's standing and help in post-Brexit era

TOP Tories want David Cameron to be made Nato boss.

The ex-PM is seen as an ideal candidate for the 200,000 role of secretary general.

PA:Press Association

Several Cabinet members have urged him to apply believing it would boost the UKs standing after we leave the EU.

One Whitehall figure said: Most of the Cabinet have been lobbying him for a while.

But we need to get him to go for it, as currently he is a bit cold.

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The current secretary general is Norwegian Jens Stoltenberg.

He is due to stay in the post until at least next year.

But his stint could last until 2019, meaning Mr Cameron would face a two-year wait to take over.

Since quitting as PM in the wake of the Brexit vote he has been charging up to 120,000 a pop for speeches.

He also bagged an 800,000 advance for his memoirs.

The looming vacancy is understood to have been jokingly raised by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson when he and Mr Cameron met for dinner in New York last week.

BoJo had just chaired a meeting of the UN Security Council.

The last Brit Nato secretary general was ex-Labour defence secretary George Robertson between 1999 and 2003.

PA:Press Association

Boris Johnson first suggested David Cameron pursue the NATO role

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Top Tories push for David Cameron to land 200k Nato Secretary General job 'to boost standing post-Brexit' - The Sun

US Secretary of StateRex Tillerson is now planning to attend a major Nato summit, despite previously claiming he could not fit the gathering of foreign ministers into his schedule.

The key Donald Trumpallywas reportedly intending to misshis first meeting with leaders of the military alliance, that was originally scheduled for early next month.

However, the meeting has now been rescheduled to accommodate Mr Tillerson.

"The Secretary of State will visitNatoin Brussels on Friday, 31 March," a State Department spokesperson said."The visit willcome afterhis trip to Ankara, Turkey."

The compromise seems intended to allay fears that Mr Trump will try to withdraw funding from the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato), which he has previously said is "obsolete".

During his presidentialcampaign, the billionaire said he would "certainly look at" scrapping the entire organisation.

Although he has since rolled back from that position, he has repeatedly said he feels the United States' contributes too much to the organisation when compared with other members.

Shortly after a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel,he claimed Germany owed"vast sums of money to Nato".

He added that "the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defence it provides to Germany!"

Rex Tillerson says 'these things happen' when asked about Russian civilians dying

Jorge Benitez, a Director of NATOSource, told The Independent a decision to leave the Alliance wouldbe a "major issue" because "the US plays a leading role in it.

He said it would be "difficult to make important Nato decisions without our top leaders participating and building agreement between the 27 other allies."

But Mr Tillerson will now be able to attend the summit, avoiding a clash with a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lagoresort in Florida, which is set to be heldon the same dates.

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Rex Tillerson will attend Nato summit he was originally planning to skip - The Independent

"The President looks forward to meeting with his NATO counterparts to reaffirm our strong commitment to NATO, and to discuss issues critical to the alliance, especially allied responsibility-sharing and NATO's role in the fight against terrorism," a statement from the White House reads.

It added that, in addition to the Leaders Meeting, Trump will also host Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the White House next month, "where they will talk about how to strengthen the alliance to cope with challenges to national and international security," the statement adds.

The April meeting with Stoltenberg has been arranged to prepare for a May 25 summit in Brussels on the "new security environment, including the Alliance's role in the fight against terrorism, and the importance of increased defense spending and fairer burden-sharing."

"Seeing the Chinese, then going to Russia and avoiding NATO in the middle -- it's weird," said one NATO diplomat. "It shows that they don't care about NATO. They are not multilateral."

"They probably didn't realize how much impact it would have if he didn't go," the diplomat said. "Now that everybody is screaming about him not going, maybe they will realize."

As one European ambassador to the US put it: "To say the least, everyone is in disbelief."

State Department acting spokesman Mark Toner told reporters Tuesday afternoon that the meeting's dates didn't fit in Tillerson's schedule and a NATO official confirmed that the group is still negotiating with the State Department to schedule the meeting. Toner said the agency is "certainly appreciative of the effort to accommodate Secretary Tillerson."

The official added that Tillerson's schedule isn't the only one they're coordinating on.

Meanwhile, Tillerson has been attempting to keep NATO commitments moving along ahead of May's meeting and keep American leadership relevant within the bloc.

On March 7, he wrote to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell asking Congress to ratify Montenegro's membership in NATO.

While the invitation to invite Montenegro to join the alliance was unanimously approved by NATO allies, in the letter, obtained by CNN a day after news broke that Tillerson was skipping the April NATO meeting, the Secretary notes that the US is one of only four member nations which has not given parliamentary approval for the country's bid.

"Allies look to the United States for leadership within the Alliance," he wrote. "Montenegro's participation in the May NATO Summit as a full member, not an observer, will send a strong signal of transatlantic unity."

While Trump last week reaffirmed the US' commitment to the bloc -- albeit with complaints about member countries' defense spending -- he has long been critical of the role NATO plays.

"These nations must pay what they owe."

The statement is a mischaracterization of the commitments that NATO members have -- under the treaty, countries in the bloc have agreed to target spending 2% of their GDP on defense, but do not accrue debts if they have not met these targets.

Tillerson, among other members of the Trump administration including Vice President Mike Pence, have been at pains to stress the official US line of cooperation with NATO and other global institutions.

However, Trump himself has repeatedly undermined the position, initially with declarations on the campaign trail and, since taking office, critical comments and tweets. Alongside his characterization of NATO as obsolete, he has been equally dismissive of the EU, another bulwark of western liberal democracy.

CNN's Nicole Gaouette, Michelle Kosinski and Elise Labott contributed to this report.

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attend NATO leaders meeting in May.

In a statement released on Sunday, Ursula von der Leyen said "there is no debt account in NATO. To relate the 2% defense spending that we want to reach in the next decade solely to NATO is wrong.

"The defense spending also goes to UN-peace mission, into European missions and towards our contributions to the fight against ISIS terrorism."

"Many nations owe vast sums of money from past years and it is very unfair to the United States," he said. "These nations must pay what they owe."

The statement is a mischaracterization of the commitments that NATO members have -- under the treaty, countries in the bloc have agreed to target a spend on defense of 2% of GDP, but do not accrue debts if they have not met these targets.

Only five of the bloc's 28 members -- the US, Greece, Poland, Estonia and the UK -- meet the alliance's target, which NATO also terms a "guideline" in its annual report. However, "many others" plan to reach 2% by 2024, the report states.

Trump also said that he had thanked the German leader for her commitment towards an increase in defense spending.

On Saturday Trump took to Twitter to confront what he characterized as media reports which reported that his summit with Merkel had gone badly.

He also took the opportunity to once again push home the incorrect assertion that NATO signatory countries like Germany owe "vast sums" and that the US must be "paid" for its contribution.

"Despite what you have heard from the FAKE NEWS, I had a GREAT meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel," he tweeted..

"Nevertheless, Germany owes vast sums of money to NATO & the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany!"

Former US Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder replied to the tweets with a series of twitter messages of his own, laying out how the treaty commitments really work.

"Sorry, Mr. President, that's not how NATO works," he tweeted. "The US decides for itself how much it contributes to defending NATO."

However, as Daalder also wrote in his nine-tweet explanation, "Those who currently don't spend 2% of their GDP on defense are now increasing their defense budgets. That's a good thing."

Before Trump took office, he rattled NATO members, when he called the organization "obsolete" in a joint interview with the Times of London and the German publication Bild.

"I said a long time ago that NATO had problems," he said in the January interview.

"Number one it was obsolete, because it was designed many, many years ago.

"Number two the countries weren't paying what they're supposed to be paying," he said, adding that this was unfair to the United States.

CNN's Laura Goehler and CNN Money's Ivana Kottasova contributed to this report.

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Germany's defense minister: No, we don't owe NATO money

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is reportedly considering skipping a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels next month, in a nearly unprecedented move that baffled many in the foreign-policy community.

Tillerson would miss meetings in Brussels from April 5 to 6 to stay in Washington and travel with President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to Trump's private club in Palm Beach, Fla. Xi is visiting the United States for the first time since Trump took office, though Tillerson already met Xi during his visit to China last week.

A State Department spokesperson backtracked after news broke Monday night, saying they may consider working on alternative dates, but nothing was confirmed yet. A former U.S. official and NATO diplomat told Reuters, which first reported the story, that NATO quietly offered to move the dates to fit what would be Tillerson's first Brussels visit on his schedule. The official said the State Department initially declined the offer.

It is highly unusual for a U.S. secretary to skip NATO ministerial meetings, which are held separately for foreign and defense ministers several times a year. The last secretary of state to miss a foreign ministerial was Colin Powell, who canceled his ministerial attendance last-minute during the start of the Iraq war in 2003.

The decision could worry allies already rattled by Trump's NATO skepticism and potential Russia ties. It also starves Tillerson of an opportunity to repair growing rifts in U.S.-European relations after several clumsy diplomatic blunders from the White House.

Another meeting reportedly on Tillerson's itinerary could add fuel to the fire: The secretary of state is slated to visit Moscow within weeks of the NATO foreign ministerial he could skip.

Lawmakers and former officials expressed shock and dismay at the news. "This sends a terrible message to Europe," a former senior Pentagon official told Foreign Policy. "And yes it signals that [Tillerson] is ready to talk to Russia before he talks to NATO."

The news of Tillerson's itinerary emerged a day after FBI Director James Comey confirmed for the first time the bureau was investigating ties between the Kremlin and Trump's inner circle in its Russian election interference probe.

"In my many years of working NATO ministerials, any time there was a schedule problem we always worked around it," Jim Townsend, the former top Pentagon official on NATO under President Barack Obama, told Foreign Policy. "Not all ministers show up all the time, it's not like it's unheard of for most countries. But for the United States it is a huge deal because we lead the alliance," he said.

U.S. Rep. Eliot L. Engel (D- N.Y.), ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called the move an "absolute disgrace."

"I cannot fathom why the administration would pursue this course except to signal a change in American foreign policy that draws our country away from western democracy's most important institutions and aligns the United States more closely with the autocratic regime in the Kremlin," Engel said Tuesday.

NATO has convened defense and foreign ministerial meetings since the early days of the Cold War. The meetings are one of the only semi-regular venues for European ministers to get face-time with their American counterparts. They're also a critical mechanism for getting things done in the NATO bureaucracy, Townsend said. "It drove us to put down on paper alliance positions and hash out agreements and actions," he said.

And in April, NATO leaders have a lot to hash out: major new troop deployments to the Baltic States to deter Russia, disintegrating European relations with fellow NATO ally Turkey, the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, the NATO mission in Afghanistan, and key priorities for NATO's upcoming head of state summit in May.

Tillerson is also grappling with several White House-induced scandals that undermine Washington's footing with NATO allies. After Trump's rocky meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on March 17, he took to Twitter to claim Berlin "owed" NATO and Washington money for its NATO dues. Germany rebuked Trump's claims Sunday, clarifying that's not how NATO defense spending works. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer also infuriated British intelligence services after he accused them of spying on Trump at the behest of former President Barack Obama. In an unusual public statement, Britain's signals intelligence service slapped down the claims as "utterly ridiculous." During congressional testimony Monday, National Security Agency chief Mike Rogers said the White House's unsubstantiated claims "clearly frustrates allies of ours."

Tillerson's move was likely a combination of the Trump administration spurning NATO and scheduling errors in an understaffed State Department, Townsend said. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who knows a thing or two about the Herculean task of managing the top U.S. diplomat's schedule, agreed. "I think it's a most unfortunate signal," Albright said during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on a separate subject on Tuesday. "I would blame it on schedulers. I do think that is part of the problem. He will have met with a lot of ministers in other venues, but given the discussion that's going on about NATO, I think it's an unfortunate scheduling problem."

A State Department official told FP Tillerson will be meeting with 26 of 27 other NATO countries' foreign ministers in Washington on Wednesday -- all but Croatia -- to discuss the ongoing anti-Islamic State coalition in Iraq and Syria. The official added Tom Shannon, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, will represent the United States at the NATO meeting in April if Tillerson doesn't attend. (Trump has yet to nominate a deputy secretary of state despite being two months into office.)

But NATO experts say that isn't enough. "Meeting with [foreign ministers] at the Anti-ISIS coalition gathering or a G-20 does nothing for NATO, an organization that is earnestly seeking U.S. guidance on how to adjust its agenda," a Republican foreign policy expert, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told FP.

In February, both Defense Secretary James Mattis and Vice President Mike Pence visited Brussels -- though Mattis used the trip to issue a veiled ultimatum to allies to pony up on defense spending.

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Tillerson plan to skip NATO meeting baffles former officials - Chicago Tribune