Category Archives: NATO

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan says he has ordered officials to look at how Canada calculates military spending compared to other NATO members, to ensure all allies are comparing apples to apples.

We have to be cognizant that different nations use a different formula, Sajjan told the House of Commons defence committee on Thursday.

So right now the deputy minister is working with our closest partners to look at exactly the formula that they were using so we can have a good comparison.

The comments come as Canada and other NATO allies are facing pressure from the Trump administration in Washington to increase the amount they spend on their militaries.

While all NATO members agreed in 2014 to work towards spending two per cent of their gross domestic product, or GDP, on defence, only five have reached that goal.

Canada is not one of them, and is actually near the back of the pack. It currently spends less than one per cent of GDP on defence, which ranks it 23rd among 28 NATO members.

Sajjan would not say whether the government will actual rolling in the spending on the coast guard or veterans programs like the U.S. and Britain, which would inch Canada closer to two per cent.

But at the same time, we do need to look at what our closest allies are actually using so that we can then compare apples to apples in terms of that commitment, he told The Canadian Press after the meeting.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appeared to all but dismiss the two per cent target during a visit to Germany last month, saying: There are many ways of evaluating ones contribution to NATO.

That is the message the government has repeatedly delivered to Washington, emphasizing Canadas military contributions to Latvia, Ukraine and Iraq in lieu of large spending increases.

Sajjan repeated it during and after his committee appearance, adding that the government would invest in what it believes the military needs to do its job rather than to meet a specific target.

We are going to invest in defence and what we need for outputs, he said. Thats how we conduct a defence policy review. Thats what makes it credible.

Defence analyst David Perry of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute said there is validity to the governments argument that spending alone isnt a good measure of a countrys contributions to NATO.

But the fact the government is reviewing the formula indicates it is at least a little concerned about how Canada compares to other NATO members, particularly given the messages coming out of Washington.

It is also another indication that the government is not planning to include any big injections of money into the military in the upcoming budget or its new defence policy, which is expected in the coming weeks.

If they were about to unleash a big increase to the budget, Perry said, youd kind of wonder whether or not theyd be going through the exercise of figuring out what to count.

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Officials to review how Canada, NATO members calculate defence spending - The Globe and Mail

Russia has deployed a long-rangemissilethat threatensthe US and Natoand violates an international arms treaty, a senior American general has claimed.

Paul Selva, vice chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the House of Representatives' Armed Services Committee that Moscow hadintentionally deployed the weapon in order to threaten the West.

"The system itself presents a risk to most of our facilities in Europe and we believe that the Russians have deliberately deployed it in order to pose a threat to NATO and to facilities within the NATO area of responsibility," hesaid.

The deployment of theland-based cruise missile violatesthe spirit and intent of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) between the US and Russia, Mr Selva added.

Russian leaders do not intend to return to compliance of the treaty, hesuggested, adding that US officials had raised the issue with Moscow.

His comments mark the first time US officials haveconfirmed media reports last month relating to the deployment of the nuclear-capable SSC-8 missiles, which is said to have taken place late last year.

During the Armed Services Committee hearing, US military officials also gave their support to the START agreement between America and Russia that seeks to reduce both countries stock of nuclear weapons.

Mr Trump appeared to question the value of the treaty after it was reported he had told Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, that the deal was not beneficial to the United States.

But military leaders told congressmen the treaty was needed to prevent an arms race.

"I have stated for the record in the past, now I'll state again that I am a big supporter of the New START agreement," said Air Force General John Hyten, the head of U.S. Strategic Command.

"The risk [of scrapping the agreement] would be an arms race, we are not in an arms race now."

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Russia's deployment of nuclear-capable missile threatens Nato, senior American general says - The Independent

An organisation, society or country can only succeed if it uses the full potential of all of its members men and women, said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, marking the occasion of International Womens Day on Wednesday (8 March 2017). He stressed that equal participation of men and women is a core security requirement, essential to the resilience of societies, to the effectiveness of NATO forces and to achieving and preserving peace.

NATO strongly supports the global women, peace and security agenda. The Alliance has integrated gender perspectives in its three core tasks collective defence, crisis management and cooperative security. NATO works to promote womens rights in training and operations, and in our assistance for partners, such as Jordan, Georgia and Ukraine. The appointment of NATOs Special Representative on Women, Peace and Security Ambassador Marriet Schuurman demonstrates the importance of these issues.

Today, NATO has more women in leadership positions than ever before as ministers, senior officials and military commanders. A quarter of NATO Defence Ministers are women, six of 28 NATO Ambassadors are women, and last year, the Alliance welcomed its first female Deputy Secretary General, Rose Gottemoeller. NATOs Joint Force Command in Naples is also led by US Admiral Michelle Howard, a four-star officer, and US Army Brigadier General Giselle Wilz is the first woman to head NATO HQ Sarajevo. Canadas most senior female military officer, Lt.-Gen. Christine Whitecross, is currently commandant of the NATO Defense College in Rome.

The Secretary General has highlighted that making the best potential of both men and woman makes NATO stronger and better prepared to deal with current security challenges. I look forward to the day when not just a quarter but half of NATO ministers are women; I am sure that time will come, said the Secretary General.

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NATO marks International Women's Day - NATO HQ (press release)

NATO Deputy Secretary General, Rose Gottemoeller, ended a two day visit to Iceland on Wednesday (8 March 2017) by addressing students at the University of Iceland on how NATO is adapting to a new security environment. Ms Gottemoeller explained how NATO represents the gold standard in multilateral security cooperation and how it is strengthening its collective defence in Europe and doing more to fight terrorism.

Iceland, a founding member of NATO, is a highly valued Ally and although the country has no standing army, it has made important financial and civilian contributions to NATO missions in the Balkans and Afghanistan.

Ms Gottemoeller arrived in Iceland on Tuesday (7 March 2017) evening for talks with Icelands Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Gudlaugur Thor Thordarson. The two discussed the current security situation and Icelands contribution to NATO.

On Wednesday (8 March 2017), the Deputy Secretary General met with the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs. She also gave a speech at a NATO Resources Conference in Reykjavik, which has been discussing how the Alliance can best use its financial resources to adapt to the new security environment. Ms Gottemoeller stressed the importance of common funding, which enables Allies to join together to boost their defence capabilities, such as with NATOs fleet of AWACS surveillance aircraft.

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NATO Deputy Secretary General thanks Iceland for its contribution to European security - NATO HQ (press release)

Richard Grenell, a well-known conservative communications professional, will reportedly soon be announced as the Trump administrations ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Its an important job given the alliances mission of standing up to Russia and a tough one given President Trumps harsh criticism of the organization.

Which makes it interesting that Grenell, unlike his potential boss, is a strong supporter of maintaining the NATO alliance and using it as a counterweight to Russias efforts to expand its influence in Eastern Europe. Grenell, who served as a foreign policy spokesperson in the George W. Bush administration, seems more aligned with the moderate wing of the administration (represented by Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis) than the radical revisionist one (represented by senior strategist Steve Bannon).

[Its] confusing, Steve Saideman, a professor at Carleton University who studies NATO, tells me. As far as I know, Grenell does not hate NATO or want to burn it down.

Grenell is also somewhat controversial in conservative circles, owing to the fact that hes openly gay and a supporter of same-sex marriage. The Romney campaign picked him to be its foreign policy spokesperson in 2012, but a social conservative backlash ended his tenure very quickly. This time around, Grenell is less likely to get into trouble for who he is than what hes tweeted: The tone of his comments about Trump during the primary, especially on Twitter, was highly critical.

If you think Trump knows foreign policy issues then absolutely yes, you are stupid, Grenell tweeted in March 2016.

He changed his tune during the general election, once referring to a Trump statement on NATO, where he said he refocused the alliance on terrorism, as fantastic. But past criticism of Trump has gotten potential administration nominees into trouble before. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reportedly wanted former Bush administration official Elliott Abrams for his top deputy but Trump nixed the pick, reportedly because Abrams had written harshly about Trump in the past.

The Grenell pick is thus an interesting test for the Trump administration: How much internal dissent can it tolerate, and what kind of dissent is acceptable? Washingtons closest allies, and Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, will be waiting anxiously for the answers.

The US ambassador to NATO, also called the permanent representative, sits on the North Atlantic Council, the alliances decision-making body. The council is where NATO countries vote on key issues like whether to undertake collective military missions such as NATOs involvement in the Afghanistan war. The ambassador votes on behalf of the US, and also plays a role in negotiating the text of any NATO-wide agreement.

These are important tasks, but typically the person doing them doesnt have a lot of freedom. Historically, the ambassadors job is more to do what his bosses tell him than make independent decisions. The [ambassador] is both a very important position as the US representative in the room when big decisions are being made and also not so important since they are very closely guided/managed by DC, Saideman explains.

That may be less true in the Trump administration, given its deep internal divisions over foreign policy and well-earned reputation for disorganization. In this environment, clear guidance could be lacking, leaving the ambassador with a lot more discretion. That would make Grenells personal background and views, if hes confirmed by the Senate, a whole lot more important than those of previous NATO ambassadors.

Grenell does have a lot of experience in conservative foreign policy land. Prior to his job with Romney, he served as the spokesperson for the US mission to the United Nations under George W. Bush, holding that job longer than any other individual.

As you might expect from someone with this background, he holds fairly conventional conservative views on foreign policy including on issues relating to NATO, which he has called the worlds greatest alliance. When Russia invaded eastern Ukraine in July 2014, he called for an immediate and forceful response.

The US leads NATO ... they should have been on the ground in Ukraine immediately, he tweeted. We should sell Ukraine arms immediately.

In a March 2016 appearance on the Fox Business Channel, Grenell defended the alliance against the fact that its not spending enough on its own defense a charge that President Trump has made repeatedly. NATO countries are supposed to spend 2 percent of GDP on defense, but only five countries hit that target in 2016.

In Grenells view, the issue is that the Obama administration has been too disengaged from the alliance, weakening it as an institution.

You cant blame NATO, Grenell told host Charles Payne. I would say the reason why were having this debate about NATO right now ... is because you dont have US leadership.

Grenell had also been a tough critic of Putin, attacking his intervention in Ukraine and meddling with foreign elections in a number of op-eds and numerous tweets published in the past several years. Once again, Grenell saw this as a product of Obamas weakness.

If Grenell gets the NATO job, half the reporters in DC (including me) will have to unblock him

The Russian president has successfully used propaganda, natural gas, intimidation, money laundering, military hardware, corruption, and his opponents weaknesses to chip away at the Wests influence throughout Eastern Europe and the Baltic states, he wrote in the conservative tabloid Newsmax last year. Russia is calculating how best to continue its offense undeterred by the West and President Obama.

The point, then, is that Grenell seems to have broadly conventional foreign policy views: He sees NATO as a vital alliance and bulwark against an expansionist Russia. His critique of the Obama administration was that it was too withdrawn, too disengaged from allies and unwilling to come to their aid when theyre threatened.

Trump, by contrast, has cast doubt on Americas commitment to NATO and described Russia as a potential partner. His critique of the Obama administration was that it was too beholden to outdated international institutions like NATO and too willing to use force when Americas direct national security interests were not at stake.

This kind of tension is becoming fairly normal in the administration. Secretary Mattis, for example, more or less disavowed past Trump statements on NATO and Russia in his confirmation hearing. During a trip to Brussels for a NATO summit, Mattis openly ruled out Trumps proposal to cooperate with Russia on military matters. Vice President Mike Pence, during a speech in Germany, said that America strongly supports NATO and is unwavering in our commitment to our transatlantic alliance.

This kind of sub-presidential diplomacy can make it difficult to figure out what the administrations actual position is or would be in a crisis. Do Mattis and Pence speak for Trump, or will the president overrule them when their views come into direct conflict, especially over Russia?

Right now, its too soon to tell. But Grenell, if confirmed, will be thrown into the middle of this conflict on one of the most important points of internal tension, the NATO alliance, inside the administration.

Grenell is not shy about expressing his opinions. He appears on Fox News regularly, and has attacked a fairly large percentage of the Washington press corps on Twitter.

If Grenell gets the NATO job, half the reporters in DC (including me) will have to unblock him, New York Times political reporter Glenn Thrush tweeted when the news of Grenells nomination first broke.

So its no surprise that Grenell has had a lot of things to say about Donald Trump. Since roughly last summer, most of those things have been positive Grenell has vigorously defended Trumps record both on foreign policy and LGBTQ rights.

But prior to Trumps victory in the primary, Grenells Twitter tone was about as hostile to Trump as it was to reporters. He described candidate Trump as dangerously ignorant, and seemingly called on the Republican Party to block him from taking the nomination:

All of this raises the question of whether Grenell will go the way of Abrams, the Tillerson deputy who never was.

There is a key difference between Grenell and Abrams. Abrams was #NeverTrump, and never apologized or withdrew his attacks. Grenell, by contrast, appears to have recanted his anti-Trump faith after the primary, spending the past several months vocally defending the candidate and the new administration on Twitter and TV.

So what were about to see assuming the reports of Grenells nomination are true is a test of the loyalty component of a Trump nominee. How much criticism of the president and his policies is acceptable in a high-profile nominee? And is withdrawing the attacks enough to make things better?

If Grenell gets past the trial balloon stage, and is formally announced as the administrations NATO ambassador pick, then well have our answer. If he doesnt get picked well, then well have learned something too.

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Trump's rumored pick for NATO ambassador doesn't seem to agree with him about NATO - Vox

President Trump has reportedly tappedas his ambassador tothe North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) a hawkish critic of Russia who wants the U.S. to arm Ukraine. Its the latest sign that the administration isreacting to criticism that it is too soft on Russiabypivoting to the other extreme.

Richard Grennell is a former Bush-era U.S. spokesperson at the United Nations who also served as a foreign policy spokesperson forMitt Romneys presidential campaign. He frequently appears on Fox News and other conservative outlets saying President Obama appeased Russia.

Following Russias annexation of Crimea and the conflict in eastern Ukraine, Obama resistedpolitical pressure from hawks in Congress to provide lethal arms to the Ukranian government, fearing that doing so would only cause Russia to escalate its own military involvement.

Writing in The New York Timess Room for Debate section in 2014, Grenell said that Obamas belief that the U.S. could support Ukraine but not antagonize Russia represented a nave and dangerous world view.In aFox News op-ed, he proposed military escalation: Offer advice and training to Ukraine, and sell it the lethal weapons required to contend with Russian armored personnel carriers, tanks and missiles, he wrote,adding that the U.S. should also restart missile defense shield programs in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Grennellalso counseled Obama to leave directly military confrontation with Russia over Ukraine on the table.

The Obama doctrine only persuades Putin that he need never fear the U.S. military the worlds most powerful deterrent, he wrote. Even if Obama would never start a war with Russia, he should stop swearing off military action in public. Instead, President Obama, through his inexhaustible number of speeches and statements, should rhetorically leave military action on the table.

Although his support for arming Ukraine stretches back years, Grenell was continuing to advocate for lethal aid for Ukraine as recently as Tuesday via his Twitter account, which he frequently uses to opine on world affairs:

Grenell is not the only Russia hawk to step into Trumps orbit recently.

His new national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, holds more moderate views on Islam than his bigoted predecessor Michael Flynn but also has a more adversarial view of Russia. In May, he described the Russian annexation of Crimea as an attempt to collapse the post-World War Two, certainly the post-Cold War, security, economic, and political order in Europe and replace that order with something that is more sympathetic to Russian interests. While Trump has been critical of NATO at one point in early January calling it obsolete McMaster is a strong supporter of the alliance.

Trumps UN Ambassador Nikki Haley has also taken a tough line with Russia during her first month on the job. The dire situation in eastern Ukraine is one that demands clear and strong condemnation of Russian actions, she said of Russian-allied forces there. She also affirmed continued support for U.S. sanctions on Russia that were enacted in response to the annexation of Crimea, saying: The United States continues to condemn and calls for an immediate end to the Russian occupation of Crimea. Crimea is a part of Ukraine. Our Crimea-related sanctions will remain in place until Russia returns control over the peninsula to Ukraine.

Some Russian government officials, including those who were initially openly supportive of Trump, are starting to grow uneasy with the presidents approach, reportedMoscow-based journalist Amie-Ferris Rotman for Foreign Policy.We were too early in our decision, made with absolute sympathy towards President Trumps constructive rhetoric, that he would somehow be pro-Russian,Leonid Slutsky, who is head of the Russian parliaments foreign affairs committee, said in February. But he turned out to be pro-American.

Top photo: A Ukrainian soldier stands at the front line of the ATO operation in Artemovsk, Ukraine, in 2015.

Excerpt from:
Trump Picks Hawkish Critic of Russia as NATO Ambassador, Veering From One Extreme to the Other - The Intercept

By Idrees Ali | WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON Russia has deployed a land-based cruise missile that violates the "spirit and intent" of an arms control treaty and poses a threat to NATO, Vice Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff General Paul Selva said on Wednesday.

It was the first public accusation by the U.S. military of the deployment after reports said last month that Russia had secretly deployed the ground-launched SSC-8 cruise missile that Moscow has been developing and testing for several years, despite U.S. complaints that it violated sections of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty.

"The system itself presents a risk to most of our facilities in Europe and we believe that the Russians have deliberately deployed it in order to pose a threat to NATO and to facilities within the NATO area of responsibility," Selva said during a House Armed Services Committee hearing. The Air Force general did not say whether the missile was capable of carrying a nuclear weapon.

Selva said the United States had brought up the issue with Russia. He did not say what options were being considered if the discussions did not lead to results, but added that "we have been asked to incorporate a set of options into the nuclear posture review."

"I don't have enough information on their intent to conclude other than they do not intend to return to compliance," he added.

In an interview with Reuters last month, President Donald Trump said he would raise the issue of the deployment with Russian President Vladimir Putin "if and when we meet."

In 2014, the United States made a similar accusation. The State Department concluded in a report that Russia was in violation of its obligations under the INF treaty.

Russia accused Washington of conducting "megaphone diplomacy" after the accusation was repeated by the State Department in 2015. Moscow also denied it had violated the treaty, which helped end the Cold War.

Questions have been raised about U.S. commitment to another nuclear weapons deal, the New START agreement, which caps U.S. and Russian deployment of nuclear warheads after Reuters reported that Trump told Putin it was a bad deal for the United States.

During the Wednesday hearing, senior military officials strongly backed the treaty.

"I have stated for the record in the past, now I'll state again that I am a big supporter of the New START agreement," said Air Force General John Hyten, the head of U.S. Strategic Command.

"The risk would be an arms race, we are not in an arms race now," Hyten said.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Alistair Bell and Jonathan Oatis)

KUALA LUMPUR Two U.N. employees who were among 11 Malaysian nationals stranded in North Korea following a travel ban have left the country, a Malaysian government source said on Thursday.

UNITED NATIONS Malaysia has warned that an investigation into the murder of the North Korean leader's half brother "may take longer than what we hope," as Pyongyang ally China said on Wednesday that no international action should be considered until it is finished.

PARIS Centrist Emmanuel Macron would come out ahead of far right leader Marine Le Pen in the first round of France's presidential election before going on to win a runoff vote against her, a Harris Interactive poll showed on Thursday.

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US general says Russia deploys cruise missile, threatens NATO - Reuters

General Petr Pavel, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee visited Cairo, Egypt on 6-7 March 17. During his visit he met with the Chief of staff of the Egyptian Armed Forces, General Mahmoud Hegazy.

The Generals discussed global security and regional challenges, with a special focus on the current situation in Libya. They also exchanged views on furthering practical military-to-military cooperation and increasing coordination between NATO and Egypt. General Pavel stated Egypt is a valuable and active Mediterranean Dialogue partner. Meetings such as these are important as they improve our situational awareness of the regional security challenges while also allowing the Alliance to explain firsthand its current policies and activities.

Egypt joined the Mediterranean Dialogue in 1994 and signed a Security Agreement with NATO in 2009. The Dialogue reflects the Alliances view that security in Europe is closely linked to security and stability in the Mediterranean.

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Chairman of the NATO Military Committee visits Egypt - NATO HQ (press release)

The role of the United States in the breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is often overlooked by people who are critical of Washingtons intervention in the internal affairs of independent, sovereign countries.

For it was in the former Yugoslavia that the precedent was set for future American intervention in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo provided the launch pad for the Wests concept of humanitarian intervention, which, in reality, is a pretext for safeguarding and enhancing US global hegemony.

However, intervention by Washington in the Balkans in the 1990s served a more immediate objective for the Americans. While Otto von Bismarck, the legendary first Chancellor of Germany, scoffed at the notion of intervening in the Balkans, having said that the region isnot worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier,the US took a decidedly different view on the matter.

For Washington, helping to break up Yugoslavia would not only create client states for the US but would also, at best, keep Russia out of the Balkans, or, at worst, limit Russian influence in the region (historically, Russia has close connections there based on pan-Slavism and the Orthodox faith). An American presence in the Balkans would also allow US policy-makers to project American power beyond the region, as Camp Bondsteel, in Kosovo, has been helping to do for nearly twenty years now. Incidentally, it is one of the largest overseas US military bases in the world, hosting up to seven thousand soldiers and an array of military equipment.

Today, Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo are American client states. But the process of Washington colonizing the Balkans is not yet complete. Standing in the way of the US achieving full mastery over the region are Serbia and Russia.

Throughout its history, Serbia has resisted foreign occupiers, from the Ottoman Empire to the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the German Empire to the Third Reich. However, since the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic, in 2000, in an election which the Americans played a decisive role in, Serbia has begun to be colonized by the US. Today, there are NATO supervisory offices in key Serbian institutions, from the Ministry of Defense to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the judiciary to the civil service. The former is all the more ironic and humiliating for Serbs given that NATO representatives sit in the very building that NATO partly destroyed during its bombing campaign against Serbia in 1999.

Further to that, to weaken Serbia and ensure that it does not resist the diktats of Washington, the US encouraged and recognized Kosovos unilateral declaration of independence in 2008, as well as having instigated and overseen the fraudulent independence referendum result in Montenegro in 2006. As a consequence of both illegal actions, Belgrade lost control of Kosovo and Montenegro, reducing Serbia in size and in clout.

But despite Washingtons penetration of Serbia, assisted by the European Union, and accelerated under the current prime minister, Alexander Vucic, more and more ordinary Serbs are coming to realize the tremendously damaging effects of American influence in their country politically, economically, militarily and socially and thus anti-Western sentiment in Serbia is now widespread.

Buoyed by its emphatic return to the international arena, and by its foreign policy successes in the Crimea and in Syria, Russia has begun to show increasing interest in the Balkans. Moscow understands the geostrategic importance of the Balkans for Russian national security and, like Tsarist Russia is starting to capitalize on pro-Russian sentiment in Serbia, Montenegro, the Republika Srpska (the Serb entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina) and Macedonia. And it is Macedonia that today the US regards as constituting an effective means of keeping the Americans in the Balkans, the Serbs down in the Balkans and the Russians out of the Balkans.

Washington, which is actively seeking both NATO and EU membership for Macedonia, is acutely aware that political, economic and cultural relations between Russia and Macedonia have been steadily progressing in recent years, demonstrated by the construction of the Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church in Skopje, in 2015. That groundbreaking event was presided over by Archbishop Stefan, the head of the Macedonian Orthodox Church, who also blessed the site.

While Macedonia has been independent for 26 years now, it is a very fragile country, and this is due in large part to its restless Albanian community, which makes up a quarter of Macedonians population. Enter the US.

Since the US bombed Serbia in support of the Kosovo Liberation Army, an ethnic Albanian terrorist organization with powerful links to organized crime, Washington has cultivated an extremely strong relationship with Albanians in the Balkans in Albania, Kosovo, and Macedonia. US pre-eminence in the region rests, to a large extent, on the fervent support it receives from Albanians there (indeed, Albanians are one of the staunchest supporters of America in the world). It is a mutually beneficial relationship, too, as the Albanian goal of wrestling Kosovo away from Serbia has been realized, due to the NATO bombing of Serbia and the subsequent withdrawal by Belgrade of its army and police from the Serbian province, while the immense political power which ethnic Albanians in Macedonia today wield, is due to the Ohrid Agreement which NATO imposed on Skopje in 2001, following an Albanian terrorist campaign in the country.

Under American patronage, the foundations for a Greater Albania have begun to take shape. And the areas which fall under a Greater Albania include Kosovo, parts of Macedonia, such as Tetovo, the Presevo Valley in Serbia, and parts of Montenegro, such as Malesia.

With historic ties between Serbia and Macedonia (pan-Slavism, the Orthodox faith and a wariness of Albanian territorial ambitions in the Balkans), and developing ties between Russia and Macedonia, and with anti-Western sentiment rapidly increasing in Serbia, and with a resurgent Russian on the international stage, the US has begun to take action to preserve its dominance in the Balkans. And by what means? By playing its trump card in the region: the Albanians.

Currently, in Macedonia, there is an internal crisis, in which the two opposing sides are the Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov and the leader of the opposition Zoran Zaev, who is backed by ethnic Albanian political parties. Mr. Ivanov will not grant permission to Mr. Zaev to form a government, rightly fearing that Albanian secessionists in Macedonia will take advantage of this and sever links with Skopje in pursuit of a Greater Albania.

Outside proponents of a Greater Albania have clearly demonstrated their involvement in the crisis in Macedonia. The self-proclaimed president of Kosovo, Hashim Thaci, has called on ethnic Albanians in Macedonia totake the destiny of their rights into their own hands.

Responding to the crisis in Macedonia, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has accused the US and EU of interfering in the internal affairs of the country and of supportingthe Greater Albania project which includes vast areas in a number of Balkan states.

By Washington playing the Albanian card in Macedonia, the country could cease to exist or could be reduced significantly in size, thus limiting any future Russian presence there. The Albanian-dominated parts of Macedonia could unify under a single entity and replicate what Kosovo did: become de facto independent and then one day unilaterally declares itself independent. That would also serve as a warning to Serbia: namely, if the Serbs continue with their current anti-Western sentiments, then Greater Albania could extend into Serbia, by the Americans encouraging and arming secessionists in the Presevo Valley, which could reduce the country even further in size.

Despite there being a new US administration, there is very little chance of President Donald Trump changing Washingtons policy in the Balkans and abandoning the Albanians there. Indeed, Mr. Trump demonstrated his full support to Kosovo this February when he sent a message to the self-proclaimed Kosovan President Thaci (a man with historical links to organized crime) congratulating Kosovo on its so-called independence.

In the letter, the US President wrote that:On behalf of the United States, I am pleased to congratulate the people of Kosovo on your independence day on February 17. The partnership between our countries is based on shared values and common interests. A sovereign, multi-ethnic, democratic Kosovos future lies in a stable and prosperous Balkan region that is fully integrated into the international communityWe look forward to continuing our broad and deep cooperation.

Mr Trump, who, like Thaci, has links to organized crime, is not going to relinquish Americas hold on the Balkans, for continued American dominance of the region will help to achieve the US Presidents goal of ensuring American global power remains preeminent, together with his pledge to increase the already bloated US defense budget and to make the American nuclear arsenal the largest in the world.

Macedonia is the country where Washingtons determination to remain dominant in the Balkans is beginning to play out in. The American-Albanian alliance is a lethal one for the security and stability of that historically volatile region. Yet, for the Americans and the Albanians, it is a win-win situation. With the help of the Albanians, the US will remain the leading outside power in the Balkans. And with the help of the Americans, the Albanian goal of realizing a Greater Albania will take another leap forward.

President Trump is starting to play Washingtons trump card the Albanians in Macedonia. MakingAmerica great againis beginning to take on another dimension.

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The US-NATO Plan for Macedonia: Keep Serbia Down and Russia Out - Center for Research on Globalization

NATO HQ (press release)

Statement by the NATO Secretary General on the Kosovo Security Force (KSF) NATO HQ (press release) Today, I have spoken to Hashim Thaci and Isa Mustafa to convey the serious concerns of NATO Allies about recent proposals by the Kosovo authorities to transform the Kosovo Security Force (KSF) into an armed force, without a constitutional change. I ... NATO, US warn Kosovo against move to form armyABC News NATO, US slap Kosovo's move to create national armyReuters Thaci: 'No Turning Back' On Kosovo Army Despite NATO, US WarningsRadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty IHS Jane's 360 -Balkan Insight all 29 news articles »

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Statement by the NATO Secretary General on the Kosovo Security Force (KSF) - NATO HQ (press release)