Category Archives: NATO

Snub Speculation: White House cant find time to meet NATO chief
When NATO #39;s chief scheduled his visit to Washington this week he was hoping for a personal meet-up with the US President. Instead, Jens Stoltenberg had to settle for a chat with the Defense...

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Snub Speculation: White House cant find time to meet NATO chief - Video

Uproar over Obama snubbing NATO chief
Joe Lestingi and Amos Snead over whether the White House #39;s decision matters.

By: Fox News

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Uproar over Obama snubbing NATO chief - Video

NATO Transformation Seminar - Supreme Allied Commander Transformation
Opening remarks by Supreme Allied Commander Transformation General Jean-Paul Palomros at the NATO Transformation Seminar, 25 March 2015.

By: NATO

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NATO Transformation Seminar - Supreme Allied Commander Transformation - Video

NATO Secretary General with Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, 25 MAR 2015
Joint press conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Supreme Allied Commander Transformation General Jean-Paul Palomros, 25 March 2015.

By: NATO

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NATO Secretary General with Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, 25 MAR 2015 - Video

NATO Secretary General at the NATO Transformation Seminar, 25 MAR 2015
Keynote speech by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the opening of the NATO Transformation Seminar, 25 MAR 2015.

By: NATO

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NATO Secretary General at the NATO Transformation Seminar, 25 MAR 2015 - Video

By Paul McLeary 2:43 p.m. EDT March 25, 2015

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speaks during a press conference at the Spanish Interior Ministry headquarters in Madrid on March 12, 2014.(Photo: DANI POZO/AFP/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON NATO leaders on Wednesday reiterated the alliance's stance on treating cyber attacks against a member as an Article 5 issue, which would potentially draw a military response from the entire alliance.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told a key alliance planning summit on Wednesday morning that "cyber is now a central part of virtually all crisis and conflicts, NATO has made clear that cyber attacks can potentially trigger an Article 5 response."

Just last week, Stoltenberg engaged in a contentious back and forth with Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of Russia's Federation Council Committee on International Affairs, at an event in Brussels when the Russian representative asked if NATO would bomb countries it suspects have been involved in cyber attacks.

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"We will do what's necessary to do to protect all allies," Stoltenberg replied. "But I'm not going to tell you exactly how I'm going to do that ... that's the main message."

On Wednesday, much of the NATO chief's comments revolved around the topic of hybrid war, which Stoltenberg said combines the power of a state with unconventional means such as cyber and information operations, and disguised military operations, much like the activities of Russia in Crimea and Ukraine over the past year.

He said NATO must resist this "Russian model" and "sharpen our early warning and situational awareness so we know when an attack is an attack. Hybrid warfare seeks to exploit any weakness."

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NATO Chief: Cyber Can Trigger Article 5

The cease-fire agreement in Ukraine is largely holding, but international monitors are still not being provided with full access to contested zones, the new head of NATO said Wednesday.

Jens Stoltenberg, the former Norwegian prime minister who became secretary general of the alliance last fall, said NATO is focused on supporting the agreement signed last month rather than sending lethal weaponry to help Ukrainian forces defend against Russian-backed separatists there.

For the time being, I can see no better alternative than to try to ensure that the Minsk agreement is fully implemented, Stoltenberg said in an interview. While there is a long way to go, he added, at least the cease-fire has provided us with substantially less fighting. ... Its a fragile cease-fire, but it is a cease-fire.

The Obama administration is under strong pressure from Congress to supply the Ukrainian military with defensive lethal arms such as sophisticated anti-tank weaponry. U.S. officials have acknowledged that the subject is a matter of debate within the administration; President Obama has resisted calls from senior Cabinet officials and NATOs military chief, U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, to send the weapons.

U.S. officials have charged in recent days that Russia is still supplying heavy weaponry to the separatists, along with military personnel to provide training and guidance on the ground. According to monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, there has been some weapons pullback in the disputed areas in eastern Ukraine and some lessening of fighting, but the monitors have been refused entry to some sites, and separatists still control key parts of the border with Russia.

France and Germany helped negotiate the cease-fire, a reiteration of a document first signed last fall in Minsk, the Belarusan capital. Both NATO partners have said they oppose providing lethal arms, on the grounds that doing so would only escalate a conflict that Ukraine could not win against Russian forces.

Stoltenberg, in Washington for much of this week to attend a NATO seminar, will not see Obama during his visit, a fact that prompted reports that the president had snubbed him.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest said that the presidents schedule is pretty full and that the notion that the president somehow, or the White House somehow, is failing to return the call to the secretary general is ridiculous.

Stoltenberg pointed out that he met Obama at NATOs summit in Wales last fall and said he would meet with him again. Our teams have been and are looking into when we can find a convenient date, he said.

Its not about that, he said. Its about the importance of NATO and the United States working closely together, and we are.

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NATO secretary general: Ukraine cease-fire fragile but largely holding

President Barack Obama has yet to meet with the new head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and won'tsee Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg this week, even though he isin Washington for three days.Stoltenbergs office requested a meeting with Obama well in advance of the visit, but never heard anything from the White House, two sources close to the NATO chief told me.

The leaders of almost all the other 28NATO member countries have made time for Stoltenberg since he took over the world's largest military alliance in October. Stoltenberg, twice theprime minister of Norway, met Monday with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Ottawa to discuss the threat of the Islamic State and the crisis in Ukraine, two issues nearthe top of Obama's agenda.

Kurt Volker, who served as the U.S.permanentrepresentative to NATO under both President George W. Bush and Obama, said the president broke a long tradition. The Bush administration held a firm line that if the NATO secretary general came to town, he would be seen by the president...so as not to diminish his stature or authority,he told me.

America'scommitment to defend its NATO allies is its biggest treaty obligation, said Volker,adding thatEuropean security is at its most perilous moment since the Cold War. Russia hasmoved troops and weapons into eastern Ukraine, annexed Crimea, placed nuclear-capable missiles in striking distance of NATO allies, flown strategic-bomber mock runs in the North Atlantic, practiced attack approaches on the U.K. and Sweden, and this week threatened to aim nuclear missiles at Denmarks warships.

It is hard for me to believe that the president of the United States has not found the time to meet with the current secretary general of NATO given the magnitude of what this implies, and the responsibilities of his office, Volker said.

Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, declined to say why Obamadidnt respond to Stoltenbergs request. We dont have any meetings to announce at this time, she told me in a statement. Sources told me thatStoltenberg was able to arrange a last-minute meeting with Defense Secretary Ashton Carter.

According to White House pressreleases, Obama didnt exactly have a packed schedule. On Tuesday, heheld important meetings and a press conference with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani at the White House (Ghani will meet with Stoltenberg while they are both in town). But the only event on Obamas public schedule for Wednesday is a short speech to kick off a meeting related to the Affordable Care Act. On Thursday, he will head to Alabamato give a speech about the economy.

Stoltenberg is in town primarily for the NATO Transformation Seminar, a once-a-year strategic brainstorming session that brings together NATOs leadership with expertsand top officials from the host country. The eventis organized by the Allied Command Transformation in Norfolk, Virginia, and the Atlantic Council.

The focus of this years seminar is to think through how best to update NATOs strategy given real threats in the east and the south, against the backdrop of a dramatically changing world, said Damon Wilson, a former NSC senior director for Europewho isnow with the Atlantic Council. The practical focus is to begin developing the road map to the next NATO summit, which will take place in Warsaw in July 2016, a summit which will presumably be the capstone and last summit for the Obama administration.

Last year, the seminar was hosted in Paris, and then-NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussengot a separate bilateral meeting with President Francois Hollande of France.

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Obama Snubs Nato Chief as Crisis Rages - Bloomberg View

Brussels - The NATO alliance seems stuck at a crossroads on Ukraine, unsure whether to move toward greater confrontation with Russia or accept the deadlocked "frozen conflict" that has emerged there.

It's a unified morass, at least, with President Obama sharing the reluctance of European leaders to escalate the crisis by providing defensive weapons to Ukraine or tightening sanctions against Russia. The U.S. tacitly backs the decision made by European leaders here late last week to maintain the status quo - and link any easing of sanctions to implementation of the Minsk agreement that has brought a shaky truce in Ukraine.

The policy impasse was illustrated by Gen. Philip Breedlove, the NATO commander. I asked him Sunday at a conference here whether arming Kiev, which he reportedly favors, would be stabilizing or destabilizing. He indicated that he favored sending weapons, saying: "I do not think that any tool of U.S. ... power should necessarily be off the table."

But Breedlove noted the ambiguity of the policy choice: "Could it be destabilizing? The answer is yes. Also, inaction could be destabilizing." That answer was a snapshot of the alliance's dilemma. Breedlove spoke at the Brussels Forum, organized by the German Marshall Fund, of which I'm a trustee.

The problem is that it's hard to see how current sanctions policy will lead to a true de-escalation, unless Russian President Vladimir Putin has a sudden conversion. Russian analysts here say it could take years for sanctions to bite so much that they force a policy change.

Leaving aside whether a Russian economic breakdown would really be in the West's interest, sanctions may have a perverse outcome in the near term: Rather than encouraging Putin and his cronies to change course, they may instead empower the most corrupt and conservative forces in Russia.

Sanctions had just this unintended outcome in Iraq during the 1990s, when controls that were meant to punish the regime of Saddam Hussein enfeebled the mass economy but enriched elite regime cronies who could evade sanctions. Russians here warned that just such a process may be underway in Russia.

NATO has learned to live with frozen conflicts near its borders, such as between Georgia and the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia; and between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Diplomatic efforts to resolve these disputes have been underway for years, with little progress.

But a frozen conflict with Russia itself would be considerably more dangerous. The status quo, with Ukraine vulnerable and sanctions continuing, would mean increasing isolation and impoverishment of a Russian economy that was foundering long before Putin annexed Crimea and triggered reprisals. Russians can probably live with a declining economy - their ability to endure suffering is part of the Russian national identity - but this course seems likely to produce a Russia that's ever more lawless, unsteady and prone to violence, internally and externally.

The Brussels Forum discussions explored another dilemma for NATO: As a conventional military alliance, it is ill-prepared for the "hybrid warfare" Russia has waged in Ukraine, which has been closer to a paramilitary covert action to support proxy forces than to a traditional military attack. Breedlove acknowledged this problem, and said that NATO needed to mount an "all of government" response to Moscow, including information operations and other tools that are traditionally used by intelligence agencies or foreign ministries, not military alliances.

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NATO's new perils

Babar Ghauri has gone out of Pakistan due to NATO Weapons issue Dr Shahid Masood
Babar Ghauri has gone out of Pakistan due to NATO Weapons issue Dr Shahid Masood.

By: Salient Features

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Babar Ghauri has gone out of Pakistan due to NATO Weapons issue Dr Shahid Masood - Video