Category Archives: NATO

Much geopolitical comment commits the mistake of believing that foreign affairs should be understood in terms of national interests. The crisis in Ukraine, for instance, can be viewed as being over gas pipelines or spheres of influence. In reality, however, the decisive factor in foreign policy is very often the personal self-interest of the decision-makers themselves, and by extension the institutional self-interest of the bodies in which they work.

Take last week's Joint Statement of the NATO-Ukraine commission issued at the summit in Wales. It would be difficult to imagine a more belligerent or aggressive document. It is uncompromising in its hostility to Russia, full of allegations against Moscow, and devoid of any criticism for the way that Kiev has sought, from the very beginning of the conflict in the East, to crush its opponents by force. "Despite Russias denials," it says, "Russian armed forces are engaged in direct military operations in Ukraine; Russia continues to supply weapons to militants in eastern Ukraine; and it maintains thousands of combat-ready troops on its border with Ukraine."

Like all Western policy on Ukraine, therefore, the Statement cuts no slack to the concerns of the Russian population of Eastern Ukraine and gives no quarter to the peace proposals which have emanated from the Kremlin since the beginning of the conflict and which were repeated on 3 September. It does not even mention the hundreds of thousands of refugees who have fled into Russia as a result of the conflict. As the West did during the Bosnian war, it doggedly presents a civil conflict as an international one. The document even condemns "external interference" in Ukraine while at the same time announcing a huge programme of new NATO and bilateral lethal and non-lethal military aid to Kiev: the Statement not is therefore not only disconnected from reality but also self-contradictory.

Such a position is irrational from the point of view of national interest. NATO states have no interest in throwing oil on the flames by attacking Russia: even they admit that Russia can play a key role in calming things down. They have no interest in aggravating the internal tensions within Ukraine by encouraging it to apply for NATO membership: everyone knows this is far more serious than association with the EU. They have no interest in supporting a military solution to the conflict when a political one is at hand (NATO's declared support for Kiev's alleged pursuit of a political solution is nothing but a bad joke): fighting can only drag out the agony. By the same token, the EU has no interest, and certainly no intention, of accepting responsibility for a failed state like Ukraine: swimming in debt themselves, the EU states cannot possibly find the money to bail it out.

So what is the explanation? The NATO-Ukraine joint statement, like the EU's Eastern Neighbourhood policy of which Ukraine is the key part and which caused the crisis in the first place, makes sense only as ideology and in terms of institutional self-justification. According to the ideology, "the West" is a body of post-national states united by common values of diversity and tolerance. At his speech to European Youth in Brussels on 26 March, President Obama presented the conflict in Ukraine in precisely these stark civilisational terms - between, on the one hand, a West attached to the principles of freedom and, on the other, a Russia attached to the use of authoritarianism and brute force. The West needs to bolster this external ideological enemy, Russia, for the purposes of ensuring its own political cohesion.

This ideology not only flatters Westerners' sense of moral superiority; it also serves a specific function for Western political elites, namely to justify the existence and expenditure of NATO and the EU. Both bodies need to continue to expand to foster the illusion that they have universal appeal because they are based on universal values; both bodies need to dissipate their own internal tensions and lack of legitimacy by currying enmity with an external enemy which embodies the values they reject. Without such an enemy, they would have to be dissolved and their officials dismissed. These structures give the officials who work for them, and the politicians who control them, far greater power than they would otherwise have, because their expansion and strengthening means that ever greater areas of policy-making are transferred to the cosy world of international summitry, and away from the difficulties created by public scrutiny in the domestic arena. It is for this reason that the Secretary-General of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said that last week's summit in Wales would be "one of the most important summits in the Alliance's history". It was nothing of the kind, of course, but Rasmussen and his Western political bosses need to keep up a sense of urgency to justify their own pay packets.

The virulence of the Statement, and Kiev's announcement that it will abandon non-aligned status and seek NATO membership, also confirms a crucial point which has in fact been clear from the very beginning of the crisis - that the EU Association Agreement, which Viktor Yanukovich refused to sign last November, and which caused the whole crisis in the first place, was in fact always really about NATO. The political chapters of that agreement, signed by Prime Minister Yatseniuk in March only weeks after his seizure of power, requires that there be "convergence in the area of foreign and security policy, including the Common Security and Defence Policy". This Common Security and Defence Policy, in turn, thanks to Article 42 and Protocol 10 of the EUs Lisbon Treaty, is itself integrated into that of NATO: the treaty declares that the Policy "shall be consistent with commitments under the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation". A key geopolitical point which was previously buried inside the arcane paragraphs of an international treaty has at least now been publicly announced.

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NATO, US Governed By Self-Interest, Not National Interest

MC NATO SP DINHEIRO PUTARIA
DIVULGAES OVER SIX!!!!

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Close Look at Leadership in NATO Exercise
2013 - Part of the mission of Exercise Steadfast Jazz included taking a close look at the leadership of land forces of the NATO Response Force.

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Close Look at Leadership in NATO Exercise - Video

And vs nato

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And vs nato - Video

Sajtofutas NATO-katonakkal

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Sajtofutas NATO-katonakkal - Video

PULEDRO APPENA NATO http://www.mielelombardi.it
Chanel assieme alla mamma Luna poche ore dopo la nascita Mauro Lombardi, "Apicoltura Lombardi", Fattoria Didattica ed Asineria Sociale, via Mercanta, 11/B FAENZA (RA) ITALY ...

By: ASINI, API e CAVALLI Centro Socio-Educativo Rurale "La Scuola degli Asini" - Faenza (RA) - ITALY

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Fmr. NATO Comm.: Give Iraqis 2nd chance
Adm. James Stavridis tells Jake Tapper he believes in second-chances for Iraqi soldiers who fled the fight against ISIS.

By: Tom Sullivan

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Fmr. NATO Comm.: Give Iraqis 2nd chance - Video

BRUSSELS, Sept. 29 (UPI) -- NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen bid farewell to NATO members and NATO staff as he prepares to step down Tuesday.

At a ceremony in Brussels on Friday to mark the end of his five-year term, Fogh Rasmussen acknowledged the soldiers who comprise NATO forces as "the backbone of our Alliance" and laid a wreath in honor of those who paid the ultimate sacrifice at the NATO Memorial to the Fallen. He thanked member states and staff for their contributions during what he described as "the busiest and most challenging years for NATO."

"We have reinforced the Alliance to make it fitter, faster and more flexible," noted the outgoing secretary general.

During his tenure, Fogh Rasmussen oversaw the completion of the NATO-led ISAF mission following handover of security responsibility to Afghan security forces. In 2012, he endorsed the Smart Defense initiative to stream line collaboration and maximize limited resources, and supported the Connected Forces Initiative to increase joint and combined military training and exercises among Alliance states.

In 2014, Fogh Rasmussen advocated for more robust collective defense in the face of Russian aggression toward Ukraine and the rise of Islamic extremism in the Middle East. And in September, at the Wales Summit, NATO members adopted a Readiness Action Plan to improve the Alliance's responsiveness to threats and enhance international cooperation.

Fogh Rasmussen will be succeed by former Norwegian Prime Minister Jen Stoltenberg, who assumes the position of NATO secretary general on Wednesday.

2014 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

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NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen to step down Sept. 30

Monday, 29 September 2014 18:49

SARAJEVO: NATO's potential expansion to the former Yugoslav republics of Bosnia, Macedonia and Montenegro could be seen as a "provocation", Russia's foreign minister was quoted as saying in a newspaper interview published on Monday.

Moscow has opposed any NATO extension to former communist areas of eastern and southeastern Europe, part of a competition for geo-strategic influence since the end of the Cold War that sits at the heart of the current conflict in ex-Soviet Ukraine.

Montenegro, Macedonia and Bosnia share an ambition to join the Western military alliance, following in the footsteps of Albania and ex-Yugoslav Croatia, which became members in 2009. Asked about the integration of the three into NATO, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the Bosnian daily Dnevni Avaz: "With regards to the expansion of NATO, I see it as a mistake, even a provocation in a way.

"This is, in a way, an irresponsible policy that undermines the determination to build a system of equal and shared security in Europe, equal for everyone regardless of whether a country is a member of this or that bloc." Russia has energy interests in the Balkans and historical ties with the Slavs of the region, many of them Orthodox Christian like the Russians.

But Moscow's influence has waned as the countries of the former Yugoslavia seek to join the European mainstream with membership of the EU and NATO.

The tiny Adriatic republic of Montenegro appears closest to NATO accession.

Bosnia's bid is hostage to ethnic bickering that has slowed reforms, while Macedonia remains blocked by a long-running dispute with neighbouring Greece over the name of the landlocked country.

Only Serbia, perhaps Russia's closest ally in the region, is not actively pursuing membership of NATO given political sensitivities lingering since the alliance's 1999 air war against then-strongman Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic to halt a wave of atrocities against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

Lavrov confirmed that Russian President Vladimir Putin would visit Serbia in mid-October to mark the 70th anniversary of Belgrade's liberation from Nazi occupation by Yugoslav Partisan fighters and the Soviet army.

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NATO's planned Balkan expansion a provocation

Germany's military is unable to meet its medium-term readiness target should NATO call on its members to mobilize against an attack, officials said Monday.

The revelation follows days of embarrassing reports about equipment failures that included German army instructors being stranded in Bulgaria en route to Iraq when their plane broke down, and delays in sending weapons to arm Kurdish fighters because of another transport problem.

In the latest incident, the military said one of two aging C-160 aircraft flying German aid to Ebola-affected West Africa has also been grounded on the island of Gran Canaria since the weekend, awaiting repairs.

Asked about a Der Spiegel report that Germany at this juncture wouldn't be able to offer the appropriate number of military aircraft within 180 days of an attack on the NATO alliance, Defense Ministry spokesman Jens Flosdorff confirmed that was the case.

But, he said, Germany's short-term readiness isn't an issue.

"The alliance and defense capabilities aren't in question," he said.

Still, Flosdorff said a report written by outside experts due to be published next week wouldn't make for comfortable reading.

"We need to be prepared for the fact that we will be dealing with individual problems for some time, and I'm not talking about months but rather years," he said.

The military's former chief of staff, Harald Kujat, told rbb-Inforadio the equipment failures show the country needs to spend more on defense.

Germany this year reduced defense spending by about 800 million euros to 32.44 billion euros ($41.30 billion) far below NATO's recommended level of 2 percent of GDP.

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Germany Unable to Meet NATO Readiness Target