Category Archives: NATO

A senior Chinese envoy used an unprecedented conversation with the head of NATO to warn the trans-Atlantic alliance to stay out of the Indo-Pacific.

In recent years, some NATO members have sent ships and planes to the vicinity of China, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in a call with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, according to a Chinese summary. NATO should adhere to its original geographical positioning and play a constructive role in securing peaceful and stable regional development.

NATO has turned a wary eye toward China in recent years, as Beijing declared itself a near-Arctic power and forged a partnership with Russia that brought Chinese warships into the Baltic Sea in 2017. With U.S. lawmakers and officials sounding an alarm against Chinas use of economic maneuvers to gain strategic advantages in Europe, Stoltenberg has orchestrated an effort within NATO to consider the possibility of a new threat from a rising communist power even though it's rooted farther east than the Soviet Union in Moscow when the alliance first came together in 1949.

The Secretary General recalled that NATO does not see China as an adversary but called on China to uphold its international commitments and act responsibly in the international system, Stoltenberg said, according to a NATO-issued readout of the call. He raised NATOs concerns over Chinas coercive policies, expanding nuclear arsenal and lack of transparency on its military modernization.

US AND BRITISH NAVIES NEEDLE CHINA WITH SHOW OF FORCE

For most of its existence, NATO has focused on security within Europe and North America. Still, the U.S. invocation of the alliances collective defense pledge brought the bloc into Afghanistan for a two-decade conflict. Several of the leading NATO member states have significant geopolitical stakes in the Indo-Pacific. The United States has several key allies in the region from Australia to South Korea and Japan, for instance and important American territories. Likewise, France has substantial territorial holdings, and the U.S. and the United Kingdom have a particularly close alliance with the Australians.

Story continues

The secretary general urged China to engage meaningfully in dialogue, confidence-building, and transparency measures regarding its nuclear capabilities and doctrine, Stoltenberg said. He stressed that reciprocal transparency and dialogue on arms control would benefit both NATO and China.

NATO joined the U.S. in July to accuse a Chinese spy agency of responsibility for a series of really eye-opening cyberattacks, including one that targeted Microsoft Exchange. Beijing, on the other hand, can boast of close economic ties with key members of NATO and the European Union, such as Germany and Hungary.

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The two sides should look at each other rationally and objectively rather than listening to and believing in misinformation only and being confused by lies and rumors, the Chinese foreign minister argued. China has not been, and will not be, an adversary of NATO.

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Tags: News, Foreign Policy, National Security, China, NATO, France, Australia, United Kingdom

Original Author: Joel Gehrke

Original Location: China tells NATO chief that allies should stay out of the Indo-Pacific

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China tells NATO chief that allies should stay out of the Indo-Pacific - Yahoo News

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg welcomed the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) Dr Fatih Birol to NATO Headquarters on Tuesday (28 September 2021) to discuss topics of mutual interest to both organizations. These included climate change and security, energy security, and the clean energy transition, as well as strengthening cooperation between NATO and the IEA.

This year, both NATO and the IEA have taken major steps to address climate change. At the Summit in June, NATO leaders agreed the Alliances first Climate Change and Security Action Plan, incorporating climate change into the full spectrum of NATOs work. At the same time, the IEA took the lead in guiding the way forward on energy policies, which can lead to net zero carbon emissions.

The Secretary General welcomed the increasing cooperation between NATO and the IEA. The global transition to clean energy makes closer ties even more important.

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NATO Secretary General welcomes cooperation with the International Energy Agency - NATO HQ

Servicemen attend the "RAPID TRIDENT-2021" military exercise at Ukraine's International Peacekeeping Security Centre near Yavoriv in the Lviv region, Ukraine September 24, 2021. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich/File Photo

MOSCOW, Sept 27 (Reuters) - The Kremlin warned on Monday that any expansion of NATO military infrastructure in Ukraine would cross one of President Vladimir Putin's "red lines", and Belarus said it had agreed to take action with Moscow to counter growing NATO activity.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a close Moscow ally, accused the United States of setting up training centres in Ukraine which he said amounted to military bases. He said he had discussed the issue with Putin.

"It's clear we need to react to this...(We) agreed that we need to take some kind of measures in response," Lukashenko was quoted as saying by the RIA news agency.

Ukraine began joint military exercises with U.S. and other NATO member troops last week, while Russia and Belarus held large-scale drills that alarmed the West. read more

Ukraine, which is not a NATO member, has long sought closer ties with the West and its militaries. It has had fraught relations with Russia since Moscow annexed the Crimea peninsula in 2014 and backed separatists fighting in Ukraine's east.

Russia staunchly opposes the idea of NATO membership for Ukraine. It alarmed Ukraine and the West earlier this year by building up military forces near Ukraine's borders.

Asked what joint actions Lukashenko had been referring to, the Kremlin said: "These are actions that ensure the security of the two of our states."

"President Putin has repeatedly noted the issue of the potential broadening of NATO infrastructure on Ukrainian territory, and (he) has said this would cross those red lines that he has spoken about before," the Kremlin said.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba rejected the notion of a Russian "red line" outside of Russia's own borders, and said Kyiv had its own security to think about.

"Putin's 'red lines' are limited to Russia's borders," he tweeted. "On our side of the Ukrainian-Russian border we can figure out ourselves what to do in the interests of the Ukrainian people, as well as Ukraine's and Europe's security."

Reporting by Dmitry Antonov and Natalia Zinets; Writing by Tom Balmforth; editing by Andrew Osborn and Timothy Heritage

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Kremlin says NATO expansion in Ukraine is a 'red line' for Putin - Reuters

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In todays news from the Capitals:

PARIS | ATHENS

France and Greece have signed a landmark military agreement that provides mutual assistance in the event of one party coming under attack by a third country, even if the latter belongs to NATO. Politicians and analysts spoke to EURACTIV France and Greece, emphasising what this means for Europes strategic autonomy. Read more.

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EU PRESIDENCY

EU research ministers adopt resolutions on global approach to research, innovation.EU ministers responsible for research adopted on Tuesday (28 September) resolutions on a global approach to research and innovation, whose aim is to boost resilience and competitiveness of the EU, Slovenias minister of education, science and sports said after chairing a session of the Competitiveness Council. More.

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BERLIN

Bullmann: SPD electorate rejects coalition with conservatives.The electorate of Germanys Social Democrats (SPD) rejects potential collaboration with Christian Democrats (CDU-CSU) and prefers a progressive government looking at the future rather than a return to the austerity-driven past, EU lawmaker and senior SPD official Udo Bullmann told EURACTIV in an interview in Berlin. More.

German conservatives anxious to project internal cohesion. The historic loss of Germanys conservative union of CDU/CSU has put the party in second place behind Olaf Scholzs SPD. Down 9% relative to 2017, many party members have lost their seat in the Bundestag, which in turn has the party seething internally as it must elect a leader for its parliamentary faction. Read more.

Greens youth opposes Jamaica scenario. The Greens youthassociation said it was strongly against governing alongside the conservatives and the liberals in a Jamaica coalition, thus reducing the hopes the conservative union CDU/CSU had that it may continue to form a governing coalition. Read more.

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PARIS

French laboratory Sanofi stops development of its mRNA vaccine. Sanofi is dropping plans to develop its mRNA COVID-19 vaccine despite positive results in phases 1 and 2 because of Pfizer/BioNTech and Modernas dominance in the market, the French pharma corporation announced on Tuesday. Read more.

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VIENNA

Austria receives first tranche from EU recovery fund. Austria on Tuesday received its first portion of EU recovery funds worth 450 million of a 3.5 billion total to finance projects aimed at industry digitalisation and climate protection. Read more.

UK AND IRELAND

DUBLIN

Irish defence minister begins review of sexual abuse allegations in army. Irish Defence Minister Simon Coveney met with former military personnel on Tuesday after a documentary that aired earlier this month detailed decades of alleged sexual harassment, assault and bullying towards female members of the Defence Forces. Read more.

NORDICS AND BALTICS

HELSINKI

Finnish intelligence names Russia, China as main suspects of espionage. Finland is a continuous target of state-sponsored cyber espionage, with China and Russia being among the main suspects, according to the National Security Overview published by the Finnish Security and Intelligence Services (Supo). Read more.

VILNIUS

Lithuanian social democrats take lead in polls. The centre-left Lietuvos Socialdemokrat Partija (Social Democratic Party of Lithuania, LSDP) would better their position from last years heavy election defeat where the party received 9.6% of the vote to almost 30% if an election were held today, according to the latest poll for Lietuvos Rytas. Read more.

Lithuania wants EU to legalise migrant pushbacks. Lithuania has proposed changing the existing EU migration rules to legalise pushbacks of irregular migrants when an extreme situation is declared in a country, the Baltic News Service reported on Tuesday.

In such situations when theres an extreme situation and illegal migrants are being used as an instrument to put pressure on countries, countries have the right to make such decisions [like] the ones we have made in our national law, ie to prevent illegal entrance, Lithuanian Interior Minister Agn Bilotait said.

Yes, this measure should be legalised but, I want to stress, only under an extreme situation, the minister added when asked whether she meant migrants pushbacks on the border. (LRT.lt/en)

EUROPES SOUTH

ATHENS

Greece encourages SMEs mergers in Recovery Fund implementation.The Greek government will incentivise small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that are hard-hit by the pandemic to merge to ensure financing from the Recovery Fund, Greek finance minister Christos Staikouras told EURACTIV Greece in an exclusive interview.

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ROME

Blah, blah, blah young climate activists call out governments for their climate inaction. Build back better. Blah, blah, blah. Green economy. Blah blah blah. Net-zero by 2050. Blah, blah, blah. This is all we hear from our so-called leaders. Words that sound great but so far have not led to action. Our hopes and ambitions drown in their empty promises, said Greta Thunberg during the opening sessions of the Youth4Climate event in Milan. The Italian government hosted the event, which welcomed 400 young climate activists ahead of the COP26 climate summit set to take place in late October in Glasgow. Read more.

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MADRID

Spanish government approves minimum wage increase. The Spanish government approved on Tuesday an increase of the minimum wage to 965 per month. This is in line with the recommendations made by the European Commission to reduce wage differences across the bloc. Read more.

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LISBON

Portugal: Possible political crises over state budget negotiation unthinkable. There is no political crisis scenario following a possible state budget rejection, Prime Minister Antnio Costa told journalists Tuesday. The response came following questions on whether the current political situation could make it more difficult for political forces such as the PCP, PEV and Left Bloc to make the state budget proposal for 2022 viable. Read more.

VISEGRAD

PRAGUE

Renew leadership turns blind eye to Babis behaviour. As Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babi (ANO, Renew) is stepping up his anti-EU rhetoric ahead of the elections in October, the Renew Europe leadership is turning a blind eye to his behaviour. Read more.

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WARSAW

Morawiecki government considers breaking up sincere cooperation principle. As the stalemate between the Polish government and the European Commission continues over the approval of the Polish recovery plans, there are signals from within the government of Mateusz Morawiecki that all retaliatory options against the Commissions inaction are on the table. Read more.

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BUDAPEST

Hungary lashes out at Ukraine over Russian gas. Foreign Minister Pter Szijjrt summoned the Ukrainian ambassador in Budapest on Tuesday over Kyivs decision to turn to the European Commission over the Hungarian-Russian gas deal, Telex reported. Read more.

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BRATISLAVA

President Caputova: Slovakia needs stability, leadership. Slovakia is a wounded country that is in desperate need of stability and clear leadership, said President Zuzana aputov in an address to the nation in her second state of the republic on Tuesday. She added that Slovakia needs peace based on truth and justice, but also on expertise and solidarity. Read more.

NEWS FROM THE BALKANS

SOFIA

Bulgarian presidential candidate accused of Russian espionage. The Russophiles for the Revival of the Fatherland party have nominated party chairman Nikolay Malinov, accused of spying for Russia, as their presidential candidate. Read more.

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BUCHAREST

Prime Minister Citus days may be numbered. Just a few days after being elected president of the largest centre-right party in Romania, Prime Minister Florin Citu had to make a getaway from a news conference, visibly unsettled by the questions journalists asked regarding the allies of his PNL party (EPP). Read more.

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ZAGREB

US-Adriatic Charter members to improve interoperability of armed forces. We seek to increase security in the region through close cooperation, meetings and participation in exercises. In this, we get a lot of assistance from the US European Command which, by organising exercises for the A5 members, increases interoperability, strengthens the armed forces of the member states and ultimately strengthens and stabilises the entire region, said Chief of the General Staff of the Croatian Armed Forces, Admiral Robert Hranj. He made the statement during a conference of the chiefs of staff of the armed forces of the US-Adriatic Charter (A5) member states which was held in Podstrana. (eljko Trkanjec | EURACTIV.hr)

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BELGRADE

Serbian defence minister: Army has not trespassed anywhere it should not be. The Serbian army has not trespassed anywhere where it should not be, said Defense Minister Nebojsa Stefanovi on Tuesday, adding that President Aleksandar Vui has given the order to heighten the alert of the Serbian army units across the Ground Safety Zone along the border with Kosovo. Read more.

In other news, Moscow is monitoring with concern the rising tensions in Kosovo which were provoked through the irresponsible actions of the Kosovo authorities, Russian Foreign Minister spokeswoman Maria Zaharova has said. Today it has become obvious that events are going from bad to worse, Zaharova said in a written statement posted on the Russian Foreign Ministrys website.

Zaharova said that the actions of Pristinas strategists had not been subjected to criticism by either Brussels or Washington. We stress yet again the NATO forces for Kosovo and Metohija and the EU mission have the necessary mandates to prevent lawlessness and hence bear full responsibility for protecting civilians, preserving peace and security, Zaharova said.

The Russian spokeswoman also said that it was time to apply energetic pressure on the administration in Pristina to withdraw police forces from northern Kosovo and prevent the situation from becoming an open conflict.(EURACTIV.rs | betabriefing.com)

AGENDA:

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[Edited by Sarantis Michalopoulos, Alexandra Brzozowski, Daniel Eck, Zoran Radosavljevic, Alice Taylor]

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France and Greece take first step towards EU force in NATO - EURACTIV

Abstract: The nuclear news from North Korea remains clear and threatening. Ignoring both political warnings and legal prohibitions, Kim Jong Un has continued testing shorter range weapons that could imperil U.S. allies South Korea and Japan. In September, the North tested a new cruise missile it intends to arm with nuclear warheads and demonstrated a new system for firing ballistic missiles from trains. Kims escalatory launch from rail cars came just hours before the South reported its first test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile. Tackling such complexities, the following article by Professor Louis Ren Beres recommends issue-specific forms of dialectical thinking to US planners and policy-makers. His focused recommendations include a US policy shift in strategic objective from enemy denuclearization to mutual nuclear deterrence.

The worst does sometimes happen.-Friedrich Durrenmatt, Swiss Playwright

Pyongyangs recent missile tests reveal more than narrowly technical information about advanced military hardware. These tests reveal that Kim Jong Un has no intention to denuclearize. A reciprocal question now arises for the United States: What should Washington do in response?

To begin, there should be no resumption of incoherent and needlessly belligerent escalatory threats by an American president. There should be, instead, a conscious refinement of conceptual understandings. Before the United States can limit Pyongyangs determined capacity to expand ever-more aggressively with its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, Washington will need to embrace much more deeply thoughtful ideas about military power and national security.[1]

What should this required embrace actually look like? First, President Joseph Biden will need to understand that even a tangible US superiority in delivery vehicles and nuclear firepower need not signify American safety or potential victory. Though not readily apparent, this presumed US advantage could encourage a false sense of national influence and a visceral pattern of strategic risk-taking.

Overall, there could be no minor nuclear crises. In essence, a nuclear confrontation with North Korea any nuclear confrontation could quickly spin out of control, leaving even the militarily superior nation with grievous losses or impairments.[2] What then?

The Intellectual Imperative

For the United States, the core policy obligations are plain. Going forward, proper reactions to North Korean nuclear expansion must be based exclusively upon Science and Reason. Rejecting the previous American presidents announced preference for attitude over preparation, Mr. Biden should restore this country to intellectually defensible foreign policies.

During the rancorous Trump Era, all proposed presidential solutions to North Korean nuclearization became crudely ad hominem (We fell in love, said Donald Trump about Kim Jong Un). At this point, to restore basic coherence to US-North Korean diplomacy, pertinent strategic policies will need to be based upon a more significant American appreciation of decision -making complexities. Inter alia, this appreciation should include an awareness of various multiple synergies.

What intersections should be included? In all synergistic intersections, the whole of any particular outcome must be greater than the sum of its parts. Additionally, among military planners, the term force multiplier is often used to communicate the same or similar principles.

There is more. For American planners, specificity and generality[3] will both be required. Comprehensive theories are necessary.[4] Always, the prevailing world order,[5] like the myriad individual human bodies who comprise it, will need to be recognized as a system. No discernible effects could be entirely isolated or singular.

Among the clarifying implications of this central metaphor, any more-or-less major conventional conflict in northeast Asia could heighten prospects of international conflicts elsewhere. This is the case whether such prospects would be immediate or incremental. These prospects could include a regional nuclear war. Significant risks of such a worst case scenario would be enlarged by American searches for no-longer plausible outcomes. An important example of such a mistaken search would be one that is directed toward victory.

Perils of Seeking Victory

There is good reason for identifying this example. Here, a cautionary observation about victory is persuasive, at least in part, because all core meanings of victory and defeat have changed dramatically.[6] Inter alia, these are no longer the meanings offered by Prussian military strategist Carl von Clausewitz classic On War (1832). At a little-examined metaphysical level, the ultimate victory for any human being or institutionalized collection of human beings must be victory over death.[7]

In most prospectively identifiable wars between nation-states, there are no longer any confirmable criteria of demarcation between victory and defeat. Even a victory on some actual field of battle might not in any calculable way reduce serious security threats to the American homeland or US allies. Such grave threats, whether foreseen or unforeseen, could include various sub-state aggressions (terrorism) and/or widening attacks upon regional or non-regional US allies.

Once it was acknowledged as a distinct foreign-policy objective, any declared US search for victory over North Korea could create a corrosively lethal escalatory dynamic with Pyongyang, one from which Washington could no longer expect any derivative military advantages. Such predictably injurious creations could take place in variously unanticipated increments or as an unexpected (bolt-from-the-blue) enemy aggression.[8] In the foreseeable worst case, an unwitting US forfeiture of escalation dominance would signify starkly irreversible American losses. These losses could include chaotic conditions that create tens or hundreds of thousands of prompt fatalities and much larger numbers of latent cancer deaths.

For US policy planners, a great deal of subject-matter specificity must soon be taken into close account. In a promisingly coherent post-Trump policy world where history and science regain proper pride of place,[9] a capable American president can finally acknowledge something too long disregarded. It is that because nation-states no longer declare wars or enter into binding war-termination agreements, the application of traditional criteria of war winning to interstate conflicts no longer make any legal sense.[10]

Even more important, the empty political rhetoric of victory carries no correspondingly objective assessment or evaluation. No one can ever really know whether a particular war has been won or lost. And if this ambiguity were not the case, the winning side might still remain substantially vulnerable to assorted enemy aggressions, whether state, sub-state or hybrid inflicted.

The Limits of Military Acumen, Rationality and Prediction

There is more. In the very complicated matters at hand, ascertainable benefits might not lie in any traditional forms of military expertise. A core question arises: Exactly how much applicable experience could American generals have garnered in starting, managing or ending a nuclear war? To what extent might the president and his senior commanders see only what they would want to see, including perhaps a seemingly gainful prospect of US military preemption?[11]

In these opaque nuclear times, selective perceptions could sometimes prove to be mistaken. In principle, even after sober consideration of retaliatory consequences, an American president might still discover tangible benefit in launching specific preemptive strikes against an already nuclear North Korea. This prospect arises at least in exceptionally residual circumstances.[12] Accordingly, there could exist certain definable crises where refraining from striking first would appear more costly than gainful (irrational). These would be crises that allow North Korea to implement certain severely-complicating protective measures.[13]

Whats the bottom line on US defensive first strikes against an already nuclear North Korea? It is that even such an American preemption could sometimes be rational, but only in utterly last resort strategic calculations.

How can America tap pertinent military expertise on such critical existential judgments? All things considered, it is reasonable to expect that the generals could have no adequate expectation of pertinent dialectics;[14] that is, about Pyongyangs selected response. Still, by no means does this candid expectation represent any ad hominem or gratuitous criticism of professional military planners. It is merely a dispassionate analytic reflection on the historical uniqueness of nuclear conflict.

There have been no nuclear wars; hence, there can be no experts on nuclear warfare.

This incontestable conclusion is most urgently compelling in regard to the myriad complexities of any two-power nuclear competition: (1) one where there would exist substantial asymmetries in relative military power position; and (2) one where the weaker (North Korean) side could maintain a verifiable potential to inflict unacceptably damaging first-strikes or reprisals upon the stronger American side.

Again, no truly reliable probability estimations can ever be undertaken in reference to unprecedented or sui generis situations. In science, authentic probability judgments must always be based upon a carefully calculated frequency of relevant past events.

There are other problems in seeking an ultimate victory over North Korea. Recalling the good old days, which extend into the twentieth-century, nation-states have generally had to defeat enemy armies before being able to wreak any wished-for destruction upon the adversarys cities and infrastructures. In those earlier times of more traditional doctrinal arrangements concerning war and peace, an individual countrys demonstrated capacity to win was necessarily prior to a sought-after capacity to destroy. An appropriate and well-known example to US military thinkers would be the case of Persia and Greece at the 480 BCE Battle of Thermopylae. Today, unlike what was purportedly the case at Thermopylae, a state neednt be able to defeat enemy armies in order to inflict calculably gainful harms. Even if the US were to win against North Korea in a war, that defeated adversary could still inflict vast harms upon American citizens, institutions and infrastructures.

At a minimum, such an enemy could enlist destructive proxy forces, such as bio-terrorist surrogates.

The Capacity to Deter is Distinct from the Capacity to Win

For President Biden and his counselors, there does remain some good news. The United States neednt be able to win a particular conflict in order to credibly threaten a significant foe like North Korea (deterrence) or to inflict retaliatory harms upon this enemy. What this good news means today is that the capacity to deter is no longer necessarily identical to the capacity to win. For the United States, the principal war-planning or war-deterring lesson of any such ongoing transformations now warrants serious study.

For the United States, the only prospective victory of immediate consequence is an intellectual victory. Conceptually, what matters most will be an American capacity to win bewilderingly complex struggles of mind over mind. Going forward, American planner must diligently work through variously dialectic forms of struggle with Pyongyang, not just enter into ad hoc or visceral contests of mind over matter.

There are also various relevant points of law to be considered.[15] This is because jurisprudencehas its own proper place in such bewildering strategic calculations. More specifically, in terms of applicable law, winning and losing may no longer mean much for successful strategic planning. This tangible devaluation of victory and defeat should also become more obvious with regard to Americas wars on terror. Now, after Afghanistan, pressing conflict issues will need to be examined within continuously transforming US military plans and objectives regarding not just North Korea but also Syria, Iraq, Yemen and assorted other places.

Regarding victory, he U.S. can never meaningfully win any upcoming wars with Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, ISIS-K, Taliban, etc. In part, this is the case because national leaders could never know for certain whether a presumptively zero-sum conflict with virulent sub-state or hybrid adversaries was actually over. On pertinent definitional matters, a hybrid enemy would refer to any adversary that combined state and sub-state elements in changing ratios of composition.

Operationally, winning and losing are now fully extraneous to Americas collective interests, or, in those foreseeable cases where victory might still be expressed as a high-priority national objective, fully harmful. Ironically, a narrowly static American orientation to winning against North Korea could sometime lead the United States toward huge and irreversible losses. Such loses would likely ensue from various critical American misjudgments on escalation dominance.

There is more. United States military planners could look usefully to The East. Long ago, famed Chinese strategist Sun-Tzu had reasoned simply: Subjugating the enemys army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence. To meet current US national security objectives vis--vis North Korea and other potential nuclear adversaries, this ancient Chinese military wisdom suggests that Washington now openly seek deterrence rather than victory. Any such necessary discontinuance should remain connected to the stringent requirements of maintaining optimal control over all necessary military escalations.

If, in the future, these requirements were somehow minimized or disregarded, a resultant regional conflict could have spillover implications for other nation-states and for other parts of the world. Different elements of chaos notwithstanding, world politics and world military processes are always expressive of an underlying system. This elucidating characterization must lie continuously at the core of any coherent US strategic doctrine.

Final Strategic Calculations

Before these systemic connections can be understood and assessed, however, US planners must realize that the complicated logic of strategic nuclear calculations demands a discrete and capably nuanced genre of decision-making. This would be a genre that calls for considerable intellectual refinement in extremis atomicum. As an example, casually expecting an American president to convincingly leverage Chinese and Russian sanctions on behalf of the United States would miss at least two vital and intersecting points: (1) the regime in Pyongyang will likely never back down on its overall plan for nuclearization, however severe sanctions might seemingly become; and (2) counting upon meaningful sanctions from Beijing or Moscow would become inherently problematic for the United States.

Both China and Russia remain substantially more worried about their traditional national enemy in Washington than about future dangers arising from Pyongyang.

Truth will out. In world politics, as in law,[16] truth is exculpatory. Like it or not, a nuclear North Korea is a fait accompli. Soon, President Biden will have to focus upon creating stable nuclear deterrence with North Korea (a) for the benefit of the United States; (b) for the benefit of Americas directly vulnerable allies in South Korea and Japan; and (c) for the benefit of its indirectly vulnerable allies elsewhere, including Israel in the still-dissembling Middle East.

However inconspicuous, these important allies remain integral components of the same organic world system; they can never be helpfully separated from the palpable consequences of American geopolitical posture.

The existence of `system in the world is at once obvious to every observer of nature, observed 20th century French Jesuit scholar, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, no matter whom. Nowhere is this interrelatedness more obvious or more potentially consequential than in the continuing matter of a nuclear North Korea and US foreign policy decision-making. This urgent threat from Pyongyang will not subside or disappear on its own. Immediately, it must be Americas sober responsibility to better understand all relevant American security obligations as well as their derivative complications.

Nuclear Warfighting Scenarios

Should nuclear weapons ever be introduced into any future conflict between the United States and North Korea, actual instances of nuclear war-fighting could occur. This would be the case as long as: (a) US conventional first-strikes against North Korea would not destroy Pyongyangs second-strike nuclear capability; (b) US conventional retaliations for a North Korean conventional first-strike would not destroy Pyongyangs nuclear counter-retaliatory capability; (c) US preemptive nuclear strikes would not destroy Pyongyangs second-strike nuclear capability; and (d) US conventional retaliations for North Korean conventional first strikes would not destroy Pyongyangs nuclear counter-retaliatory capability.

Any US nuclear preemption would be potentially catastrophic and hence implausible. Reciprocally, assuming rationality, any North Korean nuclear preemption against the United States or its allies would be unlikely or altogether inconceivable. Can we reasonably and continuously assume North Korean rationality? Kim Jong Un has been steadily accelerating his testing of advanced nuclear missiles and supporting infrastructures. There is no persuasive basis to doubt that his vast commitment to nuclear weapons is in any manner reversible.

In January 2021, after describing the United States as our biggest enemy, Kim Jong Un called openly for more advanced nuclear weapons and infrastructures. At that time, during fully nine hours of blistering remarks at a party conference in Pyongyang, Kim summarized his countrys basic strategic posture: Our foreign political activities should be focused and redirected on subduing the United States, our biggest enemyNo matter who is in power in the US, the true nature of the US and its fundamental policies towards North Korea never change.

Now, capable strategic analysts guiding American president Joseph Bien should enhance their nuclear investigations by carefully identifying basic distinctions between intentional or deliberate nuclear war and unintentional or inadvertent nuclear war. The risks are apt to vary considerably, especially if rationality is also factored into the manty-sided calculation. Those American analysts who would remain too singularly focused upon a deliberate nuclear war scenario could all-too-casually underestimate a far more serious nuclear threat to the United States.

This means the increasingly credible threat of an unintentional or inadvertent nuclear war.

An additional conceptual distinction must be inserted into any US analytic scenario mix. This is the subtle but still important difference between an inadvertent nuclear war and an accidental nuclear war. Any accidental nuclear war would have to be inadvertent; conversely, however, there could be forms of inadvertent nuclear war that would not be accidental. Most critical, in this connection, would be significant errors in calculation committed by one or both sides that is, more-or-less reciprocal mistakes that lead directly and/or inexorably to nuclear conflict.

The most blatant example of such a mistake would concern assorted misjudgments of enemy intent or capacity that emerge during the course of any ongoing crisis escalation.

Wider Implications of Chaos

What about chaos? How would this indecipherable condition impact pertinent models of rational decision-making? Whether described in the Old Testament or in other evident sources of Western philosophy, chaos could become as much a source of human improvement as decline.[17] It is this prospectively positive side of chaos that is intended by Friedrich Nietzsches dense remark in Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883): I tell you, ye have still chaos in you.

When expressed in aptly neutral tones, chaos represents that condition which prepares the world for all things, whether sacred or profane. It reveals that yawning gulf of emptiness where nothing is as yet, but where variously remaining civilizational opportunity can still originate. The 18th century German poet Friedrich Hlderlin observed: There is a desert sacred and chaotic, which stands at the roots of the things, and which prepares all things.

Insightfully, in the ancient pagan world, Greek philosophers thought of this desert as logos, a primal designation which indicates that chaos is anything but starkly random or without merit.

One core conclusion is beyond reasonable question. It is that the only rational use for American nuclear weapons in any forthcoming US-North Korea negotiation must be as diplomatic bargaining elements of interstate dissuasion/persuasion. Barring any sudden crisis initiated by North Korean nuclear strike a crisis that would immediately place the American president in extremis atomicum there could be absolutely no gainful use for such weapons as actual implements of war. If there could sometime arise a strategically rational justification for nuclear war-waging, one in which the expected benefits of nuclear weapons use would seemingly exceed expected costs, the planet as a whole could be imperiled, perhaps even irremediably.

Prima facie, there can be no credible guarantees that US-North Korean relations will not sometime descend into tangible nuclear conflict. The worst, warns Swiss playwright Friedrich Durrenmatt, does sometimes happen. For the United States, the best way to avoid any such irreversible folly with North Korea would be to reluctantly accept that belligerent country into the nuclear club, but still take intellect-based steps to ensure that it remains subject to American nuclear deterrence.

[1] What is the good of passing from one untenable position to another, asks Samuel Beckett philosophically in Endgame, of seeking justification always on the same plane? Thought the celebrated Irish playwright was certainly not thinking specifically about world politics or national security, his generalized query remains well-suited to this strategic inquiry. As competitive power-politics has never worked, why keep insisting upon it as a presumptively viable doctrine?

[2] For informed assessments of plausible consequences of nuclear war fighting, see, by this author: Louis Ren Beres, SURVIVING AMID CHAOS: ISRAELS NUCLEAR STRATEGY (London: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016/2018); Louis Ren Beres, APOCALYPSE: NUCLEAR CATASTROPHE IN WORLD POLITICS (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980); Louis Ren Beres, MIMICKING SISYPHUS: AMERICAS COUNTERVAILING NUCLEAR STRATEGY (Lexington MA: Lexington Books, 1983); Louis Ren Beres, REASON AND REALPOLITIK: U S FOREIGN POLICY AND WORLD ORDER (Lexington MA; Lexington Books, 1984); and Louis Ren Beres, ed., SECURITY OR ARMAGEDDON: ISRAELS NUCLEAR STRATEGY (Lexington MA: Lexington Books, 1986).

[3] The need for generality notwithstanding, strategic thinkers should never lose sight of the human consequences of their abstractions. By definition, theory is a simplification, one purposely excluding from consideration those factors deemed unessential to analytic explanation. This indispensable exclusion comes at a cost, however, because it involves the palpable sacrifice of espirit de finesse or the individual human element of any catastrophe. Recalling the poet Goethes observation in Urfaust, the original Faust fragment: All theory, dear friend, is gray, and the golden tree of life is green. (Grau, theurer Freund, ist alle Theorie, Und grn des Lebens goldner Baum.)

[4] Theory is a net, observes German poet Novalis, and only those who cast, can catch. This apt metaphor was embraced by philosopher of science Karl Popper as the epigraph to his classic work on philosophy of science: The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934).

[5] The term world order has its contemporary origins in a scholarly movement begun at the Yale Law School in the mid- and late 1960s and later adopted by the Politics Department at Princeton University in 1967-68. The present author was an early member of the Princeton-based World Order Models Project, and wrote several of the early books and articles in this once still-emergent academic genre.

[6]See by this writer, at The Hill: Louis Ren Beres: https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/the-military/347395-opinion-victory-in-afghanistan-has-no-serious-meaning

[7]Throughout history, notions of ultimate victory have been associated with personal immortality. To wit, in his posthumously published Lecture on Politics (1896), German historian Heinrich von Treitschke observed: Individual man sees in his own country the realization of his earthly immortality. Earlier, German philosopher Georg Friedrich Hegel opined, in his Philosophy of Right (1820), that the state represents the march of God in the world. The deification of Realpolitik, a transformation from mere principle of action to a sacred end in itself, drew its originating strength from the doctrine of sovereignty advanced in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Initially conceived as a principle of internal order, this doctrine underwent a specific metamorphosis, whence it became the formal or justifying rationale for international anarchy that is, for the global state of nature. First established by Jean Bodin as a juristic concept in De Republica (1576), sovereignty came to be regarded as a power absolute and above the law. Understood in terms of modern international relations, this doctrine encouraged the notion that states lie above and beyond any form of legal regulation in their interactions with each other.

[8] See especially: RESOLUTION ON THE DEFINITION OF AGGRESSION, Dec. 14, 1974, U.N.G.A. Res. 3314 (XXIX), 29 U.N. GAOR, Supp. (No. 31) 142, U.N. Doc. A/9631, 1975, reprinted in 13 I.L.M. 710, 1974; and CHARTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS, Art. 51 Done at San Francisco, June 26, 1945. Entered into force for the United States, Oct. 24, 1945, 59 Stat. 1031, T.S. No. 993, Bevans 1153, 1976, Y.B.U.N. 1043.

[9] Intellect rots the brain shrieked Joseph Goebbels at a Nuremberg Germany rally in 1935. I love the poorly educated echoed American presidential candidate Donald Trump at a 2016 rally in the United States. Perhaps to authenticate his anti-intellectualism, Trump went on to propose household bleach as a Covid19 treatment, urge the use of nuclear weapons against hurricanes and praise American revolutionary armies in the 18th century for gaining control of all national airports.

[10] Under authoritative international law, which is generally a part of US law, the question of whether or not a state of war exists between states is ordinarily ambiguous. Traditionally, it was held that a formal declaration of war was necessary before any true state of war could be said to exist. Hugo Grotius divided wars into declared wars, which were legal, and undeclared wars, which were not. (See Hugo Grotius, The Law of War and Peace, Bk. III, Chas. III, IV, and XI.) By the start of the twentieth century, the position that war can obtain only after a conclusive declaration of war by one of the parties was codified by Hague Convention III. This treaty stipulated, inter alia, that hostilities must never commence without a previous and explicit warning in the form of a declaration of war or an ultimatum. (See Hague Convention III Relative to the Opening of Hostilities, 1907, 3 NRGT, 3 series, 437, article 1.) Currently, formal declarations of war could be tantamount to admissions of international criminality because of the express criminalization of aggression by authoritative international law. It could, therefore, represent a clear jurisprudential absurdity to tie any true state of war to prior declarations of belligerency. It follows, further, that a state of war may exist without any formal declarations, but only if there should exist an actual armed conflict between two or more states, and/or at least one of these affected states considers itself at war.

[11] As a legally permissible form of such a preemption, anticipatory self-defense is rooted in customary international law (see note immediately below), Customary international law is identified as an authoritative source of world legal norms at Art. 38 of the UNs Statute of the International Court of Justice. International law, an integral part of the legal system of all states in world politics, assumes a general obligation of states to supply benefits to one another and to avoid war wherever possible. This core assumption of jurisprudential solidarity is known formally as a peremptory or jus cogens expectation, that is, one that is not subject to any reasonable question. It can be found, inter alia, in Justinian, Corpus Juris Civilis, Hugo Grotius, The Law of War and Peace (1625) and Emmerich de Vattel, The Law of Nations or Principles of Natural Law (1758).

[12] In law, any such defensive first-strikes, if permissible, could be considered anticipatory self-defense. The normative origins of such defense liein customary international law, more precisely, in The Caroline, a case that concerned the unsuccessful rebellion of 1837 in Upper Canada against British rule. Following this case, the serious threat of armed attack has generally justified certain militarily defensive actions. In an exchange of diplomatic notes between the governments of the United States and Great Britain, then U.S. Secretary of State Daniel Webster outlined a framework for self-defense that did not require an antecedent attack. Here, the jurisprudential framework permitted a military response to a threat so long as the danger posed was instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation. See: Beth M. Polebaum, National Self-defense in International Law: An Emerging Standard for a Nuclear Age, 59 N.Y.U.L. Rev. 187, 190-91 (1984) (noting that the Caroline case had transformed the right of self-defense from an excuse for armed intervention into a legal doctrine). Still earlier, see: Hugo Grotius, Of the Causes of War, and First of Self-Defense, and Defense of Our Property, reprinted in 2 Classics of International Law, 168-75 (Carnegie Endowment Trust, 1925) (1625); and Emmerich de Vattel, The Right of Self-Protection and the Effects of the Sovereignty and Independence of Nations, reprinted in 3 Classics of International Law, 130 (Carnegie Endowment Trust, 1916) (1758). Also, Samuel Pufendorf, The Two Books on the Duty of Man and Citizen According to Natural Law, 32 (Frank Gardner Moore., tr., 1927 (1682).

[13]Designed to guard against any US preemption, these measures could involve the attachment of hair trigger launch mechanisms to nuclear weapon systems and/or the adoption of launch on warning policies, possibly coupled with pre-delegations of launch authority. This means, incrementally, that the US could find itself endangered by certain steps taken by Pyongyang to prevent a belligerent preemption. Optimally, the United States would do everything possible to prevent such steps, especially because of expanded risks of accidental or unauthorized attacks launched against its own or allied armaments/ populations. But if such steps were to become a fait accompli, Washington could still calculate correctly that a preemptive strike would be legal and cost-effective. This is because the expected enemy retaliation, however damaging, could still appear more tolerable than the expected consequences of enemy first-strikes strikes likely occasioned by the antecedent failure of anti-preemption protocols.

[14] Dialectic is Platos term for what science and philosophy do. It is rooted in the Greek word for conversation, and stipulates that only through conversation can one genuinely discover what each thing is (Republic 533b).

[15] Under international law, every use of forcemust be judged twice: once with regard to the underlying right to wage war (jus ad bellum) and once to the means used in conducting a war (jus in bello). Following the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 and the United Nations Charter, there can be absolutely no right to aggressive war. However, the long-standing customary right of post-attack self-defense remains codified at Article 51 of the UN Charter. Similarly, subject to conformance, inter alia, with jus in bello criteria, certain instances of humanitarian intervention and collective security operations may also be consistent with jus ad bellum. The law of war, the rules of jus in bello, comprise: (1) laws on weapons; (2) laws on warfare; and (3) humanitarian rules. Codified primarily at The Hague and Geneva Conventions, these rules attempt to bring discrimination (aka distinction), proportionality and military necessity into belligerent calculations.

[16] International law is always part of the law of the United States. For early decisions on the US incorporation of authoritative international law by Chief Justice John Marshall, see: The Antelope, 23 U.S. (10 Wheat.) 66, 120 (1825); The Nereide, 13 U.S. (9 Cranch) 388, 423 (1815); Rose v. Himely, 8 U.S. (4 Cranch) 241, 277 (1808) and Murray v. The Schooner Charming Betsy, 6 U.S. (2 Cranch) 64, 118 (1804).

[17] Is it an end that draws near, inquires Karl Jaspers in Man in the Modern Age (1951) or a beginning.

Related

Here is the original post:
AUKUS, a Reshuffle for International Security and the End of NATO? - Modern Diplomacy

The International Criminal Court prosecutor on Monday said he was seeking approval to resume a war crimes investigation of Afghanistan, focusing on the actions of the Taliban and ISIS-Khorasan.

Prosecutor Karim Khan said the request was being made to the court's judges after developments since the Taliban militants seized control of Afghanistan last month.

Prosecutors previously looked into suspected crimes by US and Afghan government troops.

But Mr Khan, six months into his nine-year tenure, said they would now "deprioritise" that because of a lack of resources, and focus on "the scale and nature of crimes within the jurisdiction of the court".

Afghan human rights activist Horia Mosadiq, who has been helping victims to support the ICC probe for years, called the announcement "an insult to thousands of other victims of crimes by Afghan government forces and US and Nato forces".

The ICC had already spent 15 years looking into war crimes allegations in Afghanistan before opening a full investigation last year.

But that was put on hold by the Afghan government, which said it was investigating the crimes itself.

The ICC in the Hague is a court of last resort, intervening only when a member country is unable or unwilling to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide.

Mr Khan said the fall of the internationally recognised Afghan government and its replacement by the Taliban represented a "significant change of circumstances".

"After reviewing matters carefully, I have reached the conclusion that, at this time, there is no longer the prospect of genuine and effective domestic investigations ... within Afghanistan," he said.

The court had found there was a reasonable basis to believe war crimes had been committed between 2003 and 2014.

Among them were suspected mass killings of civilians by the Taliban, suspected torture of prisoners by Afghan authorities and, to a lesser extent, by US forces and the CIA.

But the US is not a party to the ICC, and imposed sanctions against the office of the prosecutor for investigating US troops.

Shifting the focus of the investigation could help to mend the court's relationship with Washington.

"We're pleased to see that the ICC prioritises resources to focus on the greatest of allegations and atrocity crimes," US State Department spokeswoman Jalina Porter said.

A lawyer who represents Afghan victims of suspected US torture in the ICC investigation said the narrowing of its focus was "deeply flawed".

"Allowing powerful states to get away [with] multi-year, multi-continent torture against so many feeds impunity for all," she said on Twitter.

Judges will now review the request.

If approved, the investigation will face an uphill battle to gather evidence, as the Taliban rulers appear unlikely to co-operate in the same way as the governments in place since the militants' last period in power ended in 2001.

The Taliban administration in Kabul could not immediately be reached for comment.

"Early indications suggest that their policies on matters related to criminal justice and other material considerations are unlikely to conform to those adopted since 2002," Mr Khan said in his submission to the court.

Updated: September 27th 2021, 10:47 PM

See the original post here:
War crimes prosecutor will not focus on US and Nato forces in Afghan investigation - The National

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 28th September, 2021) Military leaders from the US-led Adriatic Charter pledged to back NATO's so-called open-door policy by helping other nations in Southeastern Europe join the alliance during a conference of military chiefs in Croatia on Tuesday, US European Command (EUCOM) said.

"During the conference, military leaders from the A-5 Charter nations and observer states discussed common approaches to address collective security threats and challenges related to regional security and defense issues," An EUCOM statement said. "They also reaffirmed commitment to strengthening relations and deepening areas of military cooperation amongst the A-5 Charter nations."

Since its creation in 2003, four Adriatic Charter nations have ascended into NATO - North Macedonia, Albania, Croatia and Montenegro, the release underscored.

"Today's conference, its conclusions and our joint statement once again prove our firm commitment to partnership in the interest of integration of South-Eastern European countries to NATO and EU," Croatian Armed Forces Chief of Staff, Admiral Robert Hranj said in a EUCOM press release.

The conference, held in Split, Croatia, comes on the same day that the US Department of Homeland Security announced that Croatia was a new participant of the visa Waiver Program, giving nationals of the country access to US soil for up to 90 days starting December 1.

The group was formed by the US, Albania, Croatia and North Macedonia in 2003 with the goal of promoting NATO membership for nations in Southeastern Europe.

Read more from the original source:
Adriatic Charter Conference Promotes Further Expansion of NATO - US European Command - UrduPoint News

UNITED NATIONS (AP) With some powerful NATO allies at odds over a submarine sale, the alliances leader suggested Tuesday that members need to focus on the big picture and not let the dispute between France and the U.S. and Britain open an ongoing rift.

During an interview on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also was cool to the notion of developing a separate European military force and said NATO needs to give careful consideration to any future deployments to fight terrorism after the 20-year war in Afghanistan.

A U.S. and British deal to supply nuclear-powered subs to Australia which had been set to buy diesel-powered ones from a French company instead has France crying foul, with support from European Union diplomats. But NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg didnt take sides in speaking Wednesday to The Associated Press, instead emphasizing cohesion about the alliances major goals.

I fully understand Frances disappointment. At the same time, NATO allies agree on the big picture on the most important challenges, and that is that we have to stand together to address common challenges, including a shifting global balance of power, he said.

Stoltenberg said he was confident that France, the U.K. and the U.S. will find a way forward and to not make this disagreement create lasting problems for the alliance, because we all see the need for allies to stand together and to continue to modernize and adapt NATO.

Still, the submarine spat has introduced tensions into a 72-year-old military and political alliance that prizes consensus and was formed to try to avoid such conflicts.

French officials have repeatedly decried the sub deal as a betrayal, with Defense Minister Florence Parly describing it Tuesday as breach of trust between allies and a strategic turning point. European Union foreign ministers expressed solidarity with France after a meeting on the assembly sidelines Monday night.

Australia argues that the submarine deal was about protecting its strategic interests amid broad concern about Chinas growing assertiveness. The U.K. and the U.S. have insisted the disagreement shouldnt shake up their overall relationships with France, with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson saying the deal wasnt meant to be a zero-sum arrangement and is not something that anybody needs to worry about and particularly not our French friends.

The episode which came weeks after the fraught, bloody U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan had NATO members scrambling to get people out has stirred some European interest in more military autonomy.

EU ministers recently debated creating a standby force of around 5,000 troops to deploy in crises such as the Afghanistan airlift. The idea reflects longstanding French and German proposals but faces opposition from some other NATO-member EU nations.

Stoltenberg said more European investment in defense is welcome, though not as something that happens outside NATO, but something that happens inside NATO.

Any attempt to weaken the trans-Atlantic bond between Europe and North America will not only weaken NATO, it will divide Europe, he said. We have one set of forces, and we have to make the most available for NATO.

NATOs provision for common defense was invoked after the 9/11 terror attacks in the U.S., leading to NATO involvement in U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. It ended with Taliban militants retaking the country, 20 years after being ousted by western forces for harboring the plotters of 9/11. The chaotic pullout flew over 100,000 people to safety but was beset by terror attacks, including a suicide bombing that killed more than 160 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members.

As NATO looks to learn lessons from the war and its end, Stoltenberg said the alliance will have to stay ready to combat international terrorism but needs to think through carefully the targets, the goals, of the mission, and also to understand that the more were able to stabilize countries without deploying thousands of troops in combat missions, the better.

Earlier Tuesday, U.S. President Joe Biden called the NATO alliance sacred in his General Assembly speech, striving despite the frictions of recent months -- to turn the page on former President Donald Trumps America first approach to foreign policy.

Stoltenberg said he welcomed Bidens speech and his countrys increased engagement in the alliance.

Read the original:
NATO leader: Allies need to stand together amid sub flap - Associated Press

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Monday asked China to show more transparency on its nuclear arms program.

Stoltenberg held a talk with Chinese Foreign Affairs Minister Wang Yi by a video link to discuss NATO-China relations and international security challenges, Stoltenberg's office announced in a press statement.

Stoltenberg reaffirmed that the transatlantic military alliance did not perceive China as an adversary, but he urged China to comply with its international obligations and asked Beijing to take more responsibility in upholding the rules-based international order.

He conveyed the alliance's concerns about China's military modernization, especially its nuclear programs, and invited Beijing to take part in an arms control dialogue with NATO.

According to Stoltenberg, parties could mutually benefit from transparency concerning their nuclear capabilities and doctrine.

While discussing the recent developments in Afghanistan, the NATO chief called for a coordinated international approach vis-a-vis the Taliban to make them keep their promises on countering terrorism and preserving human rights.

For the first time in NATO's history, the leaders' summit in June addressed "China's stated ambitions and assertive behavior" and "coercive policies which stand in contrast to the fundamental values enshrined in" the North Atlantic Treaty.

The leaders agreed to engage in constructive dialogue with China on relevant issues, such as climate change, but they called the country to "uphold its international commitments and to act responsibly in the international system, including in the space, cyber, and maritime domains, in keeping with its role as a major power."

Link:
'NATO wants China to have more transparency on nuclear program' | Daily Sabah - Daily Sabah

A few weeks after the September 11 attacks, NATO made a decision that would shape its future for the next two decades when it invoked its most important weapon: Article 5.

Article 5, NATO's collective-defense provision, is the alliance's backbone. According to it, an attack against one NATO member is an attack against all.

The article was included in the Washington Treaty, NATO's founding document, to deter the Soviet Union amid the emerging Cold War. The idea was, essentially, that if the Soviet Union attacked a European NATO member the US would intervene on its behalf.

However, the US was wary of an automatic military commitment. So, despite pressure from European allies, the article did not specify the type of assistance the members would offer to the attacked party. This would play out in unforeseen ways in the future.

The article was never invoked during the Cold War. The first and so far only time it was invoked was not to defend a small NATO member from Soviet encroachment but the muscle of the alliance, the US itself, from Middle Eastern terrorists.

The day after the September 11 attacks, most NATO countries called for the invocation of Article 5. This did not immediately happen since the origin of the attacks had yet to be determined to the satisfaction of some members.

It took until October 2, 2001 when then-NATO Secretary General Lord George Robertson announced that the attacks had indeed been directed from abroad for Article 5 to be invoked.

This was a watershed moment for the alliance. Failure to invoke Article 5 would have rendered NATO obsolete. Instead, the alliance, which had struggled to find its raison d'tre following the collapse of the Soviet Union, was propelled into Afghanistan and the fight against terrorism.

A number of NATO allies were involved in the war from the very beginning.

The UK participated in the first airstrikes against Taliban and Al Qaeda targets. German and British special-operations units took part in the Battle of Tora Bora. A number of NATO countries contributed personnel, aircraft, and logistical support during 2002's Operation Anaconda, the successful mission to rout out Al Qaeda from Afghanistan's Shahi Kot valley.

After dismantling the Taliban and Al Qaeda networks in Afghanistan, NATO's role there only grew.

In 2003, at the request of the UN and the Afghan government, NATO took charge of the International Security Assistance Force. This was a landmark moment for the alliance.

ISAF would be NATO's first deployment outside of Europe and North America. All NATO members would contribute personnel to ISAF some contributed more per capita than the US.

Eventually, the ISAF mandate would expand from securing Kabul to the whole country. This nominally transferred control of the war to NATO.

Assuming control of such a high-stakes mission provided significant operational and organizational experience to NATO. However, as the war's toll increased, weaknesses within the alliance were exposed.

Participation in the war in Afghanistan had been a contentious issue in many European countries from the beginning.

In some, like Spain, parliamentary approval had not been obtained to dispatch troops to Afghanistan. In others, like Germany and Italy, the deployed troops were limited by legal constraints, which in some cases prevented them from actually fighting the Taliban.

Most NATO members had not fought a war in decades, so even limited combat casualties caused significant backlash at home. The 2004 Madrid train bombings and the 2005 London bombings which brought Islamist terror to Europe in two of the continent's worst attacks in decades further increased the war's unpopularity.

As a result, many NATO members only contributed a few support troops and tried to sidle away from combat operations and troubled areas. France even withdrew its combat forces in 2012. The lack of specificity in Article 5 meant members could abide by their NATO commitment without totally participating in the war effort.

In 2015, ISAF became the Resolute Support Mission. A non-combat mission, RSM significantly scaled down the number of NATO troops in Afghanistan as it focused on supporting and advising Afghan security forces.

At its peak in 2019, the RSM fielded 17,000 troops, half of whom came from America's allies. Nevertheless, many countries' troop contributions were in the double or even single digits, highlighting NATO's participation problems.

The few thousand non-US NATO troops still involved in Afghanistan in 2021 followed the US out of the country, evacuating Kabul in late August.

The alliance emerges from Afghanistan with a mixed record.

On the one hand, it undertook its largest mission ever and the first outside its normal area of operations, learning valuable lessons about organization and interoperability that will be useful for future deployments.

On the other hand, the intractable problem at the alliance's core was exposed: the near-impossibility of getting all 30 members to agree on and commit to military and political priorities.

To apply those lessons and stay relevant, the alliance will need to ensure that alignment.

As NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg wrote on the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, "Afghanistan will not be the last crisis for which North America and Europe need to act together through NATO."

Constantine Atlamazoglou works on transatlantic and European security. He holds a Master's degree on security studies and European affairs from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

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NATO still living with consequences Article 5 invocation after 9/11 - Business Insider