Category: NATOSource

Uniting All of the Allies Some of the Time

By the New York Times

From the New York Times: Having fulfilled its promise to restore respect and support from America’s allies, the Obama administration should now be reaping the benefits of Western unity as it faces international crises like Afghanistan and Iran. But the unfortunate truth is that where Western unity is sufficient, it is not real. And where […]

NATO and the Future of Nuclear Weapons in Germany

German Minister of Foreign Affairs Guido Westerwelle: [W]e will continue to support the disarmament efforts taken all over the world, especially those envisaged by the Americans. But it is equally clear that those efforts aiming at disarming the world should not only be supported by the Germans but what we want to do is to […]

Estonia wants new NATO defense plans

By the AP

From the AP: Estonia’s defense minister is discussing with the United States why NATO needs plans in case his region is attacked. Jaak Aaviksoo told The Associated Press that his country sees new threats since Russia’s invasion of Georgia last year and a cyber attack that targeted his country in 2007. Aaviksoo plans to meet […]

NATO-Russia Reset Needed

By the Atlantic Council

From the Atlantic Council: The fact is that the window of opportunity for the Alliance and Russia to sort out their differences may be slowly but surely closing. Although further NATO enlargement has been put on a back burner, the pledge made by the Alliance leaders at the Bucharest summit last year states that Ukraine […]

Mixed Signals From West About Trusting Russia

By the New York Times

From the New York Times: Adm. Igor Burtsev of the Russian Navy indicated to Russian media over the weekend that France was now ready to sell it a helicopter-carrying assault ship and a license to produce four similar advanced vessels. They are the warships that the Russian Navy’s commander in chief, Adm. Vladimir Vysotsky, said, […]

Europe Still Likes Obama, but Doubts Creep In

By the New York Times

From the New York Times: [N]ine months into Mr. Obama’s presidency, trans-Atlantic relations are again clouded by doubts. Europe and the United States remain at least partly out of sync on Afghanistan, the Middle East, Iran and climate change. Many Europeans argue that Mr. Obama has not broken clearly enough with Bush administration policies that […]

Latvia to stage ‘retaliatory’ military exercises in summer

By RIA Novosti

From RIA Novosti: Latvia is to hold large-scale military exercises next summer, in response to the Russian-Belarusian strategic exercises, held in September, the Latvian TV3 channel reported. The TV channel quoted Latvian Defense Minister Imants Liegis as saying the decision to hold the drill was already taken, although it had not been yet set what […]

Is Turkey Leaving the West?

By Foreign Affairs

From Foreign Affairs: A mountain is moving in Turkish foreign policy, and the foundation of Turkey’s 60-year-old military and political cooperation with the West may be eroding… But the AKP’s foreign policy has not promoted sympathy toward all Muslim states. Rather, the party has promoted solidarity with Islamist, anti-Western regimes (Qatar and Sudan, for example) […]

South Korea to send troops, engineers to Afghanistan

By Reuters

From Reuters: South Korea will send a security contingent of police and troops to Afghanistan to guard the work of a new and larger team of civilian engineers, its Foreign Ministry said on Friday. South Korea will not allow the troops to engage in combat operations, a ministry spokesman said. Seoul has been under pressure […]

War Games

By the Economist

From the Economist: Jitters in eastern Europe over Russia’s military manoeuvres… Big military exercises in western Russia and Belarus, which finished earlier this month, were based on the following improbable scenario: ethnic Poles in western Belarus rise up and “terrorists” from Lithuania attack the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. More than 10,000 troops from Russia and […]