Category: Blogs

NATO deploys additional peacekeepers in tense Kosovo

By Aleksandar Vasovic and Branislav Krstic, Reuters

From Aleksandar Vasovic and Branislav Krstic, Reuters:  NATO peacekeepers in Kosovo (KFOR) reinforced troops at a border crossing in the ethnic Serb north on Wednesday, a day after more than a dozen people were injured in clashes.

America’s Fourth and Most Testing Epoch?

By Harlan Ullman

In life, people inexorably move from infancy to adulthood and on to old age in a series of significant chronological milestones. Countries are obviously not people. But states also pass through stages that mark fundamental transition points and new epochs in their histories, sometimes knowingly, sometimes not. And sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. […]

Libya showed that the Europeans “successfully took on more responsibility through NATO, not the EU”

By Kenneth Weinstein, Real Clear World

From Kenneth Weinstein, Real Clear World:  What we saw in Libya is the emergence of something akin to warfare for the networked age: the full-fledged emergence of shifting coalitions of the willing based on participating nations’ domestic political calculations and military readiness.

Commander of NATO forces visits Turkey to discuss missile defense

By Sevil Küçükkoşum, Hurriyet

From Sevil Küçükkoşum, Hurriyet:  “Landing in Ankara, Turkey, for discussions on missile defense, Afghanistan, Libya, and NATO reform,” NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe James Stavridis said in a post on Twitter late Monday.

US commander says 800 more US trainers heading to Afghanistan by March

By the AP

From the AP:  The number of American military trainers in Afghanistan will increase by 800 by next March, a jump of nearly 25 percent in the U.S. commitment there, the top commander in charge of training said Monday.

Update: NATO activities in Libya on September 27

By NATO

Norwegian Aircraft Makes First Flight for NATO Anti-Piracy Op

By Allied Command Operations

From Allied Command Operations:  On Friday 23rd September, the Norwegian Maritime Patrol Aircraft (MPA) call sign Golden Arrow made its first flight in Operation Ocean Shield. The MPA arrived at its base on 13th September and after some maintenance work flew along the Somali coast for the first time on Friday.

Merkel’s Moment

By Margarita Mathiopoulos, the International Herald Tribune

From Margarita Mathiopoulos, the International Herald Tribune:   Leadership of the European Union from the beginning has fallen on Germany and France — Konrad Adenauer and Charles de Gaulle, Giscard d’Estaing and Helmut Schmidt, Helmut Kohl and François Mitterrand. Now it is Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy