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NATOSource

Apr 2, 2011

Advice for Obama: Coalitions require constant care and attention

By Meghan O’Sullivan, the Washington Post

From Meghan O’Sullivan, the Washington Post:  Given the most obvious differences between Iraq and Libya — no ground troops in Libya and no U.N. resolution in Iraq — few will take issue with [President Barack] Obama’s protestation.

International Organizations Politics & Diplomacy

NATOSource

Apr 2, 2011

Lady in Waiting: Where is the EU’s foreign policy chief?

By Stephen Castle, Foreign Policy

From Stephen Castle, Foreign Policy:  The crisis in Libya is a rare instance in which Europeans can plausibly claim to be outdoing Americans in foreign policy, and a rarer one still of the old world being more prepared than the new to use its military muscle. But while France and Britain have burnished their leadership […]

European Union International Organizations

New Atlanticist

Apr 1, 2011

Afghanistan’s Tet?

By James Joyner

Todays’ horrific attack on the UN complex in Mazar-i Sharif may well the the Tet Offensive of Afghanistan: a strategically minor event that permanently changed the American public’s view of the war. Details are still sketchy as of this writing but some number of foreign employees (seven, ten, or twenty have been variously reported) of the UN office […]

NATOSource

Apr 1, 2011

Europe Had Better Wake Up

By Lord Robertson, the New Atlanticist

From Lord Robertson, the New Atlanticist:  Europe, despite its relative prosperity and economic muscle, is still not, as we have seen, able to act in its own self-interest without US leadership and military capabilities.

European Union International Organizations

NATOSource

Apr 1, 2011

Swedish legislature approves sending fighter jets to Libya

By the Local

From the Local:  Sweden’s Riksdag on Friday voted overwhelmingly in favour of Sweden sending JAS Gripen fighter aircraft to Libya to monitor a UN-backed no-fly zone. The parliament voted through the proposal by a resounding 240 to 18, with five abstentions. "Sometimes the risk of intervening is less than the risk of not doing so," […]

International Organizations Politics & Diplomacy

NATOSource

Apr 1, 2011

NATO military leader: “NATO is not in Libya to decide the future of the Libyan people”

By Daniel Michaels and Charlse Duxbury, the Wall Street Journal

From Daniel Michaels and Charlse Duxbury, the Wall Street Journal:  Adm. Giampaolo Di Paola, chairman of the NATO Military Council and the alliance’s most senior military official, said the NATO operation, dubbed Unified Protectorate, entails enforcing an arms-embargo and no-fly zone and protecting civilians

United Kingdom United States and Canada

NATOSource

Apr 1, 2011

Defense shuffle: U.S. set to name new military commanders

By Laura Rozen, the Envoy

From Laura Rozen, the Envoy:  David Petraeus, perhaps the most celebrated American general of his generation, is likely to leave his job as the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan this summer, multiple defense officials say.

United States and Canada

NATOSource

Apr 1, 2011

Chancellor Merkel’s Shellacking

By the Editors of the New York Times

From the Editors of the New York Times:  Even after pandering to voters’ fears about nuclear power, the euro and NATO operations in Libya, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany got a shellacking in her Christian Democratic party’s traditional bastion of Baden-Württemberg.

European Union International Organizations

New Atlanticist

Apr 1, 2011

Europe Had Better Wake Up

By Lord Robertson

I support the Government in what they are doing, through NATO, in Libya. There is absolutely no doubt that, had timely action not been taken, Benghazi and eastern Libya would have fallen, and the consequences for the civilian population in that area would have been grim indeed. Our forces in the air, at sea and […]

New Atlanticist

Apr 1, 2011

Fighting to the Last American?: America and the End of the European Age

By Julian Lindley-French

The European age is finally over! Five hundred years after it began with the Spanish conquest of Latin America the Libya imbroglio marks the final end of Europe’s strategic pretence. For all the rhetoric from Paris and London and the belated ‘leadership’ of NATO Europeans clearly lack the strategic imagination, political ambition and basic military means to […]