Category: Blogs

Former Air Force Chief: Russia’s Air Defenses Weak

By AP

From AP:  Russia is lagging 25 to 30 years behind the United States in developing prospective air defense weapons because of a meltdown of its defense industries, a former Russian air force chief said Thursday. Retired Gen. Anatoly Kornukov said Russia has only a reduced capability to protect itself from an enemy attack – a […]

Greek, Turkish PMs Meet, Discuss Defence Cuts

By Reuters

From Reuters: The prime ministers of longtime rivals Greece and Turkey met on Friday to ease tensions and discuss cuts in defence spending, a crucial step for Athens as it struggles with a debt crisis that is shaking the euro. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Athens with 10 ministers and about 80 businessmen to […]

Gates Undermining Civilian Capacity With Plan To Bolster It

By Laura Hall Gordon Adams

Secretary of Defense Bob Gates has rightly been hailed as a great public servant, a stellar Secretary, and a constructive partner to Secretary Clinton.  He also frequently makes the case for building up civilian international affairs capacity in his most prominent policy speeches. Yet a number of his proposals applying this policy in fact undercut […]

Signals of Foreign Policy Vigor in London

By Frederick Kempe

Atlantic Council president and CEO Fred Kempe was interviewed by CFR’s Deborah Jerome on the foreign policy implications of the change of Government in the UK. After forming the first coalition government in sixty-five years, Conservative David Cameron, now prime minister, and Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg, his deputy, touted their shotgun marriage as what Cameron […]

New Compromise May Prevent Total Dutch Withdrawal from Afghanistan

By DutchNews.nl

From DutchNews.nl: The Labour party is prepared to talk about sending Dutch police officers to Afghanistan to help train local forces, as long as it is clear this is not a military mission, Labour leader Job Cohen told KRO tv. The trainers can operate in areas where security is already tight but if necessary, Dutch […]

Gen. Abrial on Challenges to NATO Ballistic Missile Defense

By the Army Times

From the Army Times: The issue of information-sharing is even more important when deciding how to handle ballistic missile defense, [NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander for Transformation Gen. Stéphane] Abrial said. “For BMD, this will be probably more difficult than in other domains,” he noted. “This notion is still contentious — some nations are very willing, […]

Romania and US Finish Round of Preliminary “Technical Talks” on Missile Defense

By Xinhua

From Xinhua: A round of Romanian-US technical talks has taken place in Bucharest on Romania’s inclusion in the US missile defense system in Europe, the Romanian Foreign Ministry said in a press release Wednesday. The agenda of the talks on Tuesday included an exchange of views on technical and judicial aspects of the missile defense […]

New British Government Sets Up “US-style National Security Council”

By AFP

From AFP:  Britain’s new foreign minister said Wednesday that Afghanistan would be his top priority, ahead of the first meeting of the new coalition government’s US-style National Security Council (NSC). … One of Cameron’s first tasks since taking office was to set up a National Security Council to coordinate the work of the foreign, defence, […]

SACEUR Promotes NATO Partnership with Finland

By Allied Command Operations

Cameron, Clegg, and the Special Relationship

By James Joyner

After more than a year of British hand-wringing over the status of the Special Relationship under President Obama, the shoe is now on the other foot, with some Americans wondering whether the new occupants of No. 10 Downing Street will be quite as Atlanticist. Cameron and Clegg: Rhetoric vs. Reality It’s true that both David […]