Antiwar literary and philosophical selections

Stop NATO
February 26, 2010

21st Century Strategy: Militarized Europe, Globalized NATO
Rick Rozoff

With the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms expiring last December 5 and its successor held up almost three months in large part because of U.S. missile shield provocations in recent weeks, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is forging ahead with the formulation and implementation of a new Strategic Concept.

On February 5 Russia unveiled its new military doctrine, which identified further NATO expansion eastward to its frontier and American and NATO interceptor missile deployments on and near its borders as the “main external threats of war.” [1]

On February 23 NATO held its fourth seminar on the new – 21st century – Strategic Concept decided upon at the sixtieth anniversary summit in April of 2009 in Strasbourg, France and Kehl, Germany. After previous meetings in Luxembourg, Slovenia and Norway, the final – and far most important – meeting was held in Washington, DC. Entitled Strategic Concept Seminar on Transformation and Capabilities, it was conducted at the National Defense University in the nation’s capital.

The Strategic Concept endorses expansion of the bloc deeper into the Balkans and the former Soviet Union, broadening global partnerships outside the Euro-Atlantic zone and consolidating an interceptor missile system to cover all of Europe as a joint U.S. and NATO project.

Russian concerns and NATO designs are at complete loggerheads, which accounts for among other problems a new START agreement remaining in limbo. And for Russia’s new military doctrine.

The results of the four seminars, masked as deliberative proceedings and even public information forums when in fact all important matters were decided years in advance, will be presented to NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen on May 1 and formally adopted at the NATO summit in Lisbon, Portugal this November.

The meetings that matter, those in the American capital where the White House and the Pentagon are situated, were presided over by former U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright and former chief executive officer of Royal Dutch Shell Jeroen van der Veer and their Group of Experts, alternatively Wise Men. The speakers at the Washington seminar included the U.S. foreign policy triumvirate of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and National Security Adviser James Jones, the last NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander from 2003-2006. Other talks were given by the same principals on the preceding evening.

The U.S. permanent representative to NATO, Ivo Daalder, and Alliance chief Rasmussen also gave presentations.

Gates demanded the world’s only true military bloc and certainly the sole one currently involved in a war “uphold the long legacy that has made NATO the most successful military alliance in history.” [2]

All the American speakers laid particular emphasis on NATO’s Article 5, in effect a mutual assistance provision for armed conflicts.

Robert Gates: “Few would have imagined that the first invocation of Article 5 in the alliance’s history would follow an attack on the United States homeland by a non-state entity based in a nation far beyond NATO’s traditional borders….”

“[T]he Strategic Concept must be clear that Article 5 means what it says: an attack on one is an attack on all. The concept also must go further to strengthen Article 5’s credibility with a firm commitment to enhance deterrence through appropriate contingency planning, military exercises, and force development.”

Hillary Clinton: “I want to reaffirm as strongly as I can the United States’ commitment to honor Article 5 of the NATO treaty. No Ally – or adversary – should ever question our determination on this point. It is the bedrock of the Alliance and an obligation that time will not erode.” [3]

Ivo Daalder: “Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which says that an attack against one is an attack against all, remains the bedrock of the alliance. And in order to have that Article 5 operate effectively in the world that we live in today, we need the deployability of forces, we need the ability for forces to move from different places across territory, we need to be prepared through exercising and planning to show and ensure that NATO is prepared to confront the threats that we face….” [4]

James Jones went even further in stating “NATO must be more lean, agile, and flexible to effectively address the security challenges before it. NATO must move beyond its doctrine of static defense of the 20th Century to become a more proactive Alliance for the modern era.”

“NATO must be prepared to address, deny, and deter the full spectrum of threats, whether emanating from within Europe, at NATO’s boundaries, or far beyond NATO’s borders.” [5]

NATO and American officials were equally unequivocal on the deployment of global interceptor missile facilities in Europe and beyond. NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said “Clearly, the development of a common Missile Defence capability will be more efficient and more cost effective if it is developed in common.” [6]

More specifically, he said that “missile defence has become a strategic imperative. To my mind, missile defence makes the most sense in an Alliance context. That way, you get forward-based sensors and infrastructure. Allied defence systems can fill the gaps in the US system’s coverage.” [7]

Daalder linked that project with NATO’s Article 5:

In his words, it is necessary “to make territorial missile defense a mission of this alliance, a mission to defend against a new kind of armed attack, that which arrives on ballistic missiles, whether these weapons come from Iran and hit Western Europe or North Korea and towards North America. In both instances, they would be a responsibility for Article 5 to be dealt with.”

Specifically mentioning the “120-some-thousand troops” from fifty nations serving under NATO command in Afghanistan and ongoing NATO naval operations in the Gulf of Aden and the Horn of Africa, he added: “Those are the kinds of operations that we are engaged in, that we are likely to continue to engage in, some of which will follow under Article 5. A defense against ballistic missile attack – even those of ballistic missiles come from very far if they attack NATO territory – would be an Article 5 contingency.”

Daalder came to his current post as U.S. ambassador to NATO from being Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and before that director for European Affairs on the National Security Council from 1995-1996, where he was responsible for the Clinton administration’s Bosnia policy.

He was an avid supporter of and advocate for the wars against Yugoslavia in 1999 – co-authoring a 2000 book titled Winning Ugly: NATO’s War to Save Kosovo – against Iraq in 2003 and against Afghanistan from 2001 to the present.

In his years at Brookings he co-authored a number of articles with James Goldgeier, a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, including a 2006 piece called “For global security, expand the alliance” which stated “since the challenges NATO faces are global, its membership should be as well.”

The authors added “NATO must become larger and more global by admitting any democratic state that is willing and able to contribute to the fulfillment of the alliance’s new responsibilities.

“NATO’s ability to bring together countries with similar values and interests to combat global problems is constrained by the exclusively trans-Atlantic character of its membership. Other democratic countries share NATO’s values and many common interests – including Australia, Brazil, Japan, India, New Zealand, South Africa and South Korea – and all of them can greatly contribute to NATO’s efforts by providing additional military forces or logistical support to respond to global threats and needs.” [8]

In the same year Daalder and Goldgeier wrote an article for Foreign Affairs, the publication of the Council on Foreign Relations, entitled “Global NATO.” In contents included the contention that “the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has gone global” and that its alleged “forward defense often requires a global military reach.” [9]

The new Strategic Concept, in addition to codifying a 21st century and expeditionary NATO (the terms are those of Alliance officials and advocates), will fully launch global NATO, the world’s first international military axis.

The project promoted by Daalder and his colleagues since the early 1990s is to be brought to fruition. He was given his post last year to assist in achieving that objective.

In the tendentious journalism he practiced in the pages of major U.S. dailies and journals while senior fellow at the Brookings Institution from 1998-2009 Daalder frequently criticised the ineffectuality of the United Nations, and his program for a global NATO – his exact term, recall – is meant not to supplement but to supplant the UN. [10]

Madeleine Albright, who delivered the opening and closing remarks at the February 23 Strategic Concept seminar, has similarly derogated the role of the UN; she who was U.S. ambassador to the organization from 1993 to 1997 when she led the successful effort to depose UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali in 1997 after conspiring behind his back with Kofi Annan to obtain UN authorization for NATO’s bombing of Bosnian Serb positions in August and September of 1995. (The following month Annan was appointed UN special envoy to NATO.)

In speaking of “our vision for a revitalized Alliance for the 21st century,” Hillary Clinton celebrated Albright’s efforts throughout the post-Cold War period in her address in Washington on February 22: “She helped bring some of the countries represented here tonight into NATO in the late 1990s – an effort that many questioned at the time but which I believe has proven to be a major success. She played a central role in developing NATO’s last Strategic Concept eleven years ago.”

The vision of what NATO is to become in the new millennium was officially disclosed by Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen on February 7 at the annual Munich Security Conference. He unabashedly called for a global NATO.

Ahead of the Strategic Concept meeting in Washington, he urged that “NATO can be the place where views, concerns and best practices on security are shared by NATO’s global partners. And where … we might work out how to tackle global challenges together.” [11]

His view was seconded by Madeleine Albright, who said “I think we are talking about how we can have some coordinating mechanism for all the various organizations that exist in the world.” Raising a rhetorical question as to “which organization can make the biggest difference,” she answered it with “While I am a great admirer of the United Nations, I know what it can and cannot do.” [12]

A Russian news source responded eleven days later by revealing “NATO’s new strategy authorizing the alliance to use force in any part of the globe arouses deep concern in Moscow.

“Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said this strategy contradicts the United Nations’ Charter.”

Russia’s Lavrov warned that with the Alliance’s new Strategic Concept “NATO’s sphere of interests may cover the entire world.” [13]

That is precisely what the new doctrine and policy is designed to effect and what Rasmussen, Albright, et al. bluntly state its intention to be. The United Nations and international law will take a back seat to global NATO.

NATO “is working on a new military strategy which will let the alliance…use force globally,” of which Russia Foreign Minister Lavrov said “It does not fully comply with the UN Charter, and, of course, raises our concerns.” [14]

Not only does the Western military bloc’s plans to undermine, supersede and ultimately scrap the entire post-World War II international diplomatic and security order “not fully comply with the UN Charter,” it is a direct attack on it.

The new concept also reiterates and intensifies the complete militarization of Europe, the retention of U.S. nuclear arms and the stationing of missile shield components there and the deployment of the continent’s troops to war zones abroad. 35 of 41 European nations have deployed troops to Afghanistan on NATO’s behest, for example. [15]

It also advocates the right of the North Atlantic military bloc to intervene anywhere in the world and is increasingly reviving discussion of activating its Article 5 provision for confrontation with Russia in Europe and the South Caucasus.

Earlier this month Belgian Prime Minister Belgian Yves Leterme stated that his nation and Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Norway would issue a joint declaration urging consideration of the removal of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe. Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands are among five NATO countries housing the warheads, the others being Italy and Turkey. [16]

Nevertheless NATO’s position is to support the continued basing of American nuclear weapons, and the bloc will defer to Washington’s 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, scheduled to be submitted to Congress last December but delayed for several months.

NATO is the Pentagon’s nuclear Trojan horse in Europe.

After the founding of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in April of 1949 – four months before the Soviet Union successfully tested its first atomic bomb – the U.S. began to station nuclear weapons in Europe, as many as 7,300 by the early 1970s. [17]

The Pentagon retains as many as 350 nuclear weapons in the five nations mentioned above, a full twenty years after the end of the Cold War.

At the Strategic Concept seminar on February 23 in Washington Ivo Daalder repeated the sixty-year NATO position on nuclear weapons in stating, “We need to continue to rely on a deterrence based on a mix of conventional and nuclear forces.”

He also linked three integral components of NATO’s now global strategy – the threat to employ nuclear weapons, a worldwide interceptor missile system and the bloc’s Article 5 war clause – in asserting that “we need, in the new environment, to make territorial missile defense a mission of this alliance, a mission to defend against a new kind of armed attack, that which arrives on ballistic missiles, whether these weapons come from Iran and hit Western Europe or North Korea and towards North America. In both instances, they would be a responsibility for Article 5 to be dealt with.”

To underscore the point – that NATO would marshal the combined military might of its 28 member states in Europe and North America in alleged defense of any member requesting it – he added, “A defense against ballistic missile attack – even those of ballistic missiles come from very far if they attack NATO territory – would be an Article 5 contingency.”

“We would like the alliance to embrace the notion that the territorial defense of our – of – that territorial missile defense is a mission of NATO and therefore ought to be a fundamental part of what NATO does on a day-to-day basis. Whether that’s in the Strategic Concept or is a separate decision at the Lisbon summit is less important. Article 5 is going to be in the Strategic Concept. Ballistic missiles that are directed at the territory of a NATO state would be an armed attack and therefore fall under the definition of Article 5.

“We believe NATO should be in the business of missile defense. The United States has offered its new approach to missile defense as its U.S.-funded contribution to a NATO system. And we hope that by Lisbon [the NATO summit in November], the entire alliance will embrace this as a mission and we move forward together in defending against the threats that are out there in the 21st century.”

Defense Secretary Gates spoke in the same vein: “The threat from rogue nations is real – in particular Iran, which is focusing its efforts on short-and-medium-range missiles that could strike most of Europe. Last year, the Obama administration announced a new plan for missile defense in Europe – a phased, adaptive approach that will give us real capabilities in a shorter period of time than the previous plan. We consider this a U.S.-funded contribution to NATO missile defense, which is critical to the collective-defense mission….”

Collective defense, sometimes deemed collective self-defense, are the NATO code words for activating Article 5 and ordering all members to respond militarily to a threat – real or fancied – to one or more members.

Clinton followed suit in stating “Missile defense, we believe, will make us safer because, clearly, we see a threat. We see a threat that is emanating from the Middle East and we see a threat that can only be addressed in the spirit of collective defense.”

Targeting the same countries earlier identified by Daalder (two of the three so-called axis of evil nations identified as such by former president George W. Bush), she said, “nuclear proliferation and the development of more sophisticated missiles in countries such as North Korea and Iran are reviving the specter of an interstate nuclear attack. So how do we in NATO do our part to ensure that such weapons never are unleashed on the world?”

In no manner does Iran raise the “specter of an interstate nuclear attack” and Clinton knew that. But it is the pretext required by the U.S. and NATO to base interceptor missile sites along Russia’s western borders from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.

The excuse needed to support Clinton’s demand that, more than twenty years since the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, NATO members still “need to invest in deterrence, nuclear deterrence as well as missile defense….”

The U.S. nuclear shield, linked with NATO’s Article 5, is being extended from Europe to Asia, the Middle East and ultimately the entire world. Global nuclear NATO.

In keeping with the conference held on NATO’s new Strategic Concept in London last October 1, hosted by Lloyd’s of London, in which the bloc’s Secretary General Rasmussen identified no less than seventeen nominal threats – all of them non-military in nature and all of them without geographical limitations – that NATO was prepared to respond to, [18] the Washington conference also highlighted the boundless and timeless mandate that NATO was arrogating to itself.

Rasmussen’s speech on February 23 included these observations:

“We must face new challenges. Terrorism, proliferation, cyber security or even climate change will oblige us to seek new ways of operating.

“As we deploy in operations with over 40 participating countries – Allies as well as partners – we have to move beyond a multinational force to become a truly unified force – a force where information and capabilities are shared among all to the benefit of all, and to get the job done.

“I have decided to establish a new division at NATO Headquarters to deal with new threats and challenges. Naturally Allied Command Transformation will be a key partner for this new division, which will become operational after the summer.” [19]

The previous evening Rasmussen spoke at Georgetown University in Washington, DC and elaborated on the Alliance’s Article 5 in practice rather than just in theory:

“The problems of the 21st century can only be solved multilaterally. And there is no stronger, more effective framework for that cooperation than NATO. But did you know that, on September 12th, all of America’s Allies in NATO declared that they considered this attack on America as an attack on them as well? Did you know that NATO sent aircraft to patrol the skies here in the United States? Did you know that all NATO countries put their ports and airfields at US disposal for the operation into Afghanistan? Or that most of them sent Special Forces, alongside US soldiers, in the initial military response?

“44 countries have soldiers in Afghanistan, under NATO command. Sharing the risks, the costs and the burdens with the United States. The non-US members make up 40% of the total number of forces. They also take 40% of the casualties.” [20]

He also indicated which nation NATO may next invoke its collective military assistance clause against: Russia. Unnamed but not needing to be in the context he was discussing.

“Our NATO Ally Estonia suffered a few years ago from a sustained, directed cyber attack that shut down a lot of essential services.

“Luckily, Estonia was able to withstand the attack. but NATO was called upon to provide advice and assistance, and we’ve set up a team that can deploy wherever needed, to support any Ally in case they come under this kind of attack.”

Rasmussen also singled out Iran and North Korea as potential targets for NATO action, as Clinton and Daalder also did. Those two nations will be at the center of NATO’s new international strategy.

He repeated his call at the Munich Security Conference for a NATO-initiated and -dominated worldwide security force:

“A key priority for me is to enhance NATO’s ‘connectivity’ with the broader international community, by building new ties to civilian actors – the United Nations, the European Union, the World Bank, all the way to the NGO community. We are also deepening our partnerships with countries from across the globe, from Australia to Japan. I believe we should also reach out to the rising stars of this century, such as China and India….And we are pushing ahead with the transformation of our military forces, to make them more flexible and useable.”

“NATO is a permanent Alliance, with a multinational political and military structure, and with over 60 years of experience in security cooperation. Put another way, we are no ad-hoc coalition of the willing. And this gives NATO a degree of competence, credibility and legitimacy that encourages even non-NATO countries to put their forces under NATO command.”

Daalder also advocated a sweeping, borderless agenda for the military bloc: “In order to provide security for NATO, it is important that one tackles…challenges and threats, if necessary, at the source, which means that NATO will have to operate beyond the territorial confines of the North Atlantic Treaty. And it does, which is why we’re in Afghanistan. We have 120-some-thousand troops, and growing, in Afghanistan….We have a counter-piracy mission in the Gulf of Aden because the security of our economic lifeline is affected by the degree to which we can provide security for the ships that are crossing those lines.”

“NATO is an actor in a globalized world. And NATO will be involved as an actor in that globalized world, far from the shores, as it has been today, when it has launched the largest military operation in the history of the alliance, 5,000 kilometers from the headquarters in Brussels.”

Hillary Clinton also defined the world as NATO’s area of responsibility: “Some of the new dynamics we’re dealing with were beginning to appear in 1999 when NATO last revised its Strategic Concept. For example, we faced the question of whether the Alliance would engage in out-of-area operations. Today, NATO ships are combating piracy off the Horn of Africa. NATO’s Training Mission in Iraq has provided instruction to more than 14,000 Iraqis. We have agreed to work together to counter the missile threat from the Middle East. And in the last two and a half months, Allies have answered President Obama’s call to support ISAF’s mission in Afghanistan and are scheduled to increase their contributions by nearly 10,000 troops. In an interconnected world, we cannot defend our people by crouching behind the geographic boundaries of the Alliance.”

“We were glad to see the Alliance welcome Albania and Croatia last year. And there can be no question that NATO will continue to keep its doors open to new members.” An allusion to the remaining former Yugoslav states not yet full NATO members – Bosnia, Macedonia and Montenegro and behind them Kosovo and Serbia – and the former Soviet republics of Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova.

“NATO must also forge deeper partnerships with leading democracies beyond the Euro-Atlantic community. We are already working with many of these nations in Afghanistan. And we must find ways to build on these efforts and encourage more regular cooperation. We have already determined the need for a NATO that can operate at strategic distance.”

Clinton, Rasmussen, Albright, Jones and Daalder alike made claims for NATO’s global role, but the address by Pentagon chief Robert Gates was in some ways the most blunt and revealing of all.

The website of The Australian gave the title “Peace culture weakens NATO” to an account of his comments, which included his boast that “more than 120,000 troops are serving as part of the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan – and thousands more are on their way,” and his insistence on “the expectation that everyone will fulfill their Article 5 responsibilities and duties.” [21]

The following are further excerpts from his address:

-At the strategic level, the greatest evolution in NATO over the last two decades is the transition from a static, defensive force to an expeditionary force – from a defensive alliance to a security alliance.

-It is clear that our security interests are no longer tied solely to the territorial integrity of member states, as instability elsewhere can be a real threat. Just consider the types of missions undertaken by NATO over the last two decades – from Bosnia and Herzegovina, to Kosovo, to counter-terrorism in the Mediterranean and counter-piracy in the Gulf of Aden, to the massive, multi-faceted stability, reconstruction, and counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan.

As Rasmussen and Clinton both mentioned alleged threats to Estonia where the only nation presenting them could be Russia, so Gates targeted the same country in his stressing “the core goal of defending the territory of member states from attack – a point made more relevant after Russia’s invasion of Georgia and its recent military exercises on NATO’s border, the largest of that type since the collapse of the Soviet Union.”

The “core goal” he spoke about is that addressed in NATO’s Article 5, which states:

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

Gates like the other American speakers at the seminar invoked Iran as the justification for interceptor missile deployments, but repeated mention of Estonia and Georgia pertain exclusively to Russia.

He then launched into a diatribe against a fictitious peace contagion enveloping Europe – when almost the entire continent is now absorbed by NATO and practically every nation on it has sent troops to a war zone in Asia, “5,000 kilometers from NATO headquarters.”

Indicting European NATO allies’ unwillingness to match U.S. military spending – slated to reach an unprecedented $708 billion next year – Gates said, “Since the end of the Cold War, NATO and national defense budgets have fallen consistently – even with unprecedented operations outside NATO’s territory over the past five years.”

If anyone still cherishes hope for a peace dividend a generation after the end of the Cold War, Gates has nothing but contempt for them:

“These budget limitations relate to a larger cultural and political trend affecting the alliance. One of the triumphs of the last century was the pacification of Europe after ages of ruinous warfare. But, as I’ve said before, I believe we have reached an inflection point, where much of the continent has gone too far in the other direction. The demilitarization of Europe – where large swaths of the general public and political class are averse to military force and the risks that go with it – has gone from a blessing in the 20th century to an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st.”

A cultural infection of pacifism. A non-existent demilitarization of Europe which threatens peace. Sentiments of this type have not been voiced in Europe itself since the late 1930s and early 1940s, when like now most of the continent was united under one politico-military power.

1) NATO Expansion, Missile Deployments And Russia’s New Military Doctrine
Stop NATO, February 12, 2010
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/02/12/nato-expansion-missile-deployments-and-russias-new-military-doctrine
2) United States Department of Defense
http://www.defense.gov/Speeches/Speech.aspx?SpeechID=1423
3) Remarks at the NATO Strategic Concept Seminar
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Ritz-Carlton Hotel
Washington, DC
February 22, 2010
United States Department of State
http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/02/137118.htm
4) On New Global Doctrine
Special Briefing on the Future of NATO
Ivo Daalder
Permanent Representative to North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
Washington, DC
February 23, 2010
United States Department of State,
http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rm/2010/137121.htm
5) Atlantic Council, February 24, 2010
6) Remarks by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen at the fourth
Strategic Concept Seminar on Transformation and Capabilities, Washington DC
February 23, 2010
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/opinions_61647.htm?selectedLocale=en
7) Speech by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen at Georgetown
University
February 22, 2010
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/opinions_61566.htm?selectedLocale=en
8) International Herald Tribune, October 12, 2006
9) Foreign Affairs, September/October 2006
10) West Plots To Supplant United Nations With Global NATO
Stop NATO, May 27, 2009
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/29/154
11) Reuters, February 7, 2010
12) Ibid
13) Voice of Russia, February 18, 2010
14) Russia Today, February 18, 2010
15) Afghan War: NATO Builds History’s First Global Army
Stop NATO, August 9, 2009
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/afghan-war-nato-builds-historys-first-global-army
16) Michel Chossudovsky, Europe’s Five “Undeclared Nuclear Weapons States”
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17550
17) NATO’s Secret Transatlantic Bond: Nuclear Weapons In Europe
Stop NATO, December 3, 2009
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/natos-secret-transatlantic-bond-nuclear-weapons-in-europe
NATO’s Sixty Year Legacy: Threat Of Nuclear War In Europe
Stop NATO, March 31, 2009
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/natos-sixty-year-legacy-threat-of-nuclear-war-in-europe
18) Thousand Deadly Threats: Third Millennium NATO, Western Businesses Collude
On New Global Doctrine
Stop NATO, October 2, 2009
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/10/02/thousand-deadly-threats-third-millennium-nato-western-businesses-collude-on-new-global-doctrine
19) Remarks by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen at the fourth
Strategic Concept Seminar on Transformation and Capabilities, Washington DC
February 23, 2010
20) Speech by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen at Georgetown
University
February 22, 2010
21) NATO Strategic Concept Seminar
Remarks as Delivered by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, National
Defense University, Washington, D.C.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
http://www.defense.gov/Speeches/Speech.aspx?SpeechID=1423

Stop NATO
February 23, 2010

South Atlantic: Britain May Provoke New Conflict With Argentina
Rick Rozoff

On February 22 two major developments occurred in the Americas south of the Rio Grande. The two-day Rio Group summit opened in Mexico and Great Britain started drilling for oil 60 miles north of the Falklands Islands, known as Las Malvinas to Argentina.

The meeting in Mexico was identified as a Unity Summit because for the first time the 24 members of the Rio Group (minus Honduras, not invited because of the illegitimacy of its post-coup regime) – Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela – were joined by the fifteen members of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM): Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago. (Belize, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica and Suriname are members of both organizations.)

Ahead of the summit the Financial Times wrote, “The Mexican-led initiative, a clear sign of Latin America’s growing confidence as a region, will exclude both the US and Canada. Some observers believe it could even eventually rival the 35-member Organisation of American States (OAS), which includes the US and Canada and has been the principal forum for hemispheric issues during the past half century.” [1]

In fact on the first day of the summit Bolivian President Evo Morales called for “a new US-free OAS,” [2] stressing Washington’s centuries-long history of perpetrating military coups, blackmail, looting of natural resources and, over the past generation, the scourge of neo-liberalism in the Americas.

In 1986 the Rio Group grew out of the four-member Contradora Group consisting of Colombia, Mexico, Panama and Venezuela which was formed in response to Washington’s Contra and death squad campaigns in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala in the 1980s. Part of the legacy Bolivia’s Morales was referring to.

Coinciding to the day if not the hour of the beginning of the summit, the British Desire Petroleum company began exploring for oil and gas off the Falklands/Las Malvinas, seized from Argentina by Britain in 1833 and fought over by the nations in a 74-day war in 1982. “Neighbouring Argentina, which lays claim to the islands, is fiercely opposed to the drilling. Earlier this month, the Argentinian government filed a formal protest with the British government.” [3]

Britain lost 255 soldiers in the conflict, the highest wartime fatalities it had suffered since the Korean War and the Malayan conflict. The British death toll in Afghanistan recently surpassed that number.

London’s energy grab in the South Atlantic did not go unnoticed in Mexico, where 26 presidents and prime ministers were among the participants at the Unity Summit. Argentine President Cristina Fernandez denounced the British actions as “unilateral and illegal” [4] and a breach of her nation’s sovereignty.

She further stated “There continues to be systematic violation of international law that should be respected by all countries….In the name of our government and in the name of my people I am grateful…for the support this meeting has given to our demands.” [5]

Fernandez characterized the unanimous backing provided her at the summit as an “exercise in self-defence for all” [6] and blasted nations with permanent seats in the United Nations Security Council – she undoubtedly meant Britain, the United States and France – for “continu[ing] to use that place of privilege to disregard international law.” [7]

Her Venezuelan colleague President Hugo Chavez, indicating the dangerous dimension a new British-provoked altercation with Argentina can escalate into, said, “The English are still threatening Argentina. Things have changed. We are no longer in 1982. If conflict breaks out, be sure Argentina will not be alone like it was back then.” [8]

Before the summit began he said, “We support unconditionally the Argentine government and the Argentine people in their complaints. That sea and that land belongs to Argentina and to Latin America.” [9]

He reiterated that position during his speech on February 22. While highlighting the military threat posed by Britain off the coast of Argentina, he alluded to a British submarine site in the Falklands/Las Malvinas and said “we demand not only [that] the submarine platform…be removed, but also [that] the British government…follow the resolutions of the United Nations and give back that territory to the Argentine People.” [10]

Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega, also in attendance at the summit, stated “We will back a resolution demanding that England return Las Malvinas to its rightful owner, that it return the islands to Argentina.” [11]

The Times of London quoted Marco Aurelio Garcia, foreign policy adviser to Brazil’s President Lula da Silva, as adding: “Las Malvinas must be reintegrated into Argentine sovereignty. Unlike in the past, today there is a consensus in Latin America behind Argentina’s claims.” [12]

The comments by Venezuela’s president, addressing as they did the threat of a new military confrontation between Britain and Argentina, bear particular scrutiny in light of recent actions by London and statements by its head of state.

In late December Britain conducted a two-day military operation off the coast of the Falklands/Las Malvinas which included the use of Typhoon multi-role fighters and warships. The exercises, code-named Cape Bayonet, “took place during a tour of the Falklands by British forces ahead of the start of drilling in the basin in February 2010” and “simulated an enemy invasion….” [13]

A news report at the time added, “Britain has strengthened its military presence in the Falklands since the [1982] war and has a major operational base at Mount Pleasant, 35 miles from the capital Stanley.

“The prospect of the islands transforming into a major source of oil revenue for Britain has raised the military’s argument for more funding to beef up the forces in South Atlantic.” [14]

Four days before British drilling began off the islands, Prime Minister Gordon Brown stated “We have made all the preparations that are necessary to make sure that the Falkland Islanders are properly protected,” [15] although Argentine officials have repeatedly denied the possibility of a military response to British encroachments and provocations in the South Atlantic Ocean.

On the same day, February 18, Argentina’s Vice Minister of Foreign Relations Victorio Taccetti accused Britain of “a unilateral act of aggression and subjugation” [16] in moving to seize oil and gas in the disputed region. Buenos Aires has prohibited ships from going to and coming from the Falklands/Las Malvinas through Argentine waters.

What is at stake are, according to British Geological Survey estimates, as many as 60 billion barrels of oil under the waters off the Falklands/Las Malvinas.

In late January a Russian military analyst explained that even that colossal energy bonanza is not all that Britain covets near the Falklands/Las Malvinas and further south.

Ilya Kramnik wrote that “along with the neighboring islands controlled by the U.K., the Falklands are the de facto gateway to the Antarctic, which explains London’s tenacity in maintaining sovereignty over them and the South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, as well as territorial claims regarding the South Shetland and South Orkney Islands under the Antarctic Treaty.”

Regarding Antarctica itself, “Under the ice, under the continental shelf, there are enormous mineral resources and the surrounding seas are full of bio-resources. In addition, the glaciers of Antarctica contain 90% of the world’s fresh water, the shortage of which becomes all the more acute with the growth in the world’s population.” [17]

A Chinese analysis of over two years earlier described what Britain in part went to war for in 1982 and why it may do so again: Control of broad tracts of Antarctica.

“The vastness of seemingly barren, ice-covered land is uncovered and exposed to the outside world, revealing a ‘treasure basin’ with incredibly abundant mineral deposits and energy reserves….A layer of Permian Period coal exists on the mainland, and holds 500 billion tons in known reserves.

“The thick ice dome over the land is home to the world’s largest reservoir for fresh water; holds approximately 29.3 million cubic kilometers of ice; and makes up 75% of earth’s fresh water supply.

“It is possible to say that the South Pole could feed the entire world with its abundant supplies of food [fish] and fresh water…[T]he value of the South Pole is not confined to the economic sphere; it also lies in its strategic position.

“The US Coast Guard has long had garrisons in the region, and the US Air Force is the number one air power in the region.” [18]

The feature from which the preceding excerpts originated ended with a warning: “[T]he South Pole [Antarctic] Treaty points out that the South Pole can only be exploited and developed for the sake of peace; and can not be a battle ground. Otherwise, the ice-cold South Pole could prove a fiercely hot battlefield.” [19]

Two days before the May 13, 2009 deadline for “states to stake their claims in what some experts [have described] as the last big carve-up of maritime territory in history,” [20] Britain submitted a claim to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf for one million square kilometers in the South Atlantic reaching into the Antarctic Ocean.

An article in this series written five days afterward detailed the new scramble for Antarctica initiated by Britain and Australia, the second being granted 2.5 million additional square kilometers in the Antarctic Ocean in April of 2008. [21]

A newspaper in the United Kingdom wrote about London’s million-kilometer South Atlantic and Antarctic ambitions beforehand that “Not since the Golden Age of the Empire has Britain staked its claim to such a vast area of land on the world stage. And while the British Empire may be long gone, the Antarctic has emerged as the latest battleground for rival powers competing on several fronts to secure valuable oil-rich territory….The Falklands claim has the most potential for political fall-out, given that Britain and Argentina fought over the islands 25 years ago, and the value of the oil under the sea in the region is understood to be immense. Seismic tests suggest there could be about 60 billion barrels of oil under the ocean floor.” [22]

Last autumn a Russian news source warned about the exact initiative of this February 22 in stating “Many believe that the 1982 war between Britain and Argentina with almost 1,000 servicemen killed in the hostilities was all about oil and gas fields in the South Atlantic. In this sense, Desire Petroleum should certainly think twice before starting to capitalize on what was a subject of the bloodbath in 1982….”

Regarding the territorial claims submitted by Britain last May (still in deliberations at the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf), the report pointed out London’s “eagerness to expand its Falkland Islands’ continental shelf from 200 to 350 nautical miles, which would enable Britain to develop new oil fields in South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands,” and ended with a somber warning:

“Given London’s unwillingness to try to arrive at a political accommodation with Buenos Aires, a UN special commission will surely have tougher times ahead as far as its final decision on the continental shelf goes. And it is only to be hoped that Britain will be wise enough not to turn the Falkland Islands into another regional hot spot.” [23]

Unlike the first South Atlantic war of 1982, when the regime of General Leopoldo Galtieri garnered no support from other Latin American nations, a future standoff or armed conflict between Argentina and Britain over the Falklands/Las Malvinas will see Latin American and Caribbean states acting in solidarity with Argentina.

If the United Kingdom succeeds in provoking a new war, it in turn will appeal to its NATO allies for logistical, surveillance and other forms of assistance, including direct military intervention if required. In addition to the U.S. and Canada, Britain’s NATO allies in the Western Hemisphere include France and the Netherlands with their possessions and military bases in the Caribbean and South America.

Britain is playing with fire and if it ignites a new conflict it could rapidly spread far beyond the waters off the southern tip of South America.

1) Financial Times, February 19, 2010
2) Prensa Latina, February 22, 2010
3) Radio Netherlands, February 22, 2010
4) Associated Press, February 22, 2010
5) Reuters, February 22, 2010
6) Deutsche Presse-Agentur, February 22, 2010
7) Ibid
8) The Times (London), February 23, 2010
9) Reuters, February 22, 2010
10) Xinhua News Agency, February 23, 2010
11) The Times, February 23, 2010
12) Ibid
13) United Press International, December 28, 2009
14) Ibid
15) Reuters, February 18, 2010
16) Xinhua News Agency, February 19, 2010
17) Russian Information Agency Novosti, January 28, 2010
18) People’s Daily, December 4, 2007
19) Ibid
20) Reuters, October 7, 2007
21) Scramble For World Resources: Battle For Antarctica
Stop NATO, May 16, 2009
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/scramble-for-world-resources-battle-for-antarctica
22) The Scotsman, October 23, 2007
23) Voice of Russia, September 16, 2009

Stop NATO
February 18, 2010

Impending Explosion: U.S. Intensifies Threats To Russia And Iran
Rick Rozoff

———-
Washington and its NATO allies launched two of the three major wars in the world over the past eleven years in March – against Yugoslavia in 1999 and against Iraq in 2003. The war drums are being pounded anew and the world may be headed for a catastrophe far worse than those in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq.
———-

The United States, separately and through the military bloc it controls, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is accelerating military deployments and provocations throughout Eurasia and the Middle East.

Embroiled with fellow NATO members in the largest-scale military offensive of the joint war in Afghanistan launched eight years ago last October and well on the way to both extending and replicating the Afghan aggression in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula [1], Washington and its allies are also taunting and threatening Russia as well as surrounding Iran with military forces and hardware preparatory to a potential attack on that nation.

The rapid pace of the escalation – almost daily reports of missile shield expansion in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, the Persian Gulf and Turkey; heightened and progressively more bellicose words and actions directed against Iran – is occurring at a breakneck and almost dizzying speed, drawing in larger and larger tracts of Europe and Asia.

On February 12 new U.S. ambassador to Bulgaria James Warlick, speaking “at his first public event in the country,” announced that Washington is entering into negotiations with the Bulgarian government to station interceptor missile facilities, most likely at one of the three new military bases the Pentagon has acquired there in the past four years. “The US military already has bases in Romania and Bulgaria that were created some years ago for delivering troops and cargo to Iraq and Afghanistan….” [2]

“The United States is planning to expand its European missile shield to other parts of Europe” and “will consult closely with Bulgaria and other NATO allies on the specific options to deploy elements of the defense system in those regions,” according to the American envoy. [3]

During the same speech Warlick also “called on Bulgaria to find other alternatives to stop its dependence on Russian gas,” [4] a reference to sabotaging the Russian South Stream project to transport natural gas from the eastern end of the Black Sea to Bulgaria and from there to Austria and Italy.

An analyst at a pro-NATO think tank in Bulgaria said of the proposed missile shield components that “They can be deployed virtually anywhere. Naturally they will need special infrastructure that provides logistical processes, and technically everything should be enforced by NATO standards.” [5]

The news of including Bulgaria in U.S. and NATO missile shield plans came eight days after a comparable announcement was made by Romanian President Traian Basescu that his country, where the U.S. has four new military bases, will host land-based U.S. interceptor missiles. The news from Romania in turn came only two weeks after Poland disclosed that a U.S. Patriot Advanced Capability-3 anti-ballistic missile battery will be stationed 35 miles from Russian territory as early as March. [6]

The head of the Russian lower house of parliament’s Committee on International Affairs, Konstantin Kosachev, responded to the latest news by saying it is “not in line with the ‘reset’ of US-Russia relations,” [7] an almost unintentionally comic understatement, and other Russian officials have pointed out that the Bulgarian report, as with those relating to Poland and Romania, came to their attention by reading of it in the press. Moscow’s American friend doesn’t feel constrained to notify Russia of its intention to base missile shield installations near the latter’s borders or across the Black Sea from it.

Former Joint Chief of Staff of the Russian Armed Forces retired general Leonid Ivashov was less restrained in his reaction. He recently told a major Russian radio station that U.S. missile strategy “remains unchanged” vis-a-vis that of the former George W. Bush administration and missiles in Romania are an integral component of Washington’s plan to “neutralize Russia as a geopolitical competitor” [8] in the Black Sea and in general. In fact Washington’s plans are to destroy the strategic balance in the European continent two and a half months after the expiration of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). Recent announcements concerning U.S. missile deployments near Russia have been interpreted by some observers as intentionally designed to bury START negotiations and any hope for a treaty for the limitation and reduction of strategic offensive arms.

A Russian military analyst, Alexander Pikayev, said of the above dynamic that “US/Russia relations were improving but these proposals really don’t help the situation. This situation is a time bomb. If these plans go ahead it could cause big problems in five to ten years time.” [9]

The White House and Pentagon explain the drive to deploy a solid wall of interceptor missile bases along Russia’s western borders as an alleged defense against Iranian, North Korean and even Syrian missile threats, the argument used by the last American administration in furtherance of plans to place ground-based midcourse missiles in Poland and an X-band missile radar site in the Czech Republic.

The rationale was false then and remains so now. How short-to-medium-range missiles in Poland can in any manner be a response to Iran is unexplained – because it is unexplainable.

Ivashov refuted this transparent lie by stating “Iran will never be first to deliver a military strike.” [10]

On February 12 the Polish parliament took the next step and approved the deployment of 100 U.S. troops, the first foreign forces to be based on its soil since the end of the Warsaw Pact almost twenty years ago, to staff the missile battery near Russia’s border.

Regarding the addition of Bulgaria to the expanding range of American missile shield sites – not the last as will be seen below – Konstantin Sivkov, First Vice President of the Russian Academy for Geopolitical Problems, said that the move “directly threatens Russia.” A news account of his comments added “that after Bulgaria, the next country to make a similar announcement may be Georgia, which has already expressed similar desires.” [11]

He also anticipated the statement of the former top Russian military commander cited above in asserting “the argument that the US missile defense in Europe will be directed against missiles from Iran and North Korea is ridiculous as neither of the two states has the capacity to carry out such strikes.”

In his owns words, Sivkov warned: “The US missile defense in Europe is being created in order to level down Russian operational and tactical missile weapons. The USA has started creating a military infrastructure for exerting military pressure on Russia.” [12]

Another geopolitical analyst, Maxim Minaev of the Russian Center for Political Affairs, said of the new and continent-wide European missile shield system planned by the U.S. and NATO that “In its scope it envisages a much stronger structure than the one that was supposed to be in located in the Czech Republic and Poland,” [13] one which logically will include Georgia and Azerbaijan on Russia’s southern border.

Poland became a full NATO member in 1999 and Bulgaria and Romania five years later. On the day U.S. ambassador Warlick first revealed plans to extend interceptor missile plans to Bulgaria, Prime Minister Boiko Borissov hastened to add “My opinion is that we have to show solidarity. When you are a member of NATO, you have to work towards the collective security.” [14]

To indicate the extent to which U.S. missile shield provocations in Eastern Europe are linked with NATO’s drive east into former Soviet space, fraught as that strategy is with heating up so-called frozen conflicts and the very real threat of hot wars, this year’s developments in Poland, Romania and Bulgaria immediately gave rise to dangerous military prospects east of the Black Sea.

The latest news from Romania was coupled with the announcement that “the Czech Republic is in discussions with the Obama administration to host a command center for the United States’ altered missile-defense plan,” [15] and on February 18 the Romanian government began bilateral discussions with neighboring Moldova “on U.S. missile defense plans in Europe….” [16]

The former Soviet republic of Moldova has been coveted by Romania since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the current, Western-supported post-“Twitter Revolution” government is more than willing to oblige its patrons in Bucharest and Washington.

Recently Vladimir Voronin, president of Moldova until last September 11th, spoke of the Romanian president’s disclosure that he would allow the stationing of U.S. missiles in his country and, drawing a parallel with Romania’s World War II fascist dictator, said “The steps taken by Basescu are similar to the agreements to form an anti-Soviet coalition reached by Antonescu and Hitler.”

Voronin added, “Moldovan society is against basing U.S. anti-missile defense systems in Romania. Strained Moldovan-Romanian relations will become worse. We do not accuse Romania for this decision as we are aware of its unionist policy. [Absorbing Moldova into Romania.] Romania cannot accept that Moldova exists as an independent state.” [17]

“Though the Americans said the rockets are designed to prevent dangers from Iran, the essence is different. These events remind one of Europe’s return to the Cold War of the last century.” [18]

On February 11 Moldovan political analyst Bogdan Tsirdia warned that the U.S. “is very consistently moving NATO infrastructure in Russia’s direction,” specifically mentioning American bases in Romania and Kyrgyzstan, and added “the US wants to create another base in Georgia.”

He added in relation to the Black Sea in particular that “in the near future the US will have a conventional arms advantage over Moscow in the region….[T]he United States is turning the Black Sea into an American lake to control transit in the region.” [19]

On February 15 Transdniester, formerly part of the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic but independent since 1990 and a war with Moldova two years later – and which fears that Romanian incorporation of Moldova would be a prelude to armed attacks to subjugate it – offered to host a Russian missile defense system to counter the American one in Romania.

Transdniester’s president, Igor Smirnov, said “we could deploy what Russia needs” as the stationing of U.S. interceptor missiles “will not be a stabilizing factor.” [20]

His country is bordered by Ukraine to the east and has been blockaded by that nation after the U.S.-backed “orange revolution” in Ukraine in late 2004 and early 2005. The recent presidential election has rid the nation and its people of the “orange” duo of Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Timoshenko, and incoming head of state Viktor Yanukovich pledged that “There is no question of Ukraine joining NATO,” [21], thereby renouncing one of the two major objectives of his pro-Washington opponents: Pulling Ukraine into the military bloc against the will of the overwhelming majority of its population and ousting the Russian Black Sea fleet from Sevastopol in Crimea.

The outgoing Yushchenko regime recently assigned Ukrainian troops to the global NATO Response Force and hosted NATO Military Committee Chairman Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola who presented a draft cooperation plan for 2010-2011.

A member of the new president’s Party of Regions, Vasil Hara, deputy chairman of the party’s parliamentary group, recently stated “that by offering to deploy U.S. anti-missile systems on its territory, Romania is turning Ukraine into a risk zone.”

He also affirmed that incoming President Yanukovich “will not leave Transdnestr without support.” [22]

NATO expansion not only allows nations increasingly closer to Russia and Iran to be used for global interceptor missile facilities. The eastward drive of the bloc is expressly intended to secure such bases and related sites for that purpose.

Recent developments, however, signal a new advance in U.S. and NATO strategy to neutralize potential adversaries’ ability to respond to military aggression from the West. The extension of missile shield deployments and technology to the Black Sea and from there further east and south marks the confluence of hostile intentions toward Russia and Iran simultaneously.

In the third public warning on NATO expansion since last month, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently said “The West’s ultimate goal is not Iran, but India and China” and “named the recent concentration of NATO forces around India and unrest in Pakistan as an argument.” He added that NATO now “almost completely surrounded Russia” and advocated that “Russia should respond to the deployment of NATO forces along its borders.” [23]

Earlier this month former president Hashemi Rafsanjani issued a similar warning, saying “the deployment of NATO forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Azerbaijan will constitute a serious threat to Iran….” [24]

In discussing Western pressure not to provide Iran with S-300 surface-to-air missiles for defense against prospective U.S. and Israeli attacks, Russian Security Council Deputy Secretary Vladimir Nazarov recently said, “This deal is not restricted by any international sanctions, because these are merely defensive weapons,” and recalled earlier Russian concerns about the U.S. and its NATO allies arming Georgia on the eve of the August 2008 war with Russia.

But, Nazarov rued, “Our calls were ignored. It should be recalled that the Georgian aggression resulted in deaths among Russian servicemen and Russian civilians.” [25]

Russian concerns have not abated in the face of recent news.

The website of the U.S. Air Forces in Europe divulged that American airmen from the Ramstein Air Base in Germany have arrived at the modernized, massively upgraded Krtsanisi National Training Center in Georgia, “a forward operating base of sorts,” to join American Marines there training the Georgian armed forces on a “mission that involves providing a top-notch service to fellow warfighters.” [26] The Marines have been in the nation and at the Krtsanisi base since last August, and in October conducted the latest Immediate Response war games. Immediate Response 2008, which also included U.S. Marines, ended the day before Georgia invaded South Ossetia and triggered a five-day war with Russia.

U.S. Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke will arrive in Georgia on February 22 on a visit “devoted to the Georgian military contingent’s participation in the peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan.” (Holbrooke was in the Persian Gulf on February 15 and while speaking in Qatar said of Afghanistan “We cannot make the disastrous mistake of 1989. The international community must stay in Afghanistan to help it,” [27] meaning 1992 presumably, when the U.S.’s Mujahideen clients took over the nation, and “The U.S. has led and won similar wars in Kosovo and Bosnia….” [28])

Georgia is to send another 700 troops trained by U.S. Marines to Afghanistan to serve under American command shortly. Leading Georgian officials have unapologetically acknowledged that the training and combat experience provided them by the U.S. can be used for subjugating South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Any such attempt would guarantee another and far larger war with Russia which has expanded its military presence in both nations since the 2008 war. [29]

Georgia can also be used by the U.S. for military strikes against Iran by providing surveillance radar, air bases and its Black Sea waters for cruise missile launches.

The Russian Itar-Tass news agency revealed on February 12 that in addition to supplying Georgia with aerial drones, Israel is delivering a large consignment of arms and ammunition to the nation.

Citing sources in the Russian secret services, the report revealed: “Under an effective contract Israel’s Ropadia company, registered in Cyprus, plans to supply through Bulgaria’s Arsenal firm 50,000 AKS-74 automatic rifles, about 1,000 grenade launchers RPG-7 and nearly 20,000 40-millimeter shells for them, as well as about 15,000 5.56-millimeter assault rifles….The hardware and ammunition was ready for shipment back several days ago.” [30]

In line with recent announcements that Washington is building up both land-based and sea-based interceptor missile capabilities in the Persian Gulf, the same combination as will be deployed along Russia’s western frontier from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea and from the latter into the South Caucasus, Georgia and neighboring Azerbaijan are key components in the strategy to prevent Iranian retaliation in the event of U.S. and Israeli attacks. American and NATO bases in Bulgaria and Romania were used for the 2003 war against Iraq and are for the war in Afghanistan to the current day.

Azerbaijan, which has consolidated military ties with the U.S., NATO and Israel, is on Iran’s northwest border. [31]

Recently an official with the Azerbaijan president’s Academy of Public Administration spoke at a conference titled Azerbaijan’s Integration into Europe: Problems and Prospects, organized by the NATO International School in Azerbaijan. He advocated NATO intervening in the Nagorno Karabakh conflict with Armenia as the military bloc had “in the early 1990s in the Balkans, Bosnia,” when NATO deployed 400 warplanes in a bombing campaign against Bosnian Serb positions.

According to the official, Elman Nasirov, “the main aim of Azerbaijan in integrating into NATO and European structures is to provide security and restore its territorial integrity,” [32] meaning the military conquest of Karabakh.

Azerbaijan can be a major base for operations against Iran, where ethnic Azeris comprise as much as a quarter of the population. The Bosnia model has been alluded to above on two occasions.

On February 16 NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen hosted Major General Yaylym Berdiyev, the defense minister of Turkmenistan, Iran’s northeastern neighbor, at the Alliance’s headquarters in Brussels. As the French Voltaire Network wrote five days before, “NATO has encircled Iran almost entirely: it has a foothold in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan. It just needs one in Turkmenistan for the siege to be complete.” [33]

To Iran’s west, Turkey’s Zaman newspaper wrote on February 17 that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar and while identifying Iran as a “long-term threat” because of its “nuclear weapons,” said that the U.S. interceptor missile system being steadily expanded from Eastern Europe to locations east and south “would protect into the Caucasus and down to Turkey, would provide some additional guarantee against threatening behavior.” (NATO Deputy Secretary General Claudio Bisogniero was in Qatar on February 8 and 9 to consolidate military partnerships with members of the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative and the Mediterranean Dialogue: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia. [34])

The same Turkish source quoted U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates: “The dialogue on what Turkey could do within NATO to counter the proliferation of ballistic missiles via a missile defense system continues. We have discussed the possibility of erecting two radar systems in Turkey.” [35]

The Pentagon is simultaneously deploying land-based and ship-based interceptor missiles throughout the Persian Gulf to render Iran incapable of retaliation against massive missile attacks and bombing runs from the U.S. and its allies. [36]

After a five-day tour to Afghanistan and Pakistan to oversee the escalation of the wars in both nations, U.S. National Security Adviser James Jones – former Marine Commandant and NATO Supreme Allied Commander – said that Washington was pursuing tighter sanctions against Iran and revealed what the true purpose of such economic warfare is: “We are about to add to that regime’s difficulties by engineering, participating in very tough sanctions,” which “could trigger regime change.” [37]

On February 14 Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen arrived in Israel to meet with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and military Chief of the General Staff Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi, and stated that the option of war against Iran “is still on the table.” [38]

During his trip it was reported that “Mullen’s visit follows a visit last month by U.S. National Security Adviser James Jones and a leaked secret visit two weeks ago by Central Intelligence Agency director Leon Panetta.” [39]

In a masterful analysis of the current crisis in Yemen, American professor Robert Prince examined that nation’s role in American plans for armed hostilities against Iran.

In addition to “countering Chinese access to Middle East and African oil and gas moves, in the long run Yemen offers the United States strategic access to the Horn of Africa – Somalia, Sudan, Kenya – all of which are in varying degrees of turmoil and opens the door for expanding the roles of either AFRICOM or NATO – not only in the Middle East, but in Africa.

“There is another possible strategic consequence to US bases in Yemen, hypothetical but not out of the range of possibility: a US air base in Yemen could be used as a launching pad for an air attack on Iran, not only for US planes but for the Israelis as well.” [40]

On February 15 the earlier-cited Vladimir Nazarov, deputy secretary of Russia’s Security Council, warned that “Any military action against Iran will explode the situation, will have extremely negative consequences for the entire world, including for Russia, which is a neighbor of Iran.” [41]

On the 17th Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces General Nikolai Makarov was quoted by his nation’s Interfax news agency as stating, “The U.S. is currently conducting two military operations – in Afghanistan and in Iraq. A third one would be a disaster for them. So, as they’re tackling their tasks in Iraq and Afghanistan, they could deliver a strike against Iran.” [42]

Washington and its NATO allies launched two of the three major wars in the world over the past eleven years in March – against Yugoslavia in 1999 and against Iraq in 2003. The war drums are being pounded anew and the world may be headed for a catastrophe far worse than those in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq.

1) U.S., NATO Expand Afghan War To Horn Of Africa And Indian Ocean
Stop NATO, January 8, 2010
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/u-s-nato-expand-afghan-war-to-horn-of-africa-and-indian-ocean-2
2) Russia Today, February 15, 2010
3) RTT News, February 12, 2010
4) Ibid
5) Focus News Agency, February 16, 2010
6) With Nuclear, Conventional Arms Pacts Stalled, U.S. Moves Missiles And
Troops To Russian Border
Stop NATO, January 22, 2010
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/01/22/with-nuclear-conventional-arms-pacts-stalled-u-s-moves-missiles-and-troops-to-russian-border
7) Voice of Russia, February 16, 2010
8) Russia Today, February 15, 2010
9) Sky News, February 17, 2010
10) Ibid
11) Sofia News Agency, February 13, 2010
12) Ibid
13) Ibid
14) Sofia Echo, February 12, 2010
15) Prague Post, February 10, 2010
16) Russian Information Agency Novosti, February 18, 2010
17) Info-Prim Neo (Moldova), February 13, 2010
18) Ibid
19) The Messenger (Georgia), February 15, 2010
20) Russian Information Agency Novosti, February 15, 2010
21) Russian Information Agency Novosti, February 12, 2010
22) Nezavisimaya Gazeta/Gazeta.ru, February 15, 2010
23) Trend News Agency, February 16, 2010
24) Jomhouri-e Eslami, February 10, 2010
25) Interfax, February 14, 2010
26) U.S. Air Forces in Europe, February 16, 2010
27) Reuters, February 15, 2010
28) Tanjug News Agency, February 17, 2010
29) U.S. Marines In The Caucasus As West Widens Afghan War
Stop NATO, September 3, 2009
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/04/u-s-marines-in-the-caucasus-as-west-widens-afghan-war
30) Itar-Tass, February 12, 2010
31) U.S. Marines In The Caucasus As West Widens Afghan War
Stop NATO, September 3, 2009
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/04/u-s-marines-in-the-caucasus-as-west-widens-afghan-war
Azerbaijan And The Caspian: NATO’s War For The World’s Heartland
Stop NATO, June 10, 2009
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/azerbaijan-and-the-caspian-natos-war-for-the-worlds-heartland
32) News.AZ, February 16, 2010
33) Voltaire Network, February 11, 2010
http://www.voltairenet.org/article164004.html
34) NATO’s Role In The Military Encirclement Of Iran
Stop NATO, February 10, 2010
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/02/10/natos-role-in-the-military-encirclement-of-iran
35) Today’s Zaman, February 17, 2010
36) U.S. Extends Missile Buildup From Poland And Taiwan To Persian Gulf
Stop NATO, February 3, 2010
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/u-s-extends-missile-buildup-from-poland-and-taiwan-to-persian-gulf
37) Deutsche Presse-Agentur, February 15, 2010
38) Jewish Telegraphic Agency, February 14, 2010
39) Ibid
40) Robert Prince, Houthi Rebellion in Yemen has the Saudis Nervous
February 11, 2010
http://robertjprince.wordpress.com/2010/02/11/yemen-5-houthi-rebellion-in-yemen-has-the-saudis-nervous
41) PanArmenian.net, February 15, 2010
42) Interfax-Military, February 17, 2010

Stop NATO
February 18, 2010

Die Rolle der NATO bei der militärischen Einkreisung des Irans
von Rick Rozoff

Übersetzung von:
http://www.luftpost-kl.de

Nachdem er sich selbst als “Oberbefehlshaber einer Nation inmitten zweier Kriege” und außerdem als Staatsoberhaupt “der einzigen militärische Supermacht der Welt” [1] be­zeichnet hatte und dafür auch noch die Auszeichnung erhielt, die seltsamerweise immer noch “Friedensnobelpreis” genannt wird, behauptete US-Präsident Barack Obama in sei­ner ersten Rede zur Lage der Nation am 27. Januar, “die internationale Gemeinschaft wer­de sich immer einiger, und die Islamische Republik Iran isoliere sich immer mehr”, und drohte: “Wenn die iranische Führung fortfährt, ihre Verpflichtungen zu ignorieren, sollte niemand daran zweifeln, dass … sie mit Konsequenzen rechnen muss. Das verspreche ich.”

Zwei Tage später sagte seine Außenministerin Hillary Clinton in einer entlarvenden Rede in einer führenden französischen Militärakademie, in der sie Angriffe auf den Iran mit ei­nem alles andere als diplomatischen Seitenhieb auf China verband: “China wird sehr unter Druck geraten, bis es die destabilisierende Wirkung anerkennt, die ein atomar bewaffneter Iran auf den Persischen Golf hätte.” [2]

Damit war natürlich Druck aus Washington gemeint. Am gleichen Tag, an dem Frau Clin­ton ihre Rede in Paris hielt, bestätigte das Weiße Haus, Waffen für 6,4 Milliarden Dollar an Taiwan ausgeliefert zu haben.

Am 9. Februar teilte Geoff Morrell, der Sprecher des US-Verteidigungsministeriums, der Presse mit, Pentagon-Chef Robert Gates erwarte von den Vereinten Nationen, dass sie “innerhalb von Wochen und nicht von Monaten” Sanktionen gegen den Iran verhängten, weil es klar sei, dass “die Zeit ein wichtiger Faktor ist”. [3]

Während des Ersten Weltkriegs klagte der österreichische Journalist und Dramatiker Karl Kraus (s. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl Kraus ): “Was ist das für eine mythologische Verwirrung? Seit wann ist Mars der Gott des Handels und Merkur der Gott des Krieges?” (s. dazu http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%B6mische Mythologie )

Wenn er heute lebte, wäre er genau so verwundert darüber, dass die US-Spitzendiploma­tin eine Rede in einer Militärakademie hält – und dabei auch noch von oben herab die be­völkerungsreichste Nation der Welt belehren will – während der US-Kriegsminister die Welt unter Druck zu setzen versucht, damit sie Straf-Sanktionen gegen einen Staat ver­hängt, der seit Jahrhunderten kein anderes Land angegriffen hat.

Der Generalsekretär des US-geführten “einzigen globalen Militär-Blocks der Welt” – An­ders Fogh Rasmussen – hielt am 7. Februrar auf der jährlichen Münchener Sicherheits­konferenz eine Rede mit dem wichtigtuerischen, pompösen Titel “Die NATO im 21. Jahr­hundert: Auf dem Weg zur globalen Vernetzung”, in der er die Zuständigkeit des Militär‑

Blocks für jeden vorstellbaren Konflikt betonte: für den sich ständig ausweitenden Krieg in Afghanistan, (den Kampf gegen) den Terrorismus, die Angriffe auf das Internet, die Be­schneidung der Energieversorgung – wobei sich die letzten beiden Verweise gegen Russ-land richteten, auch wenn es nicht genannt wurde – den Klimawandel, die Piraterie, die gescheiterten Staaten, den Drogenhandel, die “humanitären Katastrophen”, den Streit um urbares Land, die steigende Konkurrenz bei der Ausbeutung von Bodenschätzen und die Probleme mit Nordkorea und dem Iran. (Die Rasmussen-Rede ist aufzurufen unter http://www. nato. int/cps/en/natolive/opi nions 6 1395. htm?selectedLocale=en ) [4]

Die Forderung führender Persönlichkeiten der NATO und des Westens, die NATO solle zum Forum für Konsultationen zu weltweiten Sicherheitsproblemen werden, wiederholend, stellte Rasmussen fest: “Um ihre Aufgabe in der heutigen Zeit wirksam ausführen zu kön­nen, muss die NATO zum Mittelpunkt eines Netzes von Sicherheitspartnerschaften und zu einem Zentrum für die Beratung internationaler Sicherheitsprobleme werden. Und dabei müssen wir nicht von vorne beginnen. Bereits heute verfügt die Allianz über ein ausge­dehntes Netz von Sicherheitspartnerschaften, das von Nordafrika, über den Persischen Golf und Zentralasien bis zum Pazifik reicht.” [5]

Tatsächlich hat die NATO weltweit ein breites, sich immer noch ausweitendes Netz von Mitgliedern und militärischen Partnern aufgebaut. Eins ihrer Mitglieder, die Türkei mit der zweitgrößten Armee des Blocks, hat eine gemeinsame Grenze mit dem Iran, ebenso Aser­baidschan, ein Partner der Allianz.

Rasmussens Anspielung auf den Persischen Golf bezieht sich auf die wachsenden Anzahl militärischer Kontakte, Besuche und Aktivitäten zwischen der NATO und den sechs Mit­gliedern des Gulf Cooperation Council / GCC (des Golf-Kooperationsrates, s. http://de.wi‑

kipedia.org/wiki/Golf-Kooperationsrat ), die parallel zur Verstärkung der US-Präsenz in der Golfregion verlaufen [6] und in das Netzwerk der Istanbul Cooperation Initiative / ICI (s. http://www.nato.int/issues/ici/ ) eingepasst sind, die 2004 gegründet wurde. [7]

Das Projekt erhielt diesen Namen, weil es auf dem NATO-Gipfel in Istanbul gestartet wur­de; nachdem man fast ganz Osteuropa in die Allianz absorbiert hat, will man mit dem glei­chen Prozess abgestufter Partnerschaften, mit dem nach und nach zehn neue europäi­sche Mitglieder integriert wurden, auch sieben Staaten am Mittelmeer, im Nahen Osten und in Afrika – Algerien, Ägypten, Israel, Jordanien, Mauretanien, Marokko und Tunesien – und sechs Staaten am Persischen Golf – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi-Arabien und die Vereinigten Arabischen Emirate – einbeziehen. Alle dreizehn Staaten sind in der ICI erfasst, aber die erstmalige Vereinbarung militärischer Partnerschaften mit den sechs Golfstaaten war der ehrgeizigste und wichtigste Aspekt dieses NATO-Programms.

Es kennzeichnet den Beginn des Drangs der NATO zum Golf und dient der US-Strategie, die darauf abzielt, den Iran zu umzingeln, bevor es zur Konfrontation kommt.

Eines der festgelegten Ziele der ICI bestand darin, “interessierte Staaten … zur Teilnahme an der Operation Active Endeavour / OAE (Operation aktives Wagnis, s. http://de.wikipe­dia.org/wiki/Operation Active Endeavour ) einzuladen” [8], einer NATO-Operation zur Überwachung und Abriegelung – einer De-Facto-Blockade – des Mittelmeers, die im Okto­ber 2010 zehn Jahre alt wird. Die ICI weitet die Kontrolle des Mittelmeeres über das Rote Meer und den Golf von Aden, in dem zur Zeit die NATO-Seeoperation Ocean Shield (Mee­resschild) läuft, bis in das Arabische Meer und in den Persischen Golf aus.

Ein früherer Artikel in dieser Reihe listet die Hauptziele der ICI auf:

die Verpflichtung für die GCC-Staaten, in ihrem Gebiet und im gesamten Mittleren Osten Truppen, Kampfflugzeuge und Nachschub zur Verfügung zu stellen und Kon­trollaufgaben zu übernehmen;

die Einbeziehung der Golfstaaten in ein globales Raketenüberwachungs- und Ab­wehrsystem;

die Einbeziehung der GCC-Staaten nicht nur unter den Schutz des US-Raketenab­wehrschirms, sondern auch in die Verpflichtung zu gegenseitiger Verteidigung nach Artikel 5 des NATO-Vertrages; wenn ein oder mehrere GCC-Mitglieder sich durch ein Nichtmitglied – wie den Iran – bedroht fühlen, könnte das als Vorwand für einen Prä­ventiv-Angriff (der NATO) benutzt werden;

Ausweitung der Operation Active Endeavour der NATO auf den Persischen Golf, mit der ein Verbot des Schiffsverkehrs in der Straße von Hormuz, also eine Blockade des Seewegs möglich wäre, auf dem etwa 40-50 Prozent des zwischenstaatlichen Öltransports der Welt abgewickelt werden. [9]

Im Jahr 2006 unterzeichnete die NATO sowohl eine Vereinbarung über den Austausch von Geheimdienstinformationen als auch auch ein Transitabkommen mit Kuwait und rich­tete am NATO Defense College in Rom (s. http://www.ndc.nato.int/ ) eine neue Fakultät für den Mittleren Osten ein. Im Dezember 2006 veranstaltete die NATO in Kuwait eine Konfe­renz der Istanbul Cooperation Initiative, an der alle sechs Golfstaaten teilnahmen. (s. dazu http ://www. nato. i nt/cps/en/natol ive/news_22060 . htm?selected Locale=en )

Im Jahr 2007 schlossen sich vier der sechs GCC Mitglieder – Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar und die Vereinigten Arabischen Emirate – formell der ICI an.

Das Vordringen der NATO an den Golf setzte sich kontinuierlich fort; im Mai 2009 lobte Admiral Luciano Zappata von der italienischen Marine, der Stellvertretende Oberkomman­dierende des Allied Command Transformation in Norfolk, Virginia (s. http://de.wikipe­dia.org/wiki/Allied Command Transformation ), in einer Rede zum neuen strategischen Konzept der NATO, das zur Zeit erarbeitet wird, die ICI als ein “erfolgreiches Beispiel” des neuen Modells der “Partnerschaft und Zusammenarbeit”, das die Allianz für viele Teile der Welt plant.

Was Zappata im Sinn hatte, wurde in der Diskussion als die “maritime Dimension der neu­en Strategie” beschrieben. Die Einkreisung des Irans durch die militärische Expansion des Westen an den Persischen Golf hat er, um die wahren Absichten der NATO zu verbergen, ausnahmsweise nicht erwähnt.

Er sagte: “Das Netzwerk von Häfen, Infrastruktur-Einrichtungen, Rohrleitungen und Schif­fen, die sich auf vereinbarten Seestraßen bewegen, ist sehr störanfällig.

Mit dem Beginn der Ausbeutung der Ressourcen auf dem Grund der Ozeane gibt es eine Verschiebung bezüglich der Sicherheit und der strategischen Ausrichtung.”

Der Admiral fügte hinzu, die Vereinigten Arabischen Emirate seien “ein bedeutender Han­delspartner und Energielieferant in der Weltwirtschaft. Die neue französische Militärbasis, im Hafen Zayed sei eine wichtige Ergänzung der wachsenden internationalen Bemühun­gen um die Sicherheit auf den Meeren”. [10]

Am gleichen Tag, an dem der Admiral seine Rede hielt, am 26. Mai 2009, weilte der fran­zösische Staatspräsident Nicolas Sarkozy in den Vereinigten Arabischen Emiraten, um eine neue Militärbasis zu eröffnen, die erste Basis Frankreichs am Persischen Golf und die erste große Militärbasis einer befreundeten ausländischen Armee in den Emiraten. Der französische Stützpunkt im Hafen Zayed an der Küste der Straße von Hormuz “enthält eine Marine- und Luftwaffenbasis und ein Trainingslager”. [11]

“Die Basis wird 500 Angehörige der Marine, der Armee und der Luftwaffe Frankreichs beherbergen. Sie kann gleichzeitig zwei Fregatten der französischen Flotte aufneh­men, die in dieser Region operieren … Die französische Basis ist die erste ihrer Art im Persischen Golf.”

Ein Golf-Experte wurde zu diesem Ereignis wie folgt zitiert: “Die USA haben mehrere Mili­tärbasen für ihre Luft- und Seestreitkräfte in Kuwait, Qatar und Bahrain. Der französische Seehafen in Abu Dhabi ist die erste ausländische Militärbasis einer befreundeten Armee in den Vereinigten Arabischen Emiraten.” [12]

“Diese Militärbasis verbessert ganz sicher den Status Frankreichs innerhalb der NATO und sein Verhältnis zu den USA, weil es neben diesen als einziges NATO-Mit­glied im Golf präsent ist.” [13]

Im Juni 2009 schloss Sarkozy mit den Vereinigten Arabischen Emiraten einen Vertrag über den Verkauf von 60 Rafale-Kampfjets (s. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dassault_Rafa­le ) zum Preis von 8-11 Milliarden Dollar ab.

Im vergangenen Jahr führte Frankreich in den Vereinigten Arabischen Emiraten ein Manö­ver – die 1 2-tägige Übung Golf Shield 01 – durch, gemeinsam mit dem Militär des Gastlan­des und Qatars. 4.000 Soldaten nahmen an dem Manöver teil, bei dem “ein Krieg zweier Regionalstaaten und eines Verbündeten gegen einen benachbarten Staat, der eines der Länder überfallen hat, simuliert wurde”. [14]

Gegen Ende Oktober 2009 wurde in Abu Dhabi, der Hauptstadt der Vereinigten Arabi­schen Emirate, eine zweitägige Konferenz durchgeführt, zu dem Thema “Die Beziehungen zwischen der NATO und den Vereinigten Arabischen Emiraten und der weitere Weg in die Istanbul Cooperation Initiative” (s. http://www. nato.i nt/cps/en/natolive/events 58545.htm ). Unter den 300 Teilnehmern waren der Generalsekretär der NATO, die ständigen NATO­Vertreter im Nordatlantikrat (s. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordatlantikrat ), der Stellvertre­tende Generalsekretär der NATO, der Vorsitzende des NATO-Militärausschusses (s. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO-Milit%C3%A4rausschuss ), weitere hochrangige NATO­Offizielle und Regierungsvertreter, Meinungsführer, Akademiker und führende Wissen­schaftler aus den Golfstaaten, die in die ICI integriert werden sollen. [15]

NATO-Generalsekretär Anders Fogh Rasmussen äußerte gegenüber ei nem Korrespon­denten von Al Arabiya (s. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Arabiya ), dass “die NATO die Golfregion als eine Erweiterung des europäisch-atlantischen Sicherheitsraumes ansieht” und sagte unter Bezugnahme auf den Iran, der natürlich nicht zu der Konferenz eingela­den war: “Wir sind alle sehr über atomare Ambitionen besorgt und über den Dominoeffekt, den diese in einer Region verursachen könnten, die von zentraler Bedeutung für die globa­le Stabilität und Sicherheit ist.” [16]

In den letzten Wochen kündigten die USA den Verkauf von landgestützten Abwehrraketen an Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar und die Vereinigten Arabischen Emirate an. Sie wollen sowohl Raketen des Typs Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (s. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIM­104_Patriot ) als auch Raketenabwehr-Systeme des Typs Terminal High Altitude Area De­fense / THAAD (s. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal High Altitude Area Defense ) an die GCC-Staaten liefern und haben bereits das seegestützte Abwehrsystem Standard Missile-3 auf Aegis-Raketenkreuzern im Persischen Golf stationiert. (s. http://www.luftpost­kl.de/luftpost-archiv/LP_10/LP03610_050210.pdf )

Anfang Februar war der Stellvertretende Generalsekretär der NATO, Claudio Bisognieros, in Qatar und sagte dort: “In Würdigung der Unterstützung, die Qatar seit der Gründung der ICI im Jahr 2004 der NATO gewährt, stelle ich fest, dass sich Qatar an den meisten der unter NATO-Ägide durchgeführten Unternehmungen aktiv beteiligt hat … .” [17]

GCC-Staaten, die in internationale NATO-Operationen integriert sind, stellen auch Trup­pen für den Krieg in Afghanistan. In einer Publikation der US-Streitkräfte wurde Ende Ja­nuar mitgeteilt, dass 125 Sicherheitskräfte aus Bahrain eingesetzt waren “zum Schutz des Hauptquartiers für US-Militäreinsätze in der aufrührerischen Provinz Helmand”, dem mehr als 10.000 Marineinfanteristen unterstellt sind, die noch verstärkt werden sollen”. [18] In der Provinz Helmand starten die USA und die NATO die größte und blutigste Schlacht des bereits über acht Jahre dauernden Afghanistan-Krieges.

Truppen aus der Vereinigten Arabischen Emiraten dienen seit Jahren unter NATO-Befehl in Afghanistan.

Die KUWAIT NEWS AGENCY berichtete am 28. Januar, der Vorsitzende des NATO-Mili­tärausschusses, Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola, habe gesagt: “Die Allianz führt mit einem Golfstaat Gespräche über die Stationierung von AWACS-Flugzeugen (s. http://de.wikipe­dia.org/wiki/Airborne Warning and Control System ), die zur Unterstützung der ISAF­Mission in Afghanistan und der Piratenbekämpfung vor Somalia Aufklärungsflüge durch­führen sollen.”

Außerdem wurde Di Paola mit der Äußerung zitiert: “Die Allianz ist kurz vor dem Ab­schluss einer Vereinbarung mit einem der Golfstaaten, die aus der vorübergehenden Stationierung (der AWACS-Maschinen) in Oman einen dauerhaften, langfristigen Aufenthalt machen soll.” [19] Von dem an der Straße von Hormuz gelegenen Oman aus ist der ganze Iran zu überwachen.

Saudi-Arabien, die größte Militärmacht in der Golfregion, die bis an die Zähne mit mo­dernsten US-Waffen ausgerüstet ist, führt seit September letzten Jahres seinen ersten Krieg überhaupt. Riad unternimmt mit Infanterie, Panzern und Kampfflugzeugen im Nor-den des Nachbarstaates Jemen regelmäßige Offensiven gegen die Houthi-Rebellen. Hun­derte von jemenitischen Bürgern sollen bei den Angriffen bereits getötet worden sein, an denen nach Angaben des Sprechers der Rebellen auch US-Kampfjets beteiligt gewesen sein sollen. [20] Seit 2004 wurden bei diesen Kämpfen 200.000 Menschen entwurzelt und vertrieben. (s. http://www.luftpost-kl.de/luftpost-archiv/LP 09/LP28709 23 1209. pdf

Die saudische Regierung gibt zu, dass bisher 500 ihrer Soldaten verwundet oder getötet wurden.

Die Menschen in Nord-Jemen sind Schiiten, deshalb könnten die saudischen Angriffe auch einen Krieg mit dem (überwiegend schiitischen) Iran provozieren; er könnte aber auch als Training für einen Überfall auf den Iran dienen, wenn der das eigentlich verfolgte Ziel ist.

Im Irak, der auch an den Iran grenzt, schloss der Stellvertretende Generalsekretär der NATO, Claudio Bisogniero, im Juli 2009 einen Vertrag mit dem irakischen Verteidigungs­minister über die Ausbildung der Streitkräfte dieses Landes ab. Auf der NATO-Website war zu lesen: “Diese Vereinbarung ist ein Meilenstein in der Zusammenarbeit zwischen der Republik Irak und der NATO und kennzeichnet das starke Engagement der Allianz. … Die Vereinbarung wird die gesetzliche Grundlage dafür schaffen, dass die NATO ihre Mission fortsetzen und der Regierung der Republik Irak bei der Entwickelung der Fähig­keiten der irakischen Sicherheitskräfte auch weiterhin helfen kann.” [21]

Im letzten Monat hat die NATO damit begonnen, Kurden, die im Norden des Iraks in der Nähe der iranischen Grenze leben, für die irakischen Streitkräfte zu rekrutieren.

Bei einer Konferenz der NATO-Verteidigungsminister in der westlich der Irans gelegenen Türkei, die Ende letzter Woche stattfand, hat sich Pentagon-Chef Robert Gates mit Gene­ral Ilker Basbug, dem Chef des türkischen Generalstabs, getroffen, um, wie er sagte, “mit General Basbug die Rolle der Türkei im Raketenabwehr-System und die Beziehungen zwischen den Armeen beider Staaten zu besprechen”. [22]

Der ehemalige NATO-Generalsekretär George Robertson, der forderte, die US-Atom­sprengköpfe auch weiterhin in Deutschland zu belassen, hat kürzlich ausgeplaudert, dass nach einer NATO-Vereinbarung auf dem türkischen Luftwaffenstützpunkt Incirlik zwischen 40 und 90 US-Atomwaffen eingelagert sind.

Das im Nordwesten des Irans gelegene Aserbaidschan entwickelt sich zunehmend zum NATO-Vorposten im südlichen Kaukasus und im Kaspischen Becken. Anfang dieses Mo­nats “traf eine Arbeitsgruppe des aserbaidschanischen Verteidigungsministeriums im eu­ropäischen Hauptquartier der US-Streitkräfte / EUCOM in Stuttgart, Deutschland, ein. Das Treffen fand im Rahmen des Aktionsplans statt, auf den sich die USA und Aserbaidschan zur Förderung der militärischen Zusammenarbeit geeinigt haben, und dauerte fünf Tage. [23]

Mit diesem Staat hat man sich auf einen individuellen Aktionsplan zum Erwerb einer NATO-Partnerschaft geeinigt, wie er auch mit den anderen ehemaligen Sowjetrepubliken Georgien, der Ukraine und erst kürzlich mit Moldawien vereinbart wurde. Im Januar beher­bergte Aserbaidschan eine Planungskonferenz für das NATO-Manöver Regional Respon­se 2010. Im letzten Jahr fand das Manöver Regional Response 2009 im Rahmen des NATO-Programms Partnerschaft für den Frieden in (der aserbaidschanischen Hauptstadt) Baku statt.

“Carter Ham, der Oberkomnandierende der U.S. Army Europe (aus deren Haupt­quartier in Heidelberg), nahm an der Übung teil.” [24]

Aserbaidschan hat sein Truppenkontingent in Afghanistan verdoppelt und wird Angehörige der afghanischen Armee an seinen Militärakademien ausbilden.. Das Außenministerium des Landes hat kürzlich mitgeteilt, Aserbaidschan sei wie die Ukraine daran interessiert, sich der NATO Response Force (der schnellen Eingreiftruppe der NATO, s. http://de.wiki­pedia.org/wiki/NATO_Response_Force ) anzuschließen, deren Aufgabe die Allianz so be­schreibt:

“Die NATO Response Force / NRF ist eine in ständiger Bereitschaft stehende Truppe auf dem neusten technologischen Stand, die sich aus Land-, Luft-, See- und Spezial­streitkräften zusammensetzt und schnell überall eingreifen kann.

Sie ist in der Lage, weltweit alle erforderlichen Operationen durchzuführen.” [25]

Gegen Ende Januar sagte Vafa Guluzade, ein ehemaliger Berater des Präsidenten Aser­baidschans, in einem Seminar mit dem Titel “Die Zusammenarbeit der NATO und Aserbai­dschans aus ziviler Sicht”: “Das Territorium und die Menschen Aserbaidschans sind ideal für eine militärische Zusammenarbeit mit der NATO. Das Land hat eine sehr vorteilhafte geostrategische Lage, … und seine Flughäfen eignen sich als NATO-Basen.” [26]

Im Osten des Irans werden die USA und die NATO bald mehr als 150.000 Soldaten zur Verfügung haben, die nach einer neuen Studie auf 400 Basen in Afghanistan verteilt sind, und die beiden westlichen Kriegspartner koordinieren ihre Militäraktionen über die Afgha­nistan, Pakistan und die NATO verbindende trilaterale Militärkommission auch mit Pakis­tan.

Die Ring um den Iran wird aus jeder Richtung immer enger zusammengezogen, und die NATO hat die wichtigsten Fäden in der Hand.

(Wir haben den Artikel komplett übersetzt und mit Ergänzungen und Links in Klammern versehen. Rick Rozo ffs fundierte Analyse lässt darauf schließen, dass der Überfall auf den Iran – vermutlich nach einer einleitenden Aktion Israels – nicht von den USA allein, son­dern von der gesamten NATO durchgeführt wird.

Das erklärt auch, warum die Bundeswehr schon Befehle in persischer Sprache üben lässt. Wir können nur nochmals an die Hinweise in der LUFTPOST 037/10 (aufzurufen unter http://wwwiuftpost-kl.de/luftpost-archiv/LP_10/LP03710_050210.pdf ) und an den Ram­steiner Appell erinnern, den alle besorgten Menschen selbst unterschreiben und unter den sie möglichst viele Unterschriften sammeln sollten. Die Unterschriftenlisten können über http://www.ramsteiner-appell.de ausgedruckt werden. Nach den Anmerkungen folgt der Origi­naltext.)

Anmerkungen (Sie wurden zur Vermeidung von Missverständnissen aus dem Originaltext übernommen.)

1) Obama Doctrine: Eternal War For Imperfect Mankind
Stop NATO, December 10, 2009
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/obama-doctrine-eternal-war-for-imperfect-man­kind
2) Hillary Clinton’s Prescription: Make The World A NATO Protectorate
Stop NATO, January 31, 2010
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/01/31/hillary-clintons-prescription-make-the-world-a­nato-protectorate
3)Associated Press, February 9, 2010
4) NATO, February 7, 2010
http://www. nato. int/cps/en/natolive/opi nions 6 1395. htm?selectedLocale=en
5) Ibid
6) U.S. Extends Missile Buildup From Poland And Taiwan To Persian Gulf
Stop NATO, February 3, 2010
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/u-s-extends-missile-buildup-from-poland-and­taiwan-to-persian-gulf
7) NATO In Persian Gulf: From Third World War To Istanbul
Stop NATO, February 6, 2009
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/nato-in-persian-gulf-from-third-world-war-to­istanbul
8) NATO, Istanbul Cooperation Initiative
http://www.nato.int/docu/comm/2004/06-istanbul/docu-cooperation.htm
9) NATO In Persian Gulf: From Third World War To Istanbul
10) Khaleej Times, May 26, 2009
11) Radio Netherlands, May 26, 2009
12) Gulf News, May 23, 2009
13) Gulf News, January 27, 2008
14) Agence France-Presse, March 6, 2008
15) NATO, October 28, 2009
16) Al Arabiya, November 1, 2009
17) Gulf Times, February 8, 2010
18) Stars and Stripes, January 23, 2010
19) Kuwait News Agency, January 28, 2010
20) Yemen: Pentagon’s War On The Arabian Peninsula
Stop NATO, December 15, 2009
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/12/15/yemen-pentagons-war-on-the-arabian-peninsu­la
21) NATO, July 26, 2009
22) World Bulletin, February 6, 2010
23) Azeri Press Agency, February 1, 2010
24) Azeri Press Agency, January 21, 2010
25) NATO, The NATO Response Force
http://www. nato. int/cps/en/natolive/topics 49755. htm
26) Novosti Azerbaijan, January 22, 2010

Stop NATO
February 18, 2010

Экспансия НАТО, размещение ракет и новая российская военная доктрина
Рик Розов

Переводы по:
http://u-96.livejournal.com/2002712.html

В этом году произошло немало событий, имеющих отношение к военным вопросам, а также к вопросам безопасности в Европе и Азии, и они были спрессованы в период времени, оказавшийся по продолжительности меньше недели, во время которого происходили встречи, делались заявления и объявлялись новые инициативы по широкому кругу вопросов от создания ракетного щита до беспрецедентной эскалации крупнейшей за последнее время войны, а также от новой системы европейской безопасности до новой российской военной доктрины.

Целое поколение отделяет нас от конца холодной войны, и почти столько же времени прошло с момента развала Советского Союза. События последней недели вызывают в памяти другое десятилетие и другой век. Двадцать и более лет назад главными новостями в биполярном мире были война в Афганистане, а также вызывавшее много споров размещение ракет в Европе.

Двадцать лет спустя нет ни Советского Союза, ни Варшавского пакта, а осталась только сильно уменьшившаяся и урезанная Россия. При этом Соединенные Штаты и НАТО милитаризировали Европу в беспрецедентных масштабах – фактически произошло подчинение почти целого континента находящемуся под влиянием Вашингтона военному блоку – и начали крупнейшую наступательную операцию в Южной Азии, где ведется самая продолжительная война в новейшей истории.

Из 44 государств Европы и Кавказа (за исключением карликовых стран, а также натовского псевдогосударства Косово) только шесть – Белоруссия, Кипр, Мальта, Молдавия, Россия и Сербия смогли избежать призыва своих солдат под знамена НАТО и направления их на передовую линию фронта в Афганистан. В ближайшее время количество этих стран будет продолжать сокращаться.

Из этих 44 государств только два – Россия и Кипр – не являются членами НАТО или участниками переходной программы под названием «Партнерство ради мира», хотя Кипр активно заставляют включиться в нее.

4 и 5 февраля главы оборонных ведомств всех 28 стран-членов НАТО провели В Стамбуле, Турция, двухдневные встречу, основное внимание на которой было уделено войне в Афганистане, размещению военного контингента в Косово, а также планам расширения глобальной противоракетной системы в Восточной Европе и на Ближнем Востоке. Эта встреча состоялось спустя восемь суток после двухдневного совещания Военного комитета НАТО в Брюсселе, в работе которого приняли участие 63 главы военных ведомств стран НАТО и 35 государств, предоставляющих свои военные контингенты (Troop Contributing Nations) – так они называются самим блоком, – в число которых входили также высокопоставленные представители министерства обороны Израиля и Пакистана. Конференция сосредоточила свое внимание на войне в Афганистане, а также на новой стратегической концепции НАТО, которая будет официально принята на саммите альянса позднее в этом году.

Командующий 150-тысячным контингентом США и НАТО в Афганистане генерал Стэнли Маккристал (Stanly McChrystal) присутствовал на каждом из этих двухдневных совещаний. Глава Пентагона Роберт Гейтс (Robert Gates) руководил работой второго совещания. При этом было отмечено, что «Афганистан, а также противоракетная оборона представляют собой примеры новых приоритетов, и Гейтс хотел бы, чтобы НАТО сосредоточила на этом свое внимание» (1).

Как было отмечено многими главами военных делегаций, участвовавших во встрече 63-х в Брюсселе, сфера действия НАТО в последнее десятилетие вышла далеко за пределы Европы и Северной Америки. Находящиеся под руководством НАТО войска в Афганистане собраны со всех обитаемых континентов, а также Ближнего Востока и Океании. Австралия направила самый крупный воинский контингент в составе 1 500 человек из числа стран, не являющихся членами НАТО, а такие неевропейские страны как Армения, Азербайджан, Бахрейн, Колумбия, Египет, Грузия, Новая Зеландия, Сингапур, Южная Корея, а также Объединенные Арабские Эмираты либо уже имеют своих солдат в Афганистане, либо они в ближайшее время туда прибудут.

В первый день работы совещания министров обороны НАТО в Стамбуле румынский президент Траян Бэсеску (Trian Nasescu) объявил о том, что он удовлетворил просьбу администрации Обамы о размещении ракет-перехватчиков в своей стране. Это произошло спусти пять недель после объявления о том, что новые ракеты-перехватчики Patriot будут размещены в той части Польши, которая находится в получасе езды на автомобиле от самой западной границы России.

На следующий день, то есть 5 февраля, когда уже прошло два месяца после истечения срока действия Договора о сокращении стратегических наступательных вооружений (СНВ), заключенного между США и Россией и регулировавшего процесс сокращения ядерных вооружений, а также средств доставки (2), российское информационное агентство Интерфакс объявило о том, что «президент Дмитрий Медведев одобрил военную доктрину России и основные принципы политики ядерного сдерживания в период до 2020 года… (3).

Тот же источник привел мнение заместителя секретаря Совета безопасности и бывшего начальника Генерального штаба вооруженных сил РФ Юрия Балуевского по поводу этой доктрины: «Планируется развивать наземную, морскую и воздушную компоненты ядерной триады… Россия должна гарантировать свое последовательное демократическое развитие, использую такой гарант стабильности как ядерное оружие в целях стратегического сдерживания… Россия оставляет за собой право применить ядерное оружие, если ее существование как государства будет поставлено под угрозу» (4).

Это заявление прокомментировала также индийская ежедневная газета The Hindu. «В доктрине подробно описаны 11 внешних угроз России, семь из которых имеют отношение к Западу, – подчеркивается в газете. – Расширение НАТО на восток, а также ее стремление к выполнению глобальных функций определены как главная угроза для России».

«Соединенные Штаты, – продолжает газета, – являются также источником других серьезных угроз, перечисленных в доктрине, хотя эта страна ни разу не упоминается в самом документе. Речь идет о попытках дестабилизации стран и регионов и нарушении таким образом стратегической стабильности; наращивании военного потенциала в соседних государствах и близлежащих морских акваториях; создании и размещении элементов стратегической противоракетной обороны, а также милитаризации космоса и размещении высокоточных неядерных стратегических видом оружия».

Что касается времени одобрения новой российской военной доктрины, то газета связывает его с недавними решениями США относительно создания противоракетного щита, а также с еще продолжающимися переговорами Вашингтона и Москвы по поводу договора СНВ.

«Новая оборонная доктрина была официально одобрена и опубликована спустя день после объявления Румынией о планируемом размещении ракет-перехватчиков как части глобального противоракетного щита, против чего резко выступает Россия. Ранее сообщалось о том, что Россия отложила принятие новой доктрины, подготовленной в прошлом году, так как она не хотела осложнить переговоры с США о сокращении стратегических наступательных вооружений, которые продолжаются и в настоящее время» (5).

Подобное замечание было сделано и в сообщении китайского информационного агентства Синьхуа (Xinhua): «Аналитики указывают на то, что решение Румынии было сделано в критический момент, когда Вашингтон и Москва готовились к подписанию нового договора, идущего на смену договору о сокращении стратегических наступательных вооружений (СНВ-1). Поэтому этот шаг может воспрепятствовать потеплению в российско-американских отношениях и подвергнуть двусторонние связи испытанию на прочность» (6).

В разделе новой российской военной доктрины (на русскому языке с ней можно ознакомиться на сайте по ссылке http://news.kremlin.ru/ref_notes/461), озаглавленном «Основные внешние военные опасности» обращается внимание на следующие вызывающие озабоченность вопросы, прежде всего на первый из них:

– Цель НАТО состоит в попытке присвоить себе выполнение глобальных функций в нарушение международного права, а также придвинуть военную инфраструктуру государств-членов НАТО к российским границам, в том числе и за счет расширения самого блока;

– Попытки дестабилизировать ситуацию в отдельных государствах и регионах и подорвать стратегическую стабильность;

– Размещение военных контингентов иностранных государств (и блоков) в сопредельных с Россией и ее союзников территориях, а также в прилегающих акваториях;

– Создание и развертывание систем стратегической противоракетной обороны, подрывающих глобальную стабильность и нарушающих сложившийся баланс сил в ядерной области, а также милитаризация космического пространства и развертывание стратегических неядерных систем высокой точности;

– Территориальные претензии к России и ее союзникам, а также вмешательства в их внутренние дела;

– Распространение оружия массового поражения, ракет и ракетных технологий, увеличение количества государств, обладающих ядерным оружием;

– Нарушение отдельными государствами международных соглашений, а также неспособность ратифицировать и применять положения ранее подписанных международных соглашений относительно ограничения и сокращения вооружений;

– Использование военной силы на территориях сопредельных с Россией государств в нарушении Устава ООН, а также других норм международного права;

– Эскалация вооруженных конфликтов на территориях, сопредельных с Россией и ее союзниками .

На 46 ежегодной Мюнхенской конференции по безопасности, заседания которой проходило 6 и 7 февраля этого года, генеральный секретарь НАТО Андерс Фог Расмуссен заявил: «Я должен сказать, что эта новая доктрина не отражает реальности», однако внимательное изучение указанных в ней девяти пунктов подтверждает, что в ней отражена реально существующая ситуация. К сожалению.

После того как румынский президент объявил о том, что американские ракеты будут размещены в его стране, было опубликовано заявление министерства иностранных дел этого государства, в котором, в частности, говорилось следующее: «Румыния была и продолжает оставаться последовательным сторонником проектов НАТО относительно постепенной и последовательной разработки системы противоракетной обороны в Европе… Решение принять участие в системе США находится в полном соответствии с тем, что было решено по этому вопросу на саммите НАТО в Бухаресте в 2008 году, а также в Страсбурге/Келе в 2009 году» (7).

В первый день работы Мюнхенской конференции по безопасности российский министр иностранных дел Сергей Лавров в своем выступлении отметил: «С распадом Советского Союза и Варшавского договора возникла реальная возможность превратить ОБСЕ (Организация по безопасности и сотрудничеству в Европе) в полноправную организацию, обеспечивающую равную безопасность для всех государства евро-атлантической зоны. Однако эта возможность была упущена, так как выбор был сделан в пользу политики, направленной на расширение НАТО, что означает не только сохранение тех линий, которые разделяли Европу во время холодной войны, с различными уровнями безопасности, но и продвижение этих линий на восток. Роль ОБСЕ, в действительности, была ограничена функцией обслуживания этой политики посредством наблюдения за гуманитарными вопросами на постсоветском пространстве».

Затем он перешел к анализу причин неудачи некоторых мер, предпринятых после окончания эпохи холодной войны в Европе:
«Тот факт, что принцип неделимости безопасности не работает в ОБСЕ, нет необходимости долго доказывать. Давайте вспомним бомбардировки территории Федеративной Республики Югославии в 1999 году, когда группа стран-членов ОБСЕ, связанных этой политической декларацией, совершила агрессию против другого государства-члена ОБСЕ, которое также руководствовалось этим принципом».

«Все также помнят трагедию, случившуюся в августе 2008 года в Закавказье, когда государство-член ОБЕС, взявшее на себя различного рода обязательства в области неприменения силы использовала силу в том числе и против миротворцев другого государства-члена ОБСЕ в нарушение не только положений Хельсинского Акта, но также и конкретных миротворческих соглашений, связанных с грузино-южно-осетинским конфликтом, исключавшими применение силы». (8).

На следующий день глава НАТО Расмуссен не только не смог ответить на обвинения в том, что миру и безопасности в Европе угрожает неуклонное продвижение руководимой им военной организации на восток. Более того, он стал оправдывать использование НАТО за пределами континента во всех районах мира.

Он заявил о том, что «в условиях отсутствия безопасности в глобальном масштабе защита нашей территории должна начинаться за пределами наших границ».

Расмуссен призвал также к тому чтобы «НАТО превратилась в глобальный форум для обсуждения вопросов безопасности».

В его выступлении также содержался призыв к тому, чтобы «трансформировать НАТО, переведя ее деятельность на новый уровень, и связать альянс совершенно новым образом с более широкой международной системой».

То есть, Россия не может предложить общую систему безопасности в Европе, тогда как НАТО может настаивать на создании глобальной системы.
Не без гордости Расмуссен заявил о том, что находящиеся под руководством НАТО Международные силы содействия безопасности в Афганистане «будут увеличены в этом году на более чем 39 000 человек», и это произойдет в давно уже испытывающей лишения стране, которую НАТО превратила в место кровавого вооруженного конфликта.

Он не только не выразил никакого сомнения относительно войны, которая ведется в этой стране уже десятый календарный год и в ходе которой каждый день погибают все больше людей, но он даже превознес ее как модель для всего мира: «Полученный нами опыт в Афганистане… позволяет мне перейти к (другому) вопросу – необходимости превратить НАТО в форум консультаций при обсуждении глобальных вопросов безопасности… НАТО предоставляет собой рамочную структуру, которая уже доказала свою уникальную возможность объединять
консультации по вопросам безопасности, военное планирование и проведение реальных операций и которая значительно превосходит собственно страны НАТО. Еще раз хочу сказать – посмотрите на Афганистан» (9).

Глава комитета по международным делам российской Думы Константин Косачев также выступил на Мюнхенской конференции по безопасности. Он, в частности, заявил: «Я думаю, что проблема НАТО сегодня состоит в том, что НАТО развивается в обратном направлении – она старается все больше и больше действовать в глобальном масштабе, но мыслить продолжает на местном уровне… Как только НАТО выходит за свои границы, это уже перестает быть внутренним делом НАТО».

Он также «обвинил альянс в провоцировании грузино-российского конфликта посредством сделанных Тбилиси обещаний относительно будущего членства в НАТО…» (10).

Российский вице-премьер и бывший министр обороны Сергей Иванов также выступил в Мюнхене. Касаясь вопроса о затянувшихся переговорах по СНВ, он отметил: «Невозможно серьезно говорить о сокращении ядерных потенциалов, когда одна ядерная держава работает над размещением системы защиты против средств доставки боеголовок, находящихся в распоряжении других стран». Он также напомнил участникам конференции о том, что «Россия в одностороннем порядке сократила свой ядерный арсенал в начале 1990-х годов на 75 процентов, однако Соединенные Штаты не ответили на это аналогичным образом и даже не смогли вывести свои вооружения из Европы» (11).

Одно из главных российских информационных агентств подчеркнуло, что «Патрушев выступил с критикой в адрес НАТО в связи с непрекращающимися попытками, направленными на расширение организации, включая поддержку альянса стремлений Грузии и Украины стать членами этого союза».

«Он также обвинил НАТО в вооружении и подготовке Грузии к нападению на Южную Осетию и Абхазию. Кроме того, он отметил, что страны НАТО продолжают поставлять оружие Грузии, несмотря на протесты России». (12)

Эти озабоченности были подтверждены 9 февраля, когда на Украине началась 10-я ежегодная неделя НАТО и одновременно правительство Грузии «одобрило годичную национальную программу сотрудничества с НАТО (ANP) на 2010 год» (13). Эта инициатива была предложена НАТО сразу после вторжения Грузии в Южную Осетию и войны с Россией в августе 2008 года.

Война на Балканах, война в Южной Азии, война на Кавказе. Это та модель, которую НАТО призывает распространить на глобальном уровне. И по мере того как блок продвигается дальше на восток, вслед за этим туда приходят солдаты и военное оборудование, военно-воздушные базы, а также элементы противоракетной обороны.

9 февраля начальник Генерального штаба российских вооруженных сил Николай Макаров выступил с предупреждением. «Разработка и размещение (американского) ракетного щита, подчеркнул он, – направлены против Российской Федерации». (14)

Он также отметил, то «расхождения с Соединенными Штатами по поводу планов по созданию противоракетного щита сдерживают работу над договором о сокращении стратегических наступательных вооружений» между Вашингтоном и Москвой, и «эти противоречия пока не позволяют подписать этот договор». (15)

«Договор о стратегических наступательных вооружениях, – подчеркнул Макаров, – над которым мы в настоящее время работаем, должен учитывать связь между оборонительным и наступательным стратегическим оружием. Эта связь очень тесная, они абсолютно взаимозависимы. И было бы неправильно не принимать в расчет систему противоракетной обороны».

Ранее на этой неделе официальный представитель министерства иностранных дел России Андрей Нестеренко подтвердил требование своего государства об удалении американского ядерного оружия из Европы. Он отметил, что «вывод американского тактического ядерного оружия из Европы в Соединенные Штаты будет приветствоваться. Этот вывод должен также сопровождаться полным и необратимым уничтожением всей инфраструктуры, поддерживающей размещение этого вида оружия в Европе». Он подтвердил позицию своей страны, которая состоит в
том, что «ядерное оружие должно быть размещено только на территории того государства, которые им владеет». (17)

Спустя шесть дней, дополняя российские предостережения и демонстрируя упрямство НАТО по этому вопросу, турецкая пресса привела высказывания невыносимого Джорджа Робертсона (George Robertson) – бывшего генерального секретаря НАТО, – признавшего тот факт, что в Турции размещены от 40 до 90 ядерных зарядов на турецкой авиабазе Инчирлик (Incirlik). Лорд Робертсон сделал это заявление в контексте требований о том, чтобы американские ядерные боеголовки остались в Германии. Но он, конечно, не является ни немцем, ни американцем. Он – бывший
глава НАТО, и поэтому он считает, что он вправе определять такие сложные по своей природе вопросы.

Также 10 февраля высокопоставленный советник президента Польши Владислав Стасяк (Wladislaw Stasiak) находился в Вашингтоне для обсуждения планов о предстоящем размещении американских противоракетных комплексов передового базирования Patriot PAC-3 (Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missiles). Он встретился с представителями Совета национальной безопасности, а также с сотрудниками исследовательского Центра международных и стратегических исследований (Centre for International and Strategic Studies).

«Мы обсуждали будущее НАТО в контексте новой стратегической концепции, а также актуальные вопросы, связанные с НАТО, особенно что касается практического применения статьи 5», заявил он позднее, имея в виду положение договора альянса о военной интервенции.

В тот же день официальный представитель украинского министерства иностранных дел выразил озабоченность в связи с тем, что американские ракеты будут размещаться в соседнем государстве черноморского бассейна Румынии. «Как соседняя с Румынией страна, – подчеркивается в заявлении, – мы не можем оставить без внимания планы по размещению американского противоракетного щита в непосредственной близости от наших границ, особенно учитывая то обстоятельство, что некоторые его элементы будут, судя по всему, расположены в акватории Черного моря». (19)

Владимир Воронин, занимавший до сентября прошлого года пост президента Молдавии, граничащей с Румынией и Украиной, недавно выступил с предостережением о том, что планы США по размещению своих ракет в Румынии, а также в ее территориальных водах «могут превратить соседнюю Молдавию в прифронтовую территорию». Он также подчеркнул, что «позиция Румынии по вопросу об американском противоракетном щите, а также открытая поддержка этих планов со стороны нынешнего руководства Молдавии может иметь катастрофические последствия
для безопасности этого региона» (20).

Это мнение вызывает в памяти слова российского постоянного представителя при НАТО Дмитрия Рогозина, который за два дня до этого заявил о том, что «планы США о размещении элементов противоракетной обороны в Восточной Европе являются предлогом для того, чтобы продвигаться к границам России». «США, – отметил он, – используют действия Ирана для глобализации своей противоракетной обороны».

Спустя четыре дня после своего предыдущего комментария бывший президент Молдавии Воронин заявил: «Размещение элементов системы противоракетной обороны в Румынии возвращает Европу во времена холодной войны». Он также подчеркнул, что у него есть «сомнения относительно того, что система противоракетной обороны США направлена только против Ирана».

Пентагон в 2008 году ввел в эксплуатацию ракетный радар и военную базу в пустыне Негев в Израиле. На базе размещены более 100 военных специалистов, а зона действия этого радара составляет 2900 миль, что почти в три раза больше расстояния от Израиля до иранской столицы. Радар передового базирования, работающий в частотном X-диапазоне на военно-воздушной базе Неватим (Nevatim), способен следить за всей восточной, а также большей частью южной России.

Чем громче США и их союзники по НАТО говорят о якобы существующей иранской угрозе, тем плотнее становится возводимый Западом вокруг России кордон из противоракетных установок.
10 февраля местная пресса писала о том, что «Чешская Республика ведет переговоры с администрацией президента Обамы о размещении на ее территории командного центра модифицированного варианта системы противоракетной обороны». (23)

На следующий день посол Китая в России Ли Хуэй (Li Hui) беседовал с корреспондентом одного из крупнейших информационных агентств принимающей стороны и «подтвердил озабоченность Пекина о том, что (американские планы по созданию противоракетного щита) могут нарушить сложившийся стратегический баланс и стабильность, а также создать напряженность. Правильно оценив масштабы американского противоракетного проекта, он «подчеркнул, что создание глобальной системы противоракетной обороны подрывает международные усилия,
направленные на предотвращение распространения ядерного оружия». (24)

Его предупреждения, а также предупреждения, сделанные Россией, были оставлены Вашингтоном и его союзниками по НАТО без внимания. 12 февраля Польша одобрила Соглашение о статусе вооруженных сил (SOFA) с Соединенными Штатами. По этому соглашению, в Польше будут размещены 100 американских военнослужащих для обслуживания таких систем противоракетной обороны как Patriot или SM-3. (25) Возможно, это первое официальное подтверждение того, что американские размещаемые на судах (и/или наземного базирования) противоракетные комплексы дальнего радиуса действия Standard Missile-3 будут установлены у западных границ России.

Также 12 февраля болгарский премьер-министр Бойко Борисов заявил о том, что США проведут переговоры с его правительством о возможном размещении противоракетных комплексов первого удара на территории этого причерноморского государства. Посол США Джеймс Уорлик (James Warlick) подтвердил, что предварительные обсуждения уже состоялись. Глава болгарского правительства объяснил причины своего желания сделать подобный рискованный шаг: «По моему мнению, мы должны проявить солидарность. Если вы являетесь членом НАТО, то вы должны
работать над созданием коллективной безопасности». (26)

Если учитывать все это, то трудно понять, почему российское правительство позволило бывшему государственному секретарю Мадлен Олбрайт и ее «группе экспертов» и «мудрецов» пропагандировать свою новую стратегическую концепцию во время проходившей 11 февраля встречи в московском Институте международных отношений. Это было карикатурное, отвратительное мероприятие. Единственное место, которое российские власти должны были бы ей предоставить, это тюремную камеру.

НАТО не является провайдером услуг в области международной безопасности, хотя именно в эти одежды она и пытается рядиться. Это не партнер для ООН – организации, которую НАТО уже затмила, сделав ее беззубой и жалкой. НАТО также не партнер для других международных и региональных организаций. Она не может быть основой для создания глобального «альянса демократий».
НАТО – это смертельно опасный и действующий за гранью закона альянс, который в одностороннем порядке оставляет за собой право повторить свою военную агрессию на Балканах, в Южной Азии, а также в других частях земного шара. Это оскорбление для человечества и угроза для него.

Notes

1) Bloomberg News, February 4, 2010
2) With Nuclear, Conventional Arms Pacts Stalled, U.S. Moves Missiles And Troops To Russian Border Stop NATO, January 22, 2010
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/01/22/with-nuclear-conventional-arms-pacts-stalled-u-s-moves-missiles-and-troops-to-russian-border
3) Interfax, February 5, 2010
4) Ibid
5) Vladimir Radyuhin, New Russian doctrine sees NATO, U.S. as main threat
The Hindu, February 7, 2010
6) Xinhua News Agency, February 8, 2010
7) Financiarul, February 6, 2010
8) Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, February 8, 2010
http://www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/0/49F4C4EB6473C1E5C32576C500311EB4
9) NATO in the 21st Century: Towards Global Connectivity Speech by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen at the Munich Security Conference
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/opinions_61395.htm?selectedLocale=en
10) Reuters, February 7, 2010
11) Russian Information Agency Novosti, February 6, 2010
12) Russian Information Agency Novosti, February 9, 2010
13) Georgia Times, February 10, 2010
14) Reuters, February 9, 2010
15) Reuters, February 9, 2010
16) Associated Press, February 9, 2010
17) Itar-Tass, February 4, 2010
18) Polish Radio, February 10, 2010
19) RosBusinessConsulting, February 10, 2010
20) Russian Information Agency Novosti, February 7, 2010
21) Bloomberg News, February 5, 2010
22) Voice of Russia, February 11, 2010
23) Prague Post, February 10, 2010
24) Voice of Russia, February 11, 2010
25) Deutsche Presse-Agentur, February 12, 2010
26) Reuters, February 12, 2010

Stop NATO
February 15, 2010

Afghanistan: Charlie Wilson And America’s 30-Year War
Rick Rozoff

On February 13 the United States and NATO led an assault with 15,000 Western and Afghan government troops against Marjah, a town in Helmand province with a population of 75,000. One soldier for every five civilians. The NATO contingent involved in the offensive includes troops from Britain, Canada, Denmark, Estonia and the U.S.

In the opening hours of the massive attack, “the biggest air[borne] assault ever undertaken by coalition forces in the country,” [1] two rockets fired from a NATO High Mobility Artillery Rocket System slammed into a house outside Marjah and killed twelve civilians. General Stanley McChrystal, commander of all U.S. and NATO Forces in the country, described the incident as “regrettable.”

An account from a British newspaper described the situation in the town after the assault began: “The populous Taliban stronghold of Marjah has, say residents, become a ghost town. Shops are shuttered, streets deserted and most inhabitants are hiding inside their mud-brick houses wondering when their ‘day of doom’ will come.” [2]

The operation is the largest staged by the U.S. and its NATO allies since the war in Afghanistan was launched in early October of 2001. It is the opening salvo in the plan for escalation of the counterinsurgency war in that nation announced by U.S. President Barack Obama at the West Point Military Academy last December 3. [3]

Obama’s strategy is based on the COMISAF (Commander International Assistance Security Force) Initial Assessment of General McChrystal issued on August 30, 2009. In that document the former head of the Joint Special Operations Command, from which post he took charge of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, presented the blueprint for transitioning from what had been designated a counterterrorist strategy to a counterinsurgency one.

There is no war without an adversary, and McChrystal identified the targets of the campaign that over 150,000 U.S. and NATO troops will soon be waging: “The major insurgent groups in order of their threat to the mission are: the Quetta Shura Taliban (05T), the Haqqani Network (HQN), and the Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin (HiG).” [4]

The last two groups are named after their founders and leaders, Jalaluddin Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, respectively.

Haqqani and Hekmatyar lost an old friend and colleague on February 10, former 12-term U.S. Congressman Charlie Wilson. The hero of one of the most successful American films of 2007-2008, Charlie Wilson’s War, he has been eulogized in the press and by his former partner in arming and training the likes of Haqqani and Hekmatyar – and Osama bin Laden – current U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who was Deputy Director of Central Intelligence from 1986 to 1989 and who said in a 1999 speech, “CIA had important successes in covert action. Perhaps the most consequential of all was Afghanistan where CIA, with its management, funnelled billions of dollars in supplies and weapons to the mujahideen….” [5]

Gates was referring to Operation Cyclone, the largest covert operation conducted by the CIA and indeed by any agency or nation. The full title of the book by George Crile the movie Charlie Wilson’s War is based on is Charlie Wilson’s War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History.

The bulk of the billions of dollars Gates boasted of supplying to arm the Pakistan-based Mujahideen was directed to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani. Those two are now identified by the same Pentagon that Gates heads up as two of the three targets of the world’s largest and longest war.

The day Charlie Wilson died, Gates celebrated him as “an extraordinary
patriot” for “liberating Afghanistan from Soviet occupation.” [6] On February 23 Wilson will receive a graveside service with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.

As Gates praised his former colleague for playing a decisive role in arming and training the forces of Hekmatyar and Haqqani, so Wilson was effusive in his praise of both the latter.

During the first Afghan war of 1979-1992 Wilson was a guest of Jalaluddin Haqqani in eastern Afghanistan in 1987 and referred to his host as “goodness personified.” When after September 11, 2001 Haqqani was named number three on the U.S. most-wanted list after Osama bin Laden and Mullah Muhammad Omar, Wilson said: “That did give me pause for thought. But Haqqani took care of me, and I’ll never forget that. I’d love to see him again. I would try to persuade him that the Taleban was a force for destruction – which he definitely wasn’t.” [7]

Old friendships are the firmest.

An editorial in The Times of London two days after Wilson’s death was more measured than the uniformly laudatory obituaries and tributes in the American media – Britain has now lost more soldiers in Afghanistan than in any conflict since Korea and Malaya in the 1950s – reminding its readers that “In helping to beat the Soviet menace, Charlie Wilson unleashed a monster. The jihadi commanders who fought with the funds that he provided in Afghanistan remember the Congressman fondly. His fellow countrymen are now fighting the guerrillas that he helped to arm and the civilians who are suffering at their hands might be more reserved about his legacy.” [8]

The piece added:

“Wilson once described the warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani as ‘goodness personified’. Today the elderly commander is one of America’s most wanted terrorists.

“In the 1980s the self-proclaimed Holy Warrior, with close links to Osama bin Laden, was getting millions of American tax dollars to send Arab and Afghan volunteers into battle against Soviet troops. The CIA were his allies. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was another Islamist commander bankrolled by Wilson’s money. Today both men are in charge of militant networks responsible for countless attacks against US, Afghan and international forces.”

The Times quoted a former colleague of Hekmatyar saying of Charlie Wilson, “He really helped the Mujahidin.” [9]

Another British daily, The Telegraph, also commented on Wilson’s death on February 12: “Charlie Wilson’s War drew Osama bin Laden first to Peshawar in Pakistan and then into Afghanistan with his Arab jihadis. A key beneficiary was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whose Hezb-i-Islami fighters form one of the most deadly factions in the Taliban-led insurgency today….” [10]

In 2003 the U.S. State Department designated Hekmatyar, the main recipient of America’s largest-ever covert military-intelligence operation, a “Specially Designated Global International Terrorist.” [11]

Haqqani is still active in the Afghanistan that Charlie Wilson and Robert Gates spent billions of dollars and provided an arsenal of weapons to “liberate.”

An Indian news agency wrote at the beginning of the year that “It has now been shockingly admitted that the suicide bombing that killed seven CIA employees in eastern Afghanistan this week was masterminded by warlord and one-time key CIA ally Jalaluddin Haqqani.”

“During the 1980s, Mr Haqqani was a respected commander battling, with Western support, against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. After they withdrew, he became a member of the US-approved coalition that formed the post-occupation government.” [12]

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar became prime minister of what was left of Afghanistan in 1993-1994, immediately after the U.S. backed their Mujahideen clients’ takeover of the country in 1992.

Hekmatyar’s and Haqqani’s roles as ringleaders of the internecine bloodshed and violent anarchy that followed the defeat of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan are worth recalling in reference to repeated comments by Charlie Wilson and lately by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that the only mistake the U.S. has made in Afghanistan over the past 30 years is – a rough paraphrase – “not staying to finish the job.” It is that lapse and no other action that Washington is now “redressing.” The follow-up that Wilson envisioned was continuing to arm and fund the likes of Hekmatyar and Haqqani, after 1992 leaders of the ruling regime in Afghanistan.

Wilson’s chief partner in building the military forces of two of today’s three main insurgent groups the U.S. and NATO are waging an over eight-year war against was Gust Avrakotos, also celebrated in the 2007 film Charlie Wilson’s War as a modern American “flawed but lovable” maverick hero/anti-hero.

Avrakotos, who died in 2005 and who “ran the largest covert operation in the agency’s history, was dubbed ‘Dr. Dirty’ for his willingness to handle ethically ambiguous tasks….Working with former Rep. Charles Wilson, D-Texas, Avrakotos eventually controlled more than 70 percent of the CIA’s annual expenditures for covert operations, funneling it through intermediaries to the mujaheddin.” [13]

Regarding the weapons that he and Wilson ran to their Pakistan-based allies, they “later were used in the fratricidal war in Afghanistan before the Taliban took control.

“Critics noted that those weapons probably still were in use, both in support of and against U.S. troops, when the United States went to war in Afghanistan in 2001.” [14]

Even though George Crile’s book documents that Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani were the main recipients of U.S. military aid secured by Wilson and his counterparts in the CIA – including Robert Gates – neither is mentioned in the film version.

One criticism of the film points out that “The producers…imply that the chaos that ensued in Afghanistan after the war resulted from rogue forces taking over the country – ignoring the impact of their training in terrorist methods by the CIA (including specialization in high explosives).” [15]

An edition of U.S. News & World Report from 2008 provided details on Wilson’s relations with both Hekmatyar and Haqqani and the current activities of the last two.

“In recent weeks, Hekmatyar has called upon Pakistani militants to attack U.S. targets, while the Haqqani network is blamed for three large vehicle bombings, along with the attempted assassination of [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai in April….[T]hese two warlords – currently at the top of America’s list of most wanted men in Afghanistan – were once among America’s most valued allies.”

“In the 1980s, the CIA funneled hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons and ammunition to help them battle the Soviet Army….Hekmatyar, then widely considered by Washington to be a reliable anti-Soviet rebel, was even flown to the United States by the CIA in 1985.

“‘He was the most radical of the radicals,” recalls former Rep. Charlie Wilson…”

“U.S. officials had an even higher opinion of Haqqani, who was considered the most effective rebel warlord. ‘I adored Haqqani. When I was in Afghanistan, Haqqani was the guy who made sure I would get out,’ says Wilson. ‘He was a marvelous leader and very beloved in his territory.’

“Haqqani was also one of the leading advocates of the so-called Arab Afghans, deftly organizing Arab volunteer fighters who came to wage jihad against the Soviet Union and helping to protect future al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.” [16]

As seen above, Wilson, the “extraordinary patriot,” adored Jalaluddin Haqqani to his dying day. As The Time’s obituary of the former cited above stated, “[I]t is just possible that some of Wilson’s friends might soon be friends of America again.” [17]

Wilson’s other partner, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, “was…a renowned opium smuggler and warlord, and was alleged to have sprayed acid in the faces of women who did not wear the veil. One of [Hekmatyar’s] colleagues referred to him as ‘a true monster,’ though he allegedly impressed the CIA (revealing something of its character) by wanting to take the war against the Soviets to Central Asia and roll back communism in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan.

“One CIA officer said, ‘We wanted to kill as many Russians as we could, and Hikmatyar seemed like the guy to do it.'” [18]

The second to the last paragraph reveals another aspect of the first U.S. Afghan war, that it not only intended to drive Soviet forces out of the country, overthrow the government there and install the CIA’s Mujahideen clients, but to extend the war into the Soviet Union.

After the film Charlie Wilson’s War was released in late 2007 accounts surfaced of other U.S. officials instrumental in arming America’s current adversaries in Afghanistan. The book The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan’s Top Hand by Paul Kengor and Patricia Clark Doerner details the role of President Ronald Reagan’s National Security Adviser from 1982-1983 and “his work on behalf of Afghan rebels to Polish rebels to Nicaraguan rebels and much, much more.”

A review of the volume reveals that “Clark and Reagan quietly authorized the [mujahedin] rebels to cross the Amu Dar’ya River that marked the border between Afghanistan and the Soviet republic of Uzbekistan, where the rebels fought the Soviet Union on its own territory….Specially trained rebel units operating inside the USSR, equipped with high-tech explosives from the CIA, sabotaged Soviet targets. They derailed trains, attacked border posts and laid mines.” [19]

A quote from the book states “These were strikingly bold, risky moves – some of the most dangerous action of the entire history of the 40-year Cold War….” [20]

Another account of Wilson’s activities mentioned that “the mujahideen in Pakistani camps were trained to wage a war of urban terror, with instructions in car bombings, bicycle bombings, camel bombings and assassination. According to Charlie Wilson, this was the one morally unambiguous crusade of our time.” [21] (That Wilson’s name and any allusion to morality could be combined in the same sentence is astonishing. Suffice it to recall that although he represented a poor congressional district in Texas, Wilson spent millions of dollars on international junkets for a steady succession of mistresses, alcohol, cocaine and most every species of debauchery.)

The extraordinary American patriot and cinema hero Wilson said of his efforts in the 1980s, “This is the one chance to send the Soviet young men home in body bags like they sent our boys back in body bags. Let’s make this a Vietnam for the Soviets.” [22]

Within weeks of the Hollywood lionization of Wilson, Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould, in 1981 the first American journalists allowed back into the Afghan capital and the future authors of Invisible History: Afghanistan’s Untold Story, wrote a letter to the Boston Globe to debunk the growing Wilson myth.

The authors said, “we continue to be amazed at how the American disinformation campaign built around the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan lives on.

“Fact: Covert funding for the mujahideen began long before the Soviet invasion, not after.

“Fact: This covert aid was intended to lure the Soviets into the Afghan trap and hold them there, not drive them out, as claimed by Wilson.

“It is well documented that Wilson’s war prolonged Afghanistan’s agony for another six years, provided a secure multibillion-dollar technological training base for Islamic terrorism, and set the stage for a privatized heroin industry of historic proportions.

“The problem was in the conceptual framework created by America’s Cold War policy makers in the first place that made Afghanistan the bleeding ground it remains to this day.” [23]

A review of the couple’s 2009 book Afghanistan’s Untold Story included these details:

“Having gone to great lengths to draw them into Afghanistan in the first place (beginning as early as 1973), the US wanted the Soviets to stay so that their mujahideen proxies could deliver a mortal blow to the ‘Evil Empire.’

“As the Cold War deepened and the Afghans drew closer to the Soviets, US interest in the country increased proportionately. Afghanistan would soon become a battleground on which the fantasies of Washington’s Cold War policy planners would be played out.

“Invisible History also shows how covert US meddling began as early as 1973 under president Nixon, following the ouster of King Zahir Shah by Mohammad Daoud. The US had not even extricated itself from its own Vietnam War when such plans were afoot as part of the ‘Chinese-Iranian-Pakistani-Arabian peninsula Axis’ to give the Soviets theirs.” [24]

William Blum’s translation of a 1999 Le Nouvel Observateur interview with the original architect of U.S. intervention in Afghanistan, former Carter administration National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, confirms Fitzgerald’s and Gould’s contentions.

His admissions included:

“According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

“That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.”

“What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?” [25]

A few months after the film that made Charlie Wilson a celebrity, one that has been viewed by several tens of millions of Americans and to one degree or another approved of by most all of them, Wilson said that he could “think of nothing I would have done differently.”

The newspaper that interviewed him and obtained the quote wrote, “Never mind that many of the mujahedeen guerillas that the former U.S. representative from Texas helped arm…wound up as the very Taliban leaders who shaped the violent and radical Islamic fundamentalism that dominated Afghanistan….Never mind the rise of the Taliban and al-Qaida.” [26]

A news dispatch in early 2006 announcing that the movie rights for Charlie Wilson’s War had been obtained by Universal Pictures mentioned in passing that “Many of the men armed by the CIA went on to become the Taliban’s enforcers and Osama bin Laden’s protectors.” [27]

Wilson, like Brzezinski, had no regrets. No regrets for what the brutal guerrillas whose training and arming he arranged in Pakistan in the 1980s have done to Afghanistan and its people. No regrets that foreign fighters among them spread out to Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Balkans, North Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

Empire builders have neither time nor inclination for regrets. The terrorism/counterterrorism strategy, tenuously and self-servingly linked with weapons of mass destruction, drugs and now piracy, has over the last decade alone gained the U.S. and its NATO allies military bases and camps in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, the Philippines, Iraq, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Djibouti, Seychelles, Uganda, Mali, Bulgaria, Romania and Colombia.

There will soon be more U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan – 150,000 from fifty nations – than there ever were Soviet troops in the 1980s. The Western military forces were not invited into the country by any government or any political faction. There is no Charlie Wilson in the U.S. Congress calling for the forcible expulsion of foreign occupation forces, barely anyone there even asking for their peaceful withdrawal.

But Wilson’s project for a second Vietnam-style war may well be realized. America’s second Vietnam.

1) Agence France-Presse/Reuters, February 14, 2010
2) The Independent, February 15, 2010
3) Nobel Committee Celebrates War As Peace
Stop NATO, December 8, 2009
4) Washington Post, September 21, 2009
5) BBC News, December 1, 2010
6) U.S. Department of Defense, February 11, 2010
7) The Times (London), January 12, 2008
8) The Times, February 12, 2010
9) Ibid
10) The Telegraph, February 12th, 2010
11) United States Department of State, February 19, 2003
12) Asian News International, January 2, 2010
13) Washington Post, December 26, 2005
14) Ibid
15) Jeremy Kuzmarov, Charlie Wilson’s War, the Culture of Imperialism and
the Distortion of History
History News Network, December 31, 2007
16) U.S. News & World Report, July 11, 2008
17) The Times, February 12, 2010
18) History News Network, December 31, 2007
19) The Village News (California), January 10, 2008
20) Ibid
21) Myra MacDonald, Revisiting America’s war in Afghanistan
Reuters, September 26, 2008
22) Ibid
23) Boston Globe, January 11, 2008
24) Anthony Fenton, Behind the Afghan propaganda
Asia Times, May 2, 2009
25) http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html
26) Salt Lake Tribune, April 23, 2008
27) Reuters, January 11, 2006

Stop NATO
15 Février 2010

Expansion de l’OTAN, déploiements de missiles et nouvelle doctrine militaire de la Russie
Rick Rozoff

Traduction par André Comte

Les évènements liés aux questions militaires et de sécurité en Europe et en Asie ont été nombreux ce mois-ci et se sont condensés dans moins d’une semaine de réunions, de déclarations et d’initiatives sur des questions allant des déploiements du bouclier antimissile jusqu’à l’escalade sans comparaison possible de la plus grande guerre du monde et allant d’un nouveau système de sécurité pour l’Europe jusqu’à une nouvelle doctrine militaire russe.

Une génération complète après la fin de la Guerre Froide et presque autant depuis l’éclatement de l’URSS, les événements de la semaine passée sont évocateurs d’une autre décennie et d’un autre siècle. La guerre de vingt ans ou plus en Afghanistan et les installations controversées de missiles en Europe ont constitué l’actualité dans un monde bipolaire.

Vingt ans après, alors qu’il n’y a plus d’ Union Soviétique, plus de pacte de Varsovie et une Russie considérablement diminuée et tronquée, les États-Unis et l’OTAN ont militarisé l’Europe à un niveau sans précédent – subordonnant en fait presque tout le continent sous un bloc militaire dominé par Washington – et ont lancé l’offensive de combat la plus vaste en Asie du Sud dans ce qui est déjà la plus longue guerre du monde.

Des 44 nations en Europe et dans le Caucase (à l’exclusion des micro-états et du pseudo-état otanien du Kosovo ), seulement six – Belarus, Chypre, Malte, Moldavie, Russie et Serbie – ont échappé à la mobilisation de leurs citoyens par l’OTAN pour le déploiement sur le front de la guerre d’Afghanistan. Ce nombre sera bientôt réduit davantage encore.

De ces 44 pays, seulement deux – Chypre et Russie – ne sont pas membres de l’OTAN ou de son programme de transition de Partenariat pour la Paix, et Chypre est soumise à une pression intense pour se joindre à la seconde.

Les 4 et 5 février tous les 28 chefs de la défense de l’OTAN se sont réunis à Istanbul, en Turquie, pour deux jours de délibérations qui se sont concentrées sur la guerre en Afghanistan, le déploiement du bloc militaire au Kosovo et des plans accélérés pour l’expansion d’ un système de missiles intercepteurs d’envergure mondiale vers l’Europe de l’est et le Moyen-Orient. Ce rassemblement suivait de huit jours une réunion de deux jours du Comité Militaire de l’OTAN à Bruxelles qui comprenait 63 chefs militaires des nations de l’OTAN et des 35 Nations Contribuant en Troupes, comme le bloc les désigne, y compris les hauts commandants militaires d’Israël et du Pakistan. Cette conférence était axée sur la guerre afghane et sur le nouveau Concept Stratégique de l’OTAN qui doit être formalisé officiellement lors d’un sommet de l’Alliance plus tard cette année.

Le commandant de l’ensemble des 150 000 soldats des États-Unis et de l’OTAN en Afghanistan, le Général Stanley McChrystal, a assisté aux réunions des deux jours. Le chef du Pentagone Robert Gates a présidé la deuxième et «L’Afghanistan et la défense anti- missile sont les exemples des nouvelles priorités que sur lesquelles Gates veut que l’OTAN se concentre.» [1]

Comme l’indiquait le nombre de chefs d’état-major de la défense ayant participé aux réunions de Bruxelles – 63- la portée de l’OTAN a été étendue bien au-delà de l’Europe et de l’ Amérique du Nord au cours des dix dernières années. Les troupes servant sous le commandement du bloc en Afghanistan proviennent de tout continent peuplé, du Moyen-Orient et d’Océanie : l’Australie a le plus gros contingent des non-membres avec plus de 1 500 soldats, et les autres nations non européennes comme l’Arménie, l’Azerbaïdjan, Bahreïn, la Colombie, l’Egypte, la Géorgie, la Nouvelle Zélande, Singapour, la Corée du Sud et les Émirats Arabes Unis ont des troupes en Afghanistan ou sont en train d’ y en envoyer.

Le jour où à commencé la réunion des ministres de la défense de l’OTAN à Istanbul, le Président roumain Traian Basescu a annoncé qu’il avait satisfait à la demande de l’administration Obama de baser des missiles intercepteurs US dans sa nation, cinq semaines après la nouvelle que des missiles antibalistiques U.S. Patriot seraient stationnés dans une région de la Pologne à une demi heure de la frontière la plus occidentale de la Russie.

Le lendemain, le 5 février, c’est-à-dire deux mois après l’expiration du Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) [[traité de réduction des armes stratégiques]] entre les États-Unis et la Russie réglementant la réduction des armes nucléaires et des systèmes de lancement, [2] l’agence de presse russe Interfax a annoncé que «le Président Dmitri Medvedev a approuvé la doctrine militaire de la Russie et les principes de base de sa politique de dissuasion nucléaire dans la période allant jusqu’en 2020….” [3]

La même source a cité le Secrétaire adjoint du Conseil de Sécurité et ancien chef de l’état-major général des Forces Armées Iouri Baluyevsky qui commentait la nouvelle doctrine: “Il est prévu de développer les composants terrestres, maritimes et aériens de la triade nucléaire…. La Russie a besoin de garantir son développement démocratique cohérent en utilisant un garant de stabilité tel que les armes nucléaires, tel qu’une forme de dissuasion stratégique…. La Russie se réserve le droit d’utiliser des armes nucléaires uniquement si son existence en tant qu’état est mise en danger.” [4]

Le commentaire du quotidien indien The Hindu spécifiait que “La doctrine détaille 11 menaces militaires externes à la Russie, dont sept venant de l’Ouest. L’expansion vers l’est de l’OTAN et son insistance pour un rôle mondial sont identifiées comme la menace numéro un pour la Russie.”

L’article ajoutait: ” Les U.S.A. sont la source d’autres menaces majeures répertoriées dans la doctrine, même si le pays n’est jamais mentionné dans le document. Celles-ci incluent les tentatives visant à déstabiliser les pays et régions et à saper la stabilité stratégique ; les accumulations militaires dans les états et les mers voisins; la création et déploiement de défense anti-missiles stratégiques, ainsi que la militarisation de l’espace extra-terrestre et le déploiement des systèmes stratégiques non nucléaires de haute précision.”

Pour ce qui est du calendrier de l’autorisation d’une nouvelle stratégie militaire de la Russie, le rapport l’a connecté avec les récentes décisions sur le bouclier antimissile U.S. et les pourparlers START entre Washington et Moscou qui traînent encore en longueur.

“La nouvelle doctrine de défense a fait l’objet d’une loi et publié un jour après que la Roumanie ait annoncé son intention de déployer des missiles intercepteurs US dans le cadre d’un bouclier de missiles global auquel la Russie s’oppose farouchement. Des rapports antérieurs ont dit que le Kremlin avait reporté la doctrine, préparée l’année dernière, parce qu’il ne voulait pas mettre en péril les négociations avec les États-Unis sur un nouveau pacte d’armes nucléaires qui sont toujours en cours.» [5]

Une remarque similaire a été formulée dans un rapport de l’Agence de presse chinoise Xinhua :

“Les analystes disent que la décision roumaine est venue à un moment crucial où Washington et Moscou sont sur le point de signer un document successeur du Traité de Réduction des Armes Stratégiques (START-1) arrivé à expiration. Par conséquent, la mesure peut bouleverser les relations Russie – États-Unis en train de se dégeler et mettre à l’épreuve leurs liens bilatéraux.”[6]

La nouvelle Doctrine Militaire Russe (en russe à http://News.Kremlin.RU/ref_notes/461) a répertorié sous le titre de «Principales menaces externes de guerre» les préoccupations suivantes, avec la plus urgente en premier :

-L’objectif qu’a l’OTAN de s’arroger l’exercice de fonctions mondiales en violation du droit international, et d’étendre l’infrastructure militaire de l’OTAN jusqu’aux frontières de la Russie, y compris par le biais de l’élargissement du bloc

– vise à déstabiliser la situation dans les différents États et régions et à affaiblir la stabilité stratégique

-Le déploiement de contingents militaires d’états (et blocs) étrangers sur les territoires voisins de la Russie et de ses alliés, ainsi que dans des eaux adjacentes

-L’établissement et le déploiement de systèmes de défense anti-missiles stratégiques qui sapent la stabilité mondiale et violent l’équilibre des forces dans le domaine nucléaire, ainsi que la militarisation de l’espace extra-terrestre et le déploiement d’armes de précision des systèmes non nucléaires stratégiques

– Les revendications territoriales à l’encontre de la Russie et de ses alliés et l’ingérence dans leurs affaires intérieures

-La prolifération des armes de destruction massive , de missiles et de la technologie de missile, augmentant le nombre d’états possédant des armes nucléaires

-La violation par un état des accords internationaux, et l’échec à ratifier et à mettre en œuvre les traités internationaux précédemment signés sur la limitation et la réduction des armes

-Le recours à la force militaire dans les territoires des états riverains de la Russie en violation de la Charte des Nations Unies et aux autres normes du droit international

-L’escalade des conflits armés sur les territoires voisins de la Russie et des nations alliées

À la 46ème Conférence de Sécurité annuelle de Munich qui s’est tenue les 6 et 7 février, le secrétaire général Anders Fogh Rasmussen a dit “Je dois dire que cette nouvelle doctrine ne reflète pas le monde réel”, bien que toute lecture impartiale des neuf points précédents qu’elle traite confirmerait qu’elle dépeint le monde exactement tel qu’il est. Malheureusement.

Par exemple, après que le Président de la Roumanie ait révélé que les missiles U.S. devraient être déployés dans le pays, une déclaration du ministère des affaires étrangères du pays a dit “La Roumanie a été et continue d’être un promoteur cohérent au sein de l’OTAN du projet concernant le développement progressif et adapté du système de défense antimissile en Europe… La décision de prendre part au système US est entièrement en accord avec ce qui a été décidé à cet égard aux sommets de l’OTAN de Bucarest en 2008 et de Strasbourg-Kehl en 2009.” [7]

Le premier jour de la Conférence de Sécurité de Munich, le ministre russe des affaires étrangères Sergei Lavrov a déclaré dans son discours que “Avec la désintégration de l’Union Soviétique et de l’Organisation du Traité de Varsovie une réelle opportunité a émergé pour faire de l’OSCE [Organisation pour la Sécurité et la Coopération en Europe] une organisation à part entière offrant une sécurité égale à tous les états de la région euro-atlantique. Toutefois, cette occasion a été manquée, parce que le choix a été fait en faveur de la stratégie d’expansion de l’OTAN, qui signifie non seulement préserver les lignes séparant Europe au cours de la guerre froide en des zones ayant des niveaux de sécurité différents, mais également déplacer ces lignes vers l’est. Le rôle de l’OSCE était, en fait, réduit au service de cette politique par le biais de la supervision des questions humanitaires dans l’espace
post-soviétique.”

Il a continué avec un examen de l’échec des mesures de sécurité post-Guerre Froide en Europe :

“Que le principe de l’indivisibilité de la sécurité au sein de l’OSCE ne fonctionne pas n’est pas long à prouver. Rappelons-nous le bombardement de la République fédérale de Yougoslavie en 1999, quand un groupe de pays de l’OSCE, lié par cette déclaration politique, a commis une agression contre un autre pays de l’OSCE, qui était également couvert par ce principe.

“Tout le monde souvient aussi de la tragédie d’août 2008 en Transcaucasie, où un pays membre de l’OSCE qui est lié par divers engagements dans le domaine du non-usage de la force, a utilisé cette force, y compris contre les soldats de la paix d’un autre pays membre de l’OSCE, en violation non seulement de l’acte final d’Helsinki, mais également de l’accord concret de maintien de la paix consacré au conflit Géorgie-Ossétie du Sud, qui exclut l’utilisation de la force.” [8]

Il était suivi le lendemain par le chef de l’OTAN, Rasmussen, qui non seulement n’a pas pu répondre à l’accusation que la paix et la sécurité en Europe ont été mises en danger par l’avancée implacable de son organisation militaire vers les frontières de la Russie, mais qui a préconisé l’implication de l’OTAN au-delà du continent pour englober le monde.

En proclamant que “à l’ère de l’insécurité mondialisée, notre défense territoriale doit commencer au-delà de nos frontières”, Rasmussen a pressé pour que ” l’OTAN puisse devenir un forum de consultation sur les questions de sécurité dans le monde.”

Son discours incluait également la demande de “porter la transformation de l’OTAN à un nouveau niveau – en connectant l’Alliance avec le système international plus large dans des voies entièrement nouvelles.”

La Russie ne peut pas proposer un système de sécurité commune pour l’Europe, mais l’OTAN peut en ordonner un qui soit international.

Rasmussen s’est félicité que la Force Internationale d’Assistance à la Sécurité de l’OTAN en Afghanistan “va encore grandir en force cette année, avec plus de 39 000 soldats supplémentaires,” dans le champ de tuerie sanguinaire que l’Occident a créé dans ce pays au long martyre.

Non seulement il n’a pas exprimé une seule réserve au sujet d’une guerre qui est maintenant dans sa dixième année et de la mortalité chaque jour grandissante, mais il l’a célébrée comme un modèle pour le monde: “notre expérience en Afghanistan… m’amène à une [autre] considération : la nécessité de transformer l’OTAN en un forum de consultation sur les questions de sécurité dans le monde…. l’OTAN est un cadre qui a déjà prouvé être capable de façon unique de combiner la consultation en matière de sécurité, la planification militaire et les opérations réelles plus que les seuls membres de l’OTAN eux-mêmes. Encore une fois, regardez l’Afghanistan.” [9]

Konstantin Kosachev, président de la Commission des Affaires Internationales de la Douma russe, a également parlé lors de la conférence de sécurité de Munich et il a dit “Je pense que le problème de l’OTAN aujourd’hui est que l’OTAN se développe en sens inverse – il essaie d’agir de plus en plus mondialement, mais il continue à penser localement…. Dès que l’OTAN commence à aller au-delà de ses frontières, ce n’est plus seulement une affaire interne pour l’OTAN.”

Il a également “accusé l’alliance de provoquer le conflit Géorgie-Russie en promettant une éventuelle adhésion à Tbilissi….” [10]

L’actuel vice-premier ministre et ancien ministre de la Défense russe Sergei Ivanov a parlé également à Munich et en ce qui concerne les pourparlers START en panne il a dit “Il est impossible de parler sérieusement de la réduction des capacités nucléaires lorsqu’une puissance nucléaire travaille à déployer des systèmes de protection contre les véhicules devant lancer des têtes nucléaires possédées par d’autres pays,” rappelant aux participants à la conférence que “La Russie a réduit unilatéralement ses arsenaux nucléaires tactiques de 75 % de ce qu’ils étaient au début des années 1990, mais les États-Unis y ont répondu avec une mesure similaire et ont même refusé de retirer leurs armes d’Europe.” [11]

Deux jours après la conférence de sécurité de Munich le secrétaire du Conseil de Sécurité de la Russie, Nikolaï Patrouchev, a réaffirmé les inquiétudes précédentes de Lavrov et de Kosachev, en déclarant indiquant “Nous doutons sérieusement [que la Russie sera plus sécurisée en raison de l’expansion de l’OTAN.] L’OTAN représente plutôt une grave menace pour nous.”

Une très importante agence de presse russe a écrit que “Patrouchev a critiqué l’OTAN pour ses efforts continus d’élargissement, y compris ses encouragements aux offres à la Géorgie et à l’Ukraine de se joindre à l’alliance.

“Il a reproché également à l’OTAN d’armer et de préparer la Géorgie pour une attaque contre l’Ossétie du Sud et l’Abkhazie et il a dit que les pays de l’OTAN continuaient de fournir de l’armement à Tbilissi malgré les protestations de la Russie.” [12]

Pour justifier ces préoccupations, la 10ème semaine annuelle de l’OTAN a commencé en Ukraine le 9 février et à la même date le gouvernement de la Géorgie “a approuvé le Programme National Annuel de coopération avec l’OTAN [PNA] pour 2010,” [13] une initiative lancée par l’OTAN, peu de temps après l’invasion par la Géorgie de l’Ossétie du Sud et de la guerre avec la Russie en août 2008.

Guerre dans les Balkans, guerre en Asie du Sud, guerre dans le Caucase. Voilà le modèle de que l’OTAN appelle à reproduire à l’échelle mondiale. Et comme le bloc se déplace encore vers l’est il apporte dans son sillage des troupes et des équipements militaires, des bases aériennes et navales et des installations de bouclier antimissile.

Le 9 février, le chef de l’état-major général des Forces Armées de Russie Nicolas Makarov a averti “Le développement et la mise en place du bouclier antimissile (des USA) est dirigé contre la Fédération de Russie.” [14]

Il a dit aussi “que les différences avec les États-Unis sur les plans d’un bouclier de défense antimissile étaient en train de bloquer un traité de réduction des armes nucléaires” entre Washington et Moscou, que “les différences avaient jusqu’à présent empêché la signature du traité sur les armes.” [15]

Se référant encore aux négociations START, il a déclaré ” Les plans de défense antimissile U.S. constituent une menace pour la sécurité nationale russe et ont ralenti la progression d’un nouveau traité sur le contrôle des armes avec Washington”

Selon les propres termes de Makarov, ” Le traité sur les armes stratégiques offensives sur lequel nous travaillons actuellement doit tenir compte du lien entre les armes stratégiques défensives et offensives. Ce lien est très étroit, elles sont absolument interdépendantes. Il serait faux ne pas prendre en compte la défense antimissile.” [16]

Au début de la semaine, le porte-parole du ministère russe des affaires étrangères Andrei Nesterenko a réitéré la demande de sa nation que les armes nucléaires tactiques U.S. soient retirées de l’Europe. Il a dit que le “retrait des armes tactiques américaines d’Europe vers les États-Unis serait le bienvenu. Il devrait être accompagné de la démolition complète et irréversible de l’ensemble des infrastructures prenant en charge le déploiement de telles armes en Europe,” et il a réaffirmé la position de sa nation selon laquelle “les armes nucléaires doivent être déployés uniquement sur le territoire des états possédant de telles armes.” [17]

Six jours après, pour ajouter au pressentiment de la Russie et pour démontrer la récalcitrante de l’Ouest sur la question, l’insupportable ex-secrétaire général de l’OTAN George Robertson a été cité dans la presse turque, reconnaissant que les États-Unis ont de 40 à 90 armes nucléaires sur la base aérienne d’Incirlik enTurquie. Lord Robertson a fait cette déclaration dans le contexte de la demande que les ogives U.S. restent en Allemagne. Il n’est bien entendu ni allemand, ni américain, mais c’est un ancien chef de l’OTAN et il se considère lui-même en droit de décider des questions d’une nature aussi grave.

Le 10 février un haut conseiller de la présidence polonaise, Wladyslaw Stasiak, était à Washington pour discuter du déploiement imminent de missiles anti-balistiques Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3). Il a rencontré les membres du. Conseil National de Sécurité U.S et des “experts de l’Heritage Foundation [[ Fondation du Patrimoine]] à tendance conservatrice et du Center for International and Strategic Studies.”

Par la suite, il a déclaré “Nous avons parlé de l’avenir de l’OTAN dans le contexte d’un nouveau concept stratégique, ainsi que de l’OTAN d’aujourd’hui, notamment en ce qui concerne l’article 5 et sa mise en œuvre pratique”, en se référant à la disposition d’intervention militaire de l’Alliance. [18]

Le même jour, un porte-parole du ministère des affaires étrangères ukrainien a exprimé des préoccupations à propos des déploiements de missiles U.S. dans sa nation sœur de la Mer Noire, la Roumanie. ” En tant que pays voisin de la Roumanie, nous ne pouvons accepter que les plans U.S. de déploiement de bouclier antimissile à proximité de notre frontière passent inaperçus, surtout dans la mesure où certains éléments sont censés être basés en Mer Noire.” [19]

Vladimir Voronin, Président jusqu’en septembre dernier de la Moldavie, limitrophe à la fois de la Roumanie et de l’Ukraine, a récemment averti que les déploiements de missiles US sur et au large de la côte de la Roumanie “peuvent transformer la Moldova voisine en une zone de front de première ligne” et que “la position de la Roumanie sur le bouclier antimissile U.S. et un soutien aussi ouvert de la part de la direction actuelle moldave pourraient avoir des conséquences désastreuses pour la sécurité dans la région.” [20]

En faisant cela, il faisait écho à l’ambassadeur russe à l’OTAN Dmitri Rogozine, qui disait deux jours avant “Les plans U.S. pour baser un système de défense antimissile en Europe sont un prétexte pour empiéter sur les frontières de la Russie” et “Les USA sont en train d’utiliser les actions de l’Iran pour mondialiser leur système de défense antimissile.” [21]

Quatre jours après ses précédents commentaires, Voronin pour la Moldavie déclarait que “le déploiement d’ ABM US en Roumanie est de ramener l’Europe à la «Guerre Froide» ” et qu’il “doute que les ABM US soient braqués contre les menaces de l’Iran.” [22]

Le Pentagone a ouvert une base radar de missiles dans le désert israélien du Néguev en 2008, dotée de plus de 100 personnels militaires, qui a une portée de 2 900 milles, presque trois fois la distance entre les capitales israélienne et iranienne. Le radar de bande X de la base avancée de Nevatim Air Base peut contrôler toute la partie orientale et une grande partie de la Russie du Sud.

Plus les États-Unis et leurs alliés de l’OTAN tempêteront contre les présumées menaces iraniennes, plus le cordon de missiles intercepteurs occidentaux sera assuré autour de la Russie.

Le 10 février la presse locale a écrit que “la République Tchèque est en discussion avec l’administration Obama pour accueillir un centre de commandement pour le plan de défense antimissile modifié des États-Unis.” [23]

Le jour suivant l’ambassadeur de Chine en Russie, Li Hui, a parlé avec l’une des principales agences de presse de son pays hôte et “a réaffirmé que Pékin est préoccupé par les plans [de bouclier antimissile U.S.] qui pourraient perturber l’équilibre stratégique et la stabilité actuels et intensifier les tensions” et, caractérisant correctement la véritable portée du projet missile intercepteur américain “il a dit que la création d’une défense antimissile mondiale minait les efforts internationaux pour arrêter la prolifération nucléaire.” [24]

Ses avertissements, comme ceux de la Russie, ont été entendus à Washington et parmi ses alliés de l’OTAN. Le 12 février la Pologne a approuvé un Accord sur l’Etat des Forces (ASOF) avec les États-Unis pour “100 soldats US devant être stationnés en Pologne, dans le cadre du bouclier, qui comprendra de missiles Patriot et SM-3.» [25] C’est peut-être la première confirmation que les intercepteurs Standard Missile-3 0 plus longue portée basés sur des navires (et/ou sur des adaptations basées à terre) seront déployés avec missiles Patriot Advanced capacité-3 près la frontière occidentale de la Russie.

Egalement le 12 février le premier ministre bulgare Boiko Borisov a révélé que les États-Unis tiendront des pourparlers avec son gouvernement pour placer des composants potentiels de missiles intercepteurs liés potentiellement à la première frappe dans cette nation de la Mer Noire. L’Ambassadeur américain James Warlick a confirmé que les discussions préliminaires ont déjà eu lieu. Le chef de l’Etat bulgare a expliqué la raison de sa volonté de prendre cette mesure risquée: «mon opinion est que nous avons à faire preuve de solidarité. Lorsque l’on est membre de l’OTAN, il faut travailler pour la sécurité collective.» [26]

Considérant tout ce qui précède, que le gouvernement russe ait autorisé l’ancienne secrétaire d’état des USA Madeleine Albright et sa coterie “Groupe d’Experts” / “Hommes Sages” pour promouvoir le nouveau concept stratégique de l’OTAN à un exposé à l’Institut des Relations Extérieures de Moscou le 11 février est une parodie, une abomination. Le seul lieu de rendez-vous que les autorités de la nation auraient du lui avoir accordé est une cellule de prison.

L’OTAN n’est pas le fournisseur de sécurité internationale auquel il tente maintenant de prétendre. Il n’est pas un partenaire de l’organisation des Nations Unies, qu’Il a éclipsé et rendu édenté et pathétique, ni d’aucune autre organisation internationale ou régionale. Il n’est pas le fondement d’une “alliance de démocraties” mondiale.

L’OTAN est un axe de combat meurtrier, sans loi, qui se réserve unilatéralement le droit de repéter son agression armée dans les Balkans et en Asie du Sud sur une échelle mondiale. C’est un affront et une menace pour l’humanité.
——————————–

1) Bloomberg News, February 4, 2010
2) With Nuclear, Conventional Arms Pacts Stalled, U.S. Moves Missiles And
Troops To Russian Border
Stop NATO, January 22, 2010
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/01/22/with-nuclear-conventional-arms-pacts-stalled-u-s-moves-missiles-and-troops-to-russian-border
3) Interfax, February 5, 2010
4) Ibid
5) Vladimir Radyuhin, New Russian doctrine sees NATO, U.S. as main threat
The Hindu, February 7, 2010
6) Xinhua News Agency, February 8, 2010
7) Financiarul, February 6, 2010
8) Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, February 8, 2010
http://www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/0/49F4C4EB6473C1E5C32576C500311EB4
9) NATO in the 21st Century: Towards Global Connectivity
Speech by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen at the Munich
Security Conference
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/opinions_61395.htm?selectedLocale=en
10) Reuters, February 7, 2010
11) Russian Information Agency Novosti, February 6, 2010
12) Russian Information Agency Novosti, February 9, 2010
13) Georgia Times, February 10, 2010
14) Reuters, February 9, 2010
15) Reuters, February 9, 2010
16) Associated Press, February 9, 2010
17) Itar-Tass, February 4, 2010
18) Polish Radio, February 10, 2010
19) RosBusinessConsulting, February 10, 2010
20) Russian Information Agency Novosti, February 7, 2010
21) Bloomberg News, February 5, 2010
22) Voice of Russia, February 11, 2010
23) Prague Post, February 10, 2010
24) Voice of Russia, February 11, 2010
25) Deutsche Presse-Agentur, February 12, 2010
26) Reuters, February 12, 2010

Stop NATO
February 12, 2010

NATO Expansion, Missile Deployments And Russia’s New Military Doctrine
Rick Rozoff

Developments related to military and security matters in Europe and Asia have been numerous this month and condensed into less than a week of meetings, statements and initiatives on issues ranging from missile shield deployments to the unparalleled escalation of the world’s largest war and from a new security system for Europe to a new Russian military doctrine.

A full generation after the end of the Cold War and almost that long since the breakup of the Soviet Union, the past week’s events are evocative of another decade and another century. Twenty or more years ago war in Afghanistan and controversial missile placements in Europe were current news in a bipolar world.

Twenty years afterward, with no Soviet Union, no Warsaw Pact and a greatly diminished and truncated Russia, the United States and NATO have militarized Europe to an unprecedented degree – in fact subordinating almost the entire continent under a Washington-dominated military bloc – and have launched the most extensive combat offensive in South Asia in what is already the longest war in the world.

Of 44 nations in Europe and the Caucasus (excluding microstates and the NATO pseudo-state of Kosovo), only six – Belarus, Cyprus, Malta, Moldova, Russia and Serbia – have escaped having their citizens conscripted by NATO for deployment to the Afghan war front. That number will soon shrink yet further.

Of those 44 countries, only two – Cyprus and Russia – are not members of NATO or its Partnership for Peace transitional program and Cyprus is under intense pressure to join the second.

On February 4 and 5 all 28 NATO defense chiefs met for two days of deliberations in Istanbul, Turkey which concentrated on the war in Afghanistan, the bloc’s military deployment in Kosovo and accelerated plans for expanding a world-wide interceptor missile system to Eastern Europe and the Middle East. That gathering followed by eight days a two-day meeting of the NATO Military Committee in Brussels which included 63 military chiefs from NATO nations and 35 Troop Contributing Nations, as the bloc designates them, including the top military commanders of Israel and Pakistan. That conference focused on the Afghan war and NATO’s new Strategic Concept to be officially formalized at an Alliance summit later this year.

The commander of all 150,000 U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, attended both two-day meetings. Pentagon chief Robert Gates presided over the second and “Afghanistan and missile defense are examples of the new priorities that Gates wants NATO to focus on.” [1]

As indicated by the number of Chiefs of Defense Staff in attendance at the Brussels meetings – 63 – NATO’s reach has been extended far beyond Europe and North America over the past decade. Troops serving under the bloc’s command in Afghanistan come from every inhabited continent, the Middle East and Oceania: Australia has the largest non-member contingent with over 1,500 soldiers, and other non-European nations like Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Colombia, Egypt, Georgia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates have troops in Afghanistan or on the way there.

On the day the Istanbul NATO defense ministers meeting began Romanian President Traian Basescu announced that he had granted the Obama administration’s request to base U.S. interceptor missiles in his nation, following by five weeks the news that U.S. Patriot anti-ballistic missiles would be stationed in a part of Poland a half hour drive from Russia’s westernmost border.

The next day, February 5, which marked two months since the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) between the U.S. and Russia regulating the reduction of nuclear weapons and delivery systems expired, [2] the Russian Interfax news agency announced that “President Dmitry Medvedev has endorsed Russia’s military doctrine and basic principles of its nuclear deterrence policy in the period up to 2020….” [3]

The same source cited Security Council Deputy Secretary and former Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces Yury Baluyevsky commenting on the new doctrine: “It is planned to develop the ground, sea, and aerial components of the nuclear triad….Russia needs to guarantee its consistent democratic development using such a stability guarantor as nuclear weapons, as a form of strategic deterrence….Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons only if its very existence as a state is endangered.” [4]

Commentary in the Indian daily The Hindu specified that “The doctrine details 11 external military threats to Russia, seven of which are traced to the West. NATO´s eastward expansion and its push for a global role are identified as the number one threat to Russia.”

The feature added: “The U.S. is the source of other top threats listed in the doctrine even though the country is never mentioned in the document. These include attempts to destabilise countries and regions and undermine strategic stability; military build-ups in neighbouring states and seas; the creation and deployment of strategic missile defences, as well as the militarisation of outer space and deployment of high-precision non-nuclear strategic systems.”

Regarding the timing of the authorization of Russia’s new military strategy, the report connected it with recent U.S. missile shield decisions and the START talks between Washington and Moscow still dragging on.

“The new defence doctrine was signed into law and published a day after Romania announced plans to deploy U.S. interceptor missiles as part of a global missile shield fiercely opposed by Russia. Earlier reports said the Kremlin had been holding back the doctrine, prepared last year, because it did not want to jeopardise talks with the U.S. on a new nuclear arms pact that are still going on.” [5]

A similar observation was made in a report from China’s Xinhua News Agency:

“Analysts say the Romanian decision came at a crucial moment when Washington and Moscow are about to sign a successor document to the expired Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START-1). Therefore, the move may upset the thawing Russia-U.S. relations and put their bilateral ties to test.” [6]

The new Russian Military Doctrine (in Russian at http://news.kremlin.ru/ref_notes/461) listed under the heading of “Main external threats of war” the following concerns, with the most pressing first:

– The goal of NATO to arrogate to itself the assumption of global functions in violation of international law, and to expand the military infrastructure of NATO nations to Russia’s borders including through expansion of the bloc

– Attempts to destabilize the situation in individual states and regions and the undermining of strategic stability

– The deployment of military contingents of foreign states (and blocs) on territories neighboring Russia and its allies, as well as in adjacent waters

– The establishment and deployment of strategic missile defense systems that undermine global stability and violate the balance of forces in the nuclear field, as well as the militarization of outer space and the deployment of strategic non-nuclear systems precision weapons

– Territorial claims against Russia and its allies and interference in their internal affairs

– The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, missiles and missile technology, increasing the number of states possessing nuclear weapons

– The violation by a state of international agreements, and failure to ratify and implement previously signed international treaties on arms limitation and reduction

– The use of military force in the territories of states bordering Russia in violation of the UN Charter and other norms of international law

– The escalation of armed conflicts on territories neighboring Russia and allied nations

At the 46th annual Munich Security Conference held on February 6 and 7 NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said “I have to say that this new doctrine does not reflect the real world,” though any impartial perusal of the above nine points it addresses would confirm that it portrays the world exactly as it is. Regrettably.

For example, after Romania’s president revealed that U.S. missiles would be deployed in the country, a statement by the nation’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said “Romania was and continues to be a consistent promoter in NATO of the project regarding the gradual-adaptive development of the anti-missile defence system in Europe….The decision to take part in the U.S. system is in full agreement with what the NATO summits in Bucharest in 2008 and in Strasbourg-Kehl in 2009 decided in this respect.” [7]

On the first day of the Munich Security Conference Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in his address that “With the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Treaty Organization a real opportunity emerged to make the OSCE [Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe] a full-fledged organization providing equal security for all states of the Euro-Atlantic area. However, this opportunity was missed, because the choice was made in favor of the policy of NATO expansion, which meant not only preserving the lines that separated Europe during the Cold War into zones with different levels of security, but also moving those lines eastward. The role of the OSCE was, in fact, reduced to servicing this policy by means of supervision over humanitarian issues in the post-Soviet space.”

He continued with a review of the failure of post-Cold War security measures in Europe:

“That the principle of indivisibility of security in the OSCE does not work doesn’t take long to prove. Let’s recall the bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999, when a group of OSCE countries, bound by this political declaration, committed aggression against another OSCE country, which was also covered by this principle.

“Everyone also remembers the tragedy of August 2008 in Transcaucasia, where a member country of the OSCE which is bound by various commitments in the sphere of nonuse of force used this force, including against peacekeepers of another member country of the OSCE, in violation not only of the Helsinki Final Act, but also of the concrete peacekeeping agreement devoted to the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict, which excludes use of force.” [8]

He was followed the next day by NATO chief Rasmussen, who not only failed to respond to the accusation that peace and security in Europe were endangered by his military organization’s relentless drive toward Russia’s borders, but advocated NATO involvement beyond the continent to encompass the world.

In claiming “that in an age of globalised insecurity, our territorial defence must begin beyond our borders,” Rasmussen urged “that NATO should become a forum for consultation on worldwide security issues.”

His address also included the demand to “take NATO’s transformation to a new level – by connecting the Alliance with the broader international system in entirely new ways.”

Russia cannot propose a common security system for Europe, but NATO can dictate an international one.

Rasmussen boasted that the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan “will further grow in strength this year, with more than 39,000 extra troops,” in the sanguinary killing field the West has created in the long-suffering country.

Not only did he not express a single reservation about a war that is now in its tenth calendar year and growing deadlier by the day, but he celebrated it as a model for the world: “Our Afghanistan experience…leads me to [another] point: the need to turn NATO into a forum for consultation on worldwide security issues….NATO is a framework which has already proven to be uniquely able to combine security consultation, military planning and actual operations for more than just NATO members themselves. Again, look at Afghanistan.” [9]

Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the Russian Duma’s International Affairs Committee, also spoke at the Munich Security Conference and said “I believe the problem of NATO today is that NATO develops in reverse order – it tries to act globally more and more but continues to think locally….As soon as NATO starts to reach beyond its borders this is no longer just an internal matter for NATO.”

He also “accused the alliance of provoking the Georgia-Russia conflict by promising Tbilisi eventual membership….” [10]

Current Russian deputy prime minister and former defense minister Sergei Ivanov spoke at Munich too and in regard to the stalled START talks said “It is impossible to talk seriously about the reduction of nuclear capabilities when a nuclear power is working to deploy protective systems against vehicles to deliver nuclear warheads possessed by other countries,” reminding conference participants that “Russia unilaterally cut its tactical nuclear arsenals by 75% in the early 1990s, but the United States did respond with a similar move and even failed to withdraw its weapons from Europe.” [11]

Two days after the Munich Security Conference the secretary of the Security Council of Russia, Nikolai Patrushev, reiterated Lavrov’s and Kosachev’s earlier concerns, stating “We have grave doubts [that Russia will be more secure due to NATO expansion.] NATO represents a rather serious threat to us.”

A major Russian news agency wrote that “Patrushev criticized NATO for its continued enlargement efforts, including its encouragement of Georgia’s and Ukraine’s bids to join the alliance.

“He also blamed NATO for arming and preparing Georgia for an attack on South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and said NATO countries continued to supply Tbilisi with weaponry despite Russia’s protests.” [12]

To substantiate those concerns, the 10th annual NATO Week began in Ukraine on February 9 and at the same time the government of Georgia “endorsed the Annual National Program of cooperation with NATO [ANP] for 2010,” [13] an initiative launched by NATO shortly after Georgia’s invasion of South Ossetia and war with Russia in August of 2008.

War in the Balkans, war in South Asia, war in the Caucasus. This is the model NATO calls for replicating on a world scale. And as the bloc moves further eastward it brings in his wake troops and military equipment, air and naval bases, and missile shield installations.

On February 9 Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia Nikolai Makarov warned “The development and establishment of the (U.S.) missile shield is directed against the Russian Federation.” [14]

He also said “that differences with the United States over plans for a missile defense shield were holding up a nuclear arms reduction treaty” between Washington and Moscow, that “the differences had so far prevented the signing of the arms treaty.” [15]

In further reference to the START negotiations, he stated “U.S. missile defense plans are a threat to Russian national security and have slowed down progress on a new arms control treaty with Washington.”

In Makarov’s own words, “The treaty on strategic offensive weapons we are currently working on must take into account the link between defensive and offensive strategic weapons. This link is very close, they are absolutely interdependent. It would be wrong not to take the missile defense into account.” [16]

Earlier in the week spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry Andrei Nesterenko reiterated his nation’s demand that U.S. tactical nuclear arms should be removed from Europe. He said that the “withdrawal of American tactical weapons from Europe back to the United States would be welcome. It should be accompanied by complete and irreversible demolition of the entire infrastructures supporting the deployment of such weapons in Europe,” and reaffirmed his nation’s position that “nuclear arms should be deployed only in the territory of the states possessing such weapons.” [17]

Six days afterward, to add to Russia’s foreboding and to demonstrate Western recalcitrance on the issue, the insufferable ex-NATO secretary general George Robertson was quoted in the Turkish press acknowledging that the U.S. has from 40 to 90 nuclear weapons at Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base. Lord Robertson made the statement in the context of demanding U.S. warheads remain in Germany. He is of course neither a German nor an American but is a former NATO chieftain and as such considers himself entitled to determine matters of this grave nature.

Also on February 10 a top Polish presidential aide, Wladyslaw Stasiak, was in Washington to discuss the imminent deployment of American Patriot Advanced Capability-3 theater anti-ballistic missiles. He met with members of the U.S. National Security Council and with “experts at the conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation and the Center for International and Strategic Studies.”

Afterward he stated “We talked about the future of NATO in the context of a new strategic concept, as well as present day NATO, especially concerning Article 5 and its practical implementation,” referring to the Alliance’s military intervention provision. [18]

On the same day a spokesman for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry expressed concerns over U.S. missiles being deployed in its fellow Black Sea nation Romania. “As a neighboring country with Romania, we cannot let U.S. plans for a missile shield deployment in close proximity to our border go unnoticed, especially since some elements are expected to be based in the Black Sea.” [19]

Vladimir Voronin, until last September president of Moldova, which borders both Romania and Ukraine, recently warned that U.S. missile deployments in and off the coast of Romania “could turn neighboring Moldova into a front-line area” and that “Romania’s position on the U.S. missile shield and also open support for it from the Moldovan current leadership could have disastrous consequences for security in the region.” [20]

In doing so he echoed Russian ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin who two days before said “U.S. plans to base a missile-defense system in eastern Europe are a pretext to encroach on Russia’s borders” and “The U.S. is using Iran’s actions to globalize its system of missile defense.” [21]

Four days after his previous comments, Moldova’s Voronin said that “The US ABM deployment in Romania is bringing Europe back to the ‘Cold War'” and that he “doubts that US ABMs are targeted against Iran’s threat only.” [22]

The Pentagon opened a missile radar base in Israel’s Negev Desert in 2008, manned by over 100 military personnel, which has a range of 2,900 miles, almost three times the distance between the Israeli and Iranian capitals. The forward-based X-band radar at the Nevatim Air Base can monitor all of eastern and much of southern Russia.

The more the U.S. and its NATO allies thunder against alleged Iranian threats, the tighter the Western interceptor missile cordon is secured around Russia.

On February 10 the local press wrote that “the Czech Republic is in discussions with the Obama administration to host a command center for the United States’ altered missile defense plan.” [23]

The following day the Chinese ambassador to Russia, Li Hui, spoke with one of his host country’s main news agencies and “reiterated Beijing’s concerns that [U.S. missile shield] plans might disturb the current strategic balance and stability and escalate tensions” and correctly characterizing the true scope of the American interceptor missile project “said the creation of a global missile defense undermined international efforts to bring nuclear proliferation to a halt.” [24]

His warnings, like those of Russia’s, went unheeded in Washington and among its NATO allies. On February 12 Poland approved a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the United States for “100 US soldiers to be stationed in Poland as part of the shield, which will include Patriot missiles and SM-3s.” [25] This may be the first confirmation that American ship-based (and/or land-based adaptations of) Standard Missile-3 longer-range interceptors will be deployed along with Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missiles near Russia’s western border.

Also on February 12 Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borisov revealed that the U.S. will hold talks with his government to station potential first strike-related interceptor missile components in the Black Sea nation. U.S. Ambassador James Warlick confirmed that preliminary discussions have already occurred. The Bulgarian head of state explained the rationale for his willingness to take the risky move: “My opinion is that we have to show solidarity. When you are a member of NATO, you have to work for the collective security.” [26]

Considering all of the above, that the Russian government permitted former U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright and her “Group of Experts”/”Wise Men” coterie to promote NATO’s new Strategic Concept at a talk at the Moscow State Institute of Foreign Relations on February 11 is a travesty, an abomination. The only venue the nation’s authorities should have accorded her is a jail cell.

NATO is not the international security provider it now attempts to pose as. It is not a partner to the United Nations, which it has overshadowed and rendered toothless and pathetic, or any other international or regional organization. It is not the foundation for a worldwide “alliance of democracies.”

NATO is a lethal, lawless warfighting axis which unilaterally reserves the right to repeat its armed aggression in the Balkans and South Asia on a global scale. It is an affront and a threat to humanity.

1) Bloomberg News, February 4, 2010
2) With Nuclear, Conventional Arms Pacts Stalled, U.S. Moves Missiles And
Troops To Russian Border
Stop NATO, January 22, 2010
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/01/22/with-nuclear-conventional-arms-pacts-stalled-u-s-moves-missiles-and-troops-to-russian-border
3) Interfax, February 5, 2010
4) Ibid
5) Vladimir Radyuhin, New Russian doctrine sees NATO, U.S. as main threat
The Hindu, February 7, 2010
6) Xinhua News Agency, February 8, 2010
7) Financiarul, February 6, 2010
8) Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, February 8, 2010
http://www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/0/49F4C4EB6473C1E5C32576C500311EB4
9) NATO in the 21st Century: Towards Global Connectivity
Speech by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen at the Munich
Security Conference
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/opinions_61395.htm?selectedLocale=en
10) Reuters, February 7, 2010
11) Russian Information Agency Novosti, February 6, 2010
12) Russian Information Agency Novosti, February 9, 2010
13) Georgia Times, February 10, 2010
14) Reuters, February 9, 2010
15) Reuters, February 9, 2010
16) Associated Press, February 9, 2010
17) Itar-Tass, February 4, 2010
18) Polish Radio, February 10, 2010
19) RosBusinessConsulting, February 10, 2010
20) Russian Information Agency Novosti, February 7, 2010
21) Bloomberg News, February 5, 2010
22) Voice of Russia, February 11, 2010
23) Prague Post, February 10, 2010
24) Voice of Russia, February 11, 2010
25) Deutsche Presse-Agentur, February 12, 2010
26) Reuters, February 12, 2010

Stop NATO
February 12, 2010

Crescono le tensioni militari tra USA e Cina
di Rick Rozoff

Traduzione dall’inglese per http://www.resistenze.org a cura del Centro di Cultura e Documentazione Popolare
http://www.resistenze.org/sito/os/dg/osdgab08-006308.htm

———-
Anche se il bilancio militare degli USA è quasi dieci volte quello della Cina (che ha una popolazione di oltre quattro volte più grande) e Washington prevede un bilancio per la difesa di 708 miliardi di dollari per il prossimo anno, rispetto ai 40 miliardi di dollari spesi dalla Russia l’anno passato, la Cina e la Russia sono percepite come minacce per gli Stati Uniti e i suoi alleati. La Cina non ha truppe al di fuori dei suoi confini, la Russia ha qualche squadra nei suoi ex territori in Abkhazia, Armenia, Ossezia del Sud e Transnistria; gli Stati Uniti invece hanno centinaia di migliaia di soldati di stanza in sei continenti. Gates [Segretario alla Difesa nell’amministrazione Bush e in quella Obama, ndt], incaricato delle guerre in Afghanistan e in Iraq e responsabile di quasi metà della spesa militare internazionale si risente che la nazione più popolosa al mondo non voglia “essere minacciata dagli altri paesi”.
———-

Il 23 dicembre dello scorso anno la Raytheon Company [industria di armi e “sistemi integrati per la difesa”, ndt] ha annunciato di aver ricevuto da Taiwan un contratto di 1,1 miliardi di dollari per l’acquisto di 200 antimissili balistici Patriot. Ai primi di gennaio il Dipartimento della Difesa degli Stati Uniti ha autorizzato l’operazione, “nonostante l’opposizione della rivale Cina, che ha minacciato sanzioni alle imprese statunitensi che vendono armi all’isola”. [1]
La vendita completa una più ampia fornitura di armi del valore di 6,5 miliardi di dollari approvata dalla precedente amministrazione Bush sul finire del 2008: “Ultima consegna di cui Taiwan era in attesa”, stando alle parole del presidente di Asia Defense News. [2]

L’agenzia Defence News che per prima ha riportato la notizia, ricorda ai suoi lettori che la “Raytheon ha già vinto contratti più piccoli a Taiwan nel 2008 e nel gennaio 2009 per aggiornare i sistemi Patriot che il paese già possiede. I contratti prevedono l’upgrade dei sistemi alla Configurazione 3, la stessa che la società sta completando per l’esercito statunitense.”

La fonte descrive anche in cosa consiste la miglioria apportata ai Patriot: “La Configurazione 3 è il sistema antimissilistico più avanzato della Raytheon e permette l’uso di missili PAC-3 (Lockheed Martin’s Patriot Advanced Capability-3) [e] di intercettori Raytheon GEM-T (Guidance Enhanced Missile-Tactical) [Patriot-2]…” [3].

PAC-3 è l’ultimo e più sofisticato sistema di missili Patriot e il primo in grado di abbattere missili balistici tattici. Rappresenta il livello iniziale di uno scudo missilistico a più livelli, che comprende tutta una serie di apparati: Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), Ground Based Interceptor (GBI), Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD), Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (ABMD) navali ed equipaggiati con intercettori Standard Missile-3 (SM-3), Forward Based X-Band Radar (FBXB) e componenti Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV). Una rete integrata che va dal campo di battaglia sul terreno ai cieli.

Il sistema è modulare e facilmente trasportabile e le sue batterie sono quindi più in grado di eludere i rilevamenti e attaccare. Si amplia di molto anche la portata rispetto alle precedenti versioni di Patriot.

“Gli intercettori PAC-3, attraverso radar avanzati e un centro di comando, sono in grado di proteggere una superficie di circa sette volte maggiore rispetto al sistema Patriot originale”. [4]

Se con l’avvento della nuova amministrazione statunitense di un anno fa, le autorità cinesi, come il resto del mondo, prevedevano una riduzione o l’arresto dei ritmi di espansione militare di Washington a livello mondiale, sono state bruscamente disilluse.

Il vice ministro degli Esteri cinese He Yafei all’inizio dell’anno ha ammonito, per la sesta volta in una settimana, gli Stati Uniti a riconsiderare la fornitura di armi a Taiwan riferendo all’Agenzia di notizie nazionale, Xinhua: “la Cina ha protestato con forza contro la recente decisione del governo degli Stati Uniti di consentire a Raytheon Company e Lockheed Martin Corp. di vendere armi a Taiwan … La vendita di armi Usa a Taiwan mina la sicurezza nazionale della Cina”. [5]

Le ire cinesi si sono accresciute quando al repertorio di informazioni si è aggiunta la notizia che “l’Amministrazione Obama avrebbe presto annunciato la vendita a Taiwan di una fornitura di armi del valore di qualche miliardo di dollari USA che comprenderebbe elicotteri Black Hawk, sistemi anti-missile e progetti per sottomarini a propulsione diesel – in una mossa per irritare la Cina”. [6]

In aggiunta, il China Times ha riferito che Taiwan stava acquisendo otto fregate di seconda mano della classe Oliver Hazard Perry dagli Stati Uniti, oltre ai 200 missili Patriot. Le navi da guerra sono state progettate nel 1970 come alternativa relativamente a basso costo delle cacciatorpediniere della Seconda Guerra Mondiale. Il nuovo accordo raddoppierà il numero di fregate a disposizione di Taiwan, portandole a 16. Le fregate rappresentano anche un fattore di accrescimento della difesa missilistica, poiché “L’isola spera di armarle con una versione avanzata del sistema AEGIS, che usa computer e radar per colpire obiettivi multipli, oltre a sofisticate tecnologie missilistiche di lancio ….” [7]

Mentre Washington e Taipei presentano la transazione di armi come di natura strettamente difensiva, è opportuno ricordare che lo scorso autunno Taiwan ha condotto il suo “più grande test missilistico … da una base segreta e ben custodita nel sud di Taiwan”, con missili “in grado di raggiungere le maggiori città cinesi”. [8]

Il Presidente taiwanese Ma Ying-jeou ha assistito al lancio dei missili i quali “includevano il test di fuoco di un missile terra-terra top secret di recente sviluppo, a medio raggio, con una portata di 3.000 Km in grado di colpire le città più importanti della Cina centrale, settentrionale e meridionale”. [9]

I sistemi PAC-3 e SM-3 che gli Stati Uniti stanno fornendo a Taiwan potrebbero essere impiegati per contrastare un contrattacco cinese o per lo meno proteggere i siti di lancio dei missili a medio raggio di Taiwan, che, come osservato in precedenza, sono in grado di colpire la maggior parte delle principale città della Cina.

Pechino ha risposto l’11 gennaio conducendo un test missilistico con un intercettore Ground-based Midcourse [fase centrale del Ballistic Missile Defense, insieme a Boost Defense e Terminal Defense, NdT] sul proprio territorio.

Il professor Tan Kaijia dell’Università della Difesa Nazionale dell’Esercito Popolare di Liberazione ha detto a Xinhua: “Se il missile balistico è considerato come una lancia, ora siamo riusciti a costruire uno scudo per l’autodifesa”. [10]

Time Magazine ha evidenziato il portato del test scrivendo: “Non c’è alcuna possibilità che la mossa della Cina dissuada gli Stati Uniti dal supportare Taiwan …. Ma il test rappresenta il segnale di tensioni stridenti tra Pechino e Washington ….” [11]

Sia la Cina e che gli Stati Uniti, nel 2007 e poi l’anno successivo, con uno Standard Missile-3 lanciato da una fregata classe AEGIS dall’Oceano Pacifico, nel caso statunitense, hanno distrutto satelliti in orbita. L’alba della guerra spaziale era cominciata.

Il 15 gennaio un editoriale su un sito web russo intitolato “Possibili guerre spaziali in un prossimo futuro” fornisce un quadro di riferimento: “È difficile sopravvalutare il ruolo svolto dai sistemi satellitari militari. Sin dal 1970, un numero sempre maggiore di processi, dal controllo truppe alle telecomunicazioni, dall’acquisizione di bersagli alla navigazione dipendono da veicoli spaziali che sono quindi sempre più importanti… Il ruolo dello spazio è direttamente proporzionale al livello di sviluppo di una determinata nazione e dalle sue forze armate” [12].

Cina e Russia da anni chiedono il divieto di utilizzo dello spazio per scopi militari, sollevando annualmente la questione in seno alle Nazioni Unite, a cui però gli Stati Uniti oppongono un fermo diniego.

Per comprendere il contesto in cui i recenti sviluppi hanno avuto luogo, occorre sapere che Washington da tre anni e con sempre maggior determinazione ha incluso Cina e Russia con Iran e Corea del Nord tra i paesi belligeranti in potenziali conflitti futuri.

La campagna è iniziata nel febbraio del 2007 quando l’allora e attuale capo del Pentagono Robert Gates in occasione della definizione del bilancio per la Difesa nell’anno fiscale 2008 ha avanzato una richiesta sostenendo tra l’altro:

“Oltre alla lotta contro la guerra globale al terrore, dobbiamo anche affrontare il pericolo rappresentato dall’Iran e dalle ambizioni nucleari della Corea del Nord e la minaccia che questi due paesi rappresentano non solo per i loro vicini ma a livello mondiale per via del loro record di proliferazione; i percorsi incerti della Cina e della Russia, che perseguono entrambe sofisticati programmi di modernizzazione militare, e una serie di altri focolai di crisi e sfide…. Abbiamo bisogno delle capacità per regolare conflitti tra forze equivalenti perché non sappiamo cosa si sta sviluppando in posti come Russia, Cina, Corea del Nord, Iran e altrove”. [13]

Se può essere obiettato che Gates stava solo alludendo a piani di emergenza generale, che potrebbero applicarsi a qualsiasi tra le principali nazioni, né le sue osservazioni né quelle di altri funzionari della difesa degli Stati Uniti hanno citato, in tono simile, le potenze nucleari amiche – Gran Bretagna, Francia, India e Israele – ma invece hanno ribadito la preoccupazione per la Russia e la Cina con una insistenza allarmante. In realtà la Cina e la Russia hanno sostituito l’Iraq nella categoria “asse del male”.

Sia la Russia che la Cina hanno reagito duramente alle dichiarazioni Gates del febbraio 2007 e solo tre giorni più tardi, alla conferenza annuale sulla sicurezza di Monaco di Baviera con Gates tra il pubblico, il presidente russo Vladimir Putin ha pronunciato un discorso in cui ha avvertito:

“Cos’è un mondo unipolare? Comunque si provi ad addolcire la pillola, ci si riferisce a un situazione specifica in cui esiste una sola autorità, un solo centro di forza, un unico centro decisionale.

“È un mondo in cui c’è un padrone, un sovrano. E alla fine ciò risulta pericoloso, non solo per tutti coloro che sono all’interno del sistema, ma per il sovrano stesso, che si distrugge dall’interno”.

“Azioni unilaterali e spesso illegittime non risolvono i problemi, anzi spesso sono causa di nuove tragedie umane e nuovi focolai di tensione. Giudicate voi stessi: i conflitti locali e regionali non sono diminuiti…. E non sono meno le persone che periscono in questi conflitti, anzi: muoiono sempre più persone. Molte di più, significativamente di più!

“Oggi stiamo assistendo ad un uso quasi incontenibile e ipertrofico della forza – forza militare – nelle relazioni internazionali, forza che sta gettando il mondo in un abisso di conflitti permanenti.

“Uno Stato, gli Stati Uniti, ha oltrepassato i suoi confini nazionali in ogni modo. Questo è visibile in campo economico, politico, culturale ed educativo nelle politiche che esso impone alle altre nazioni….” [14]

L’avvertimento non è stato ascoltato a Washington.

Tre mesi più tardi il capo del Pentagono ha reiterato le accuse. Nel maggio del 2007 il Dipartimento della Difesa ha pubblicato la sua relazione annuale sulla capacità militare della Cina, citando “gli sforzi per proiettare la potenza cinese al di là del suo territorio immediato e per sviluppare sistemi ad alta tecnologia in grado di sfidare i migliori al mondo”.

“Il Segretario alla Difesa Usa Robert Gates ha detto che gli sforzi della Cina lo inducono a preoccuparsi.”

Il rapporto afferma che “la Cina sta portando avanti un progetto a lungo termine di trasformazione completa delle sue forze armate” per “poter proiettare la propria potenza all’esterno e rendere inoffensive le minacce” [15]. Gates, incaricato delle guerre in Afghanistan e in Iraq e responsabile di quasi metà della spesa militare internazionale si risentiva che la nazione più popolosa al mondo non volesse “essere minacciata dagli altri paesi”.

Un anno dopo che Gates associava Cina e Russia con i superstiti dell’asse del male, Iran e Corea del Nord, il Direttore Nazionale dell’intelligence USA Michael McConnell individuava nella Cina, nella Russia e nell’Organizzazione dei Paesi Esportatori di Petrolio (OPEC), le principali minacce per gli Stati Uniti, ancor più che al-Qaeda.

Voice of Russia ha risposto a tali accuse, sostenendo tra l’altro:

“La Russia ha chiesto spiegazioni agli USA circa il rapporto del Direttore dell’intelligence nazionale statunitense, in cui Russia, Cina, Iraq, Iran, Corea del Nord e al-Qaida sono descritte come fonti di minaccia strategica per gli Stati Uniti … E’ possibile che la relazione della comunità di intelligence degli Stati Uniti debba giustificare l’impressionante quantità di denaro che viene speso ogni anno per la sua attività. Molto probabilmente Ci devono essere altre ragioni per spiegare perché la Russia è stata inclusa tra gli Stati che costituiscono una minaccia per l’America” [16].

Gates è rimasto nella carica di ministro della Difesa nella nuova amministrazione statunitense e così la retorica anticinese e antirussa.

Il 1° maggio dello scorso anno il Segretario di Stato Hillary Clinton ha detto che “L’amministrazione Obama sta lavorando per migliorare le cattive relazioni degli Stati Uniti con una serie di nazioni latino-americane per contrastare la crescente influenza iraniana, cinese e russa nell’emisfero occidentale….” [17]. Il mese dopo aver pronunciato quelle parole un colpo di Stato militare è stato organizzato in Honduras e due settimane dopo gli Stati Uniti si sono assicurate l’utilizzo di sette basi militari in Colombia.

A settembre il Direttore della National Intelligence Dennis Blair, nella relazione quadriennale sulla strategia nazionale USA ha detto che “la Russia, la Cina, l’Iran e la Corea del Nord rappresentano le maggiori sfide agli interessi nazionali degli Stati Uniti” [18].

Agence France-Presse riprendendo il rapporto ha reso noto che “Gli Stati Uniti mettono l’emergente superpotenza cinese e l’ex nemico russo della guerra fredda a fianco dell’Iran e della Corea del Nord nella lista dei quattro principali paesi in contrasto con gli interessi statunitensi” e, citando la relazione Blair aggiunge: La Cina è stata additata per “la sua diplomazia orientata in modo crescente alle risorse naturali e la modernizzazione militare” e “La Russia che è un partner degli Stati Uniti in iniziative importanti – come la produzione di materiale fissile e la lotta contro il terrorismo nucleare – continua a cercare strade per riaffermare il suo potere e la sua influenza, in un modo che ostacola gli interessi degli Stati Uniti.” [19]

La Cina non è autorizzata a neutralizzare le altre nazioni da eventuali minacce e alla Russia non è consentito di intralciare gli interessi degli Stati Uniti.

La tendenza, inquietante nella sua inesorabilità, prosegue nell’anno in corso.

Il vice presidente di Lockheed Martin, John Holly, ha decantato il ruolo della sua azienda nella produzione del Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System – componenti che vengono consegnati a Taiwan – come “fiore all’occhiello” del catalogo di missili intercettori Lockheed, e secondo un quotidiano della città che ospita l’Agenzia per la difesa missilistica del Pentagono “riferendosi ai programmi missilistici di Corea del Nord, Iran, Russia e Cina”, Holly ha detto che “il mondo non è un posto molto sicuro … spetta a noi del settore fornire [al Pentagono] le migliori funzionalità” [20].

Tre giorni dopo, Wallace Gregson Assistente Segretario alla Difesa del Pentagono per la sicurezza dell’Asia e del Pacifico “ha espresso dubbi circa l’insistenza della Cina rispetto l’uso pacifico dello spazio”, e ha commentato: “I cinesi hanno dichiarato di opporsi alla militarizzazione dello spazio. Le loro azioni sembrano indicare la volontà contraria.” [21]

Il giorno dopo l’ammiraglio Robert Willard, capo del Commando Pacifico USA, ha dichiarato in una testimonianza davanti al Comitato dei Servizi Armati che il “potente motore economico cinese sta finanziando un programma di modernizzazione dell’apparato militare che ha destato apprensione nella regione, una preoccupazione condivisa anche dal US Pacific Command”. [22]

La marina statunitense ha sei flotte e undici portaerei disponibili per essere dispiegate in qualsiasi parte del mondo, ma la Cina con la sola marina di tipo “brown water” navy [flotta di navi militari idonee ad operare in acque fluviali o litoranee da considerarsi potenzialmente subordinata ad una “blu water” navy, che opera in larga autonomia, wikipedia] al largo delle sue coste è motivo di preoccupazione per gli Stati Uniti.

Alan Mackinnon, il presidente della campagna scozzese per il disarmo nucleare, scriveva lo scorso settembre:

“Il panorama bellico mondiale è oggi dominato da un’unica superpotenza. In termini militari gli Stati Uniti siedono a cavalcioni del mondo come un gigante colossale. Un paese che rappresenta solo il cinque per cento della popolazione mondiale vanta il 50 per cento della spesa mondiale di armi.

“Le sue 11 flotte navali pattugliano ciascun oceano e le sue 909 basi militari sono sparse strategicamente in ogni continente. Nessun altro paese ha basi equivalenti sul territorio degli Stati Uniti – sarebbe impensabile e incostituzionale. Sono trascorsi 20 anni dalla fine della guerra fredda e gli Stati Uniti e i suoi alleati non devono fronteggiare alcuna significativa minaccia militare oggi. Perché allora non abbiamo avuto la pace sperata? Perché la nazione più potente del mondo continua ad aumentare il proprio bilancio militare, che oggi supera più di 1.200 miliardi di dollari all’anno in termini reali? Quale minaccia è dovrebbe contrastare?

“La risposta statunitense è stata in gran parte militare e ha concretizzato l’espansione della NATO e l’accerchiamento di Russia e Cina in una morsa di basi e alleanze ostili, mentre continua la pressione per isolare e indebolire l’Iran.” [23]

Osservazioni queste da tenere a mente quando la Cina viene presentata con insistenza come una minaccia strategica alla sicurezza e al controllo esclusivo del mondo da parte di una sola superpotenza militare.

1) Reuters, January 7, 2010
2) Ibid
3) Defense News, December 23, 2009
4) http://www.missilethreat.com/missiledefensesystems/id.41/ system_detail.asp
5) Russian Information Agency Novosti, January 9, 2010
6) Taiwan News, January 4, 2010
7) Agence France-Presse, January 11, 2010
8) Radio Taiwan International, October 14, 2009
9) Deutsche Presse-Agentur, October 14, 2009
10) Asian Times, January 20, 2010
11) Time, January 13, 2010
12) Russian Information Agency Novosti, January 15, 2010
13) http://www.sras.org/news2.phtml?m=908
14) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/12/ AR2007021200555.html
15) Voice of America News, May 26, 2007
16) Voice of Russia, February 8, 2008
17) Associated Press, May 1, 2009
18) Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, September 16, 2009
19) Agence France-Presse, September 15, 2009
20) Huntsville Times, January 10, 2010
21) Agence France-Presse, January 13, 2010
22) Washington Post, January 14, 2010
23) Scottish Left Review, November 17, 2009

Stop NATO
February 10, 2010

NATO’s Role In The Military Encirclement Of Iran
Rick Rozoff

Following on the heels of identifying himself as the “Commander-in-Chief of a nation in the midst of two wars” and moreover the head of state of no less than “the world’s sole military superpower” [1] while being presented with what is still curiously called the Nobel Peace Prize, U.S. President Barack Obama in his first State of the Union address on January 27 asserted “the international community is more united, and the Islamic Republic of Iran is more isolated” and threatened: “As Iran’s leaders continue to ignore their obligations, there should be no doubt: They…will face growing consequences. That is a promise.”

Two days later his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, delivered an address at a major French military academy, revealingly enough, and while there she coupled excoriation of Iran with an anything but diplomatic dressing down of China, stating “China will be under a lot of pressure to recognize the destabilizing impact that a nuclear-armed Iran would have in the [Persian] Gulf….” [2]

Pressure from Washington, of course. On the very day of Clinton’s speech in Paris the White House confirmed the completion of a $6.4 billion weapons transfer to Taiwan.

On February 9 U.S. Department of Defense spokesman Geoff Morrell told the press that his boss, Pentagon chief Robert Gates, wants the United Nations to impose sanctions on Iran within “weeks, not months” and “clearly thinks time is of the essence.” [3]

During the First World War Austrian journalist and dramatist Karl Kraus lamented: “What mythological confusion is this? Since when has Mars been the god of commerce and Mercury the god of war?”

If he were alive today he would be equally bemused by the U.S.’s top diplomat delivering an address at a military academy (and condescendingly admonishing the world’s most populous nation) and its defense chief pressuring the world to impose punitive sanctions against a country that has not attacked any other in centuries.

The secretary general of the U.S.-led “world’s sole global military bloc” – Anders Fogh Rasmussen – spoke at the annual Munich Security Conference on February 7, delivering himself of a ponderous and grandiose screed entitled NATO in the 21st Century: Towards Global Connectivity, during which he touted the role of the military bloc in intruding itself into almost every interstice imaginable: The ever-expanding war in Afghanistan, terrorism, cyber attacks, energy cut-offs – the last two references to Russia if not formally acknowledged as such – nuclear non-proliferation, climate change, piracy, failed states, drugs, “humanitarian disasters, conflicts over arable land, and mounting competition for natural resources,” [4] North Korea and Iran.

In repeating Alliance and other Western leaders’ demands that “NATO should become a forum for consultation on worldwide security issues,” Rasmussen stated that “to carry out NATO’s job effectively today, the Alliance should become the hub of a network of security partnerships and a centre for consultation on international security issues….And we don’t have to start from scratch. Already today, the Alliance has a vast network of security partnership[s], as far afield as Northern Africa, the Gulf, Central Asia, and the Pacific.” [5]

Indeed NATO has a broad and expanding network of members and military partners throughout the world. It has one member, Turkey, the second largest contributor of troops to the bloc, which borders Iran, and a partnership ally, Azerbaijan, which does also.

Rasmussen’s allusion to the Persian Gulf refers to increasing military contacts, visits and joint activities between NATO and the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which parallel the intensification of the U.S. buildup in the region [6] and is conducted within the framework of the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI) launched in 2004. [7]

The project received the name it did as it was inaugurated at the NATO summit in Istanbul which, after almost completing the absorption of all of Eastern Europe into the bloc, introduced the same graduated partnership process used earlier to incorporate ten new European members for the seven Mediterranean Dialogue nations in the Middle East and Africa (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia) and six states in the Persian Gulf (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates). All thirteen are covered under the ICI, but extending NATO military partnerships to six Persian Gulf nations for the first time was the most ambitious and significant aspect of the program.

It marked the commencement of NATO’s drive into the Gulf to complement the U.S. strategy of containing and eventually confronting Iran.

One of the stated objectives of the ICI was to “invite interested countries…to join Operation Active Endeavour (OAE),” [8] the NATO naval surveillance and interdiction operation (a de facto blockade) throughout the Mediterranean Sea which will be nine years old this October. The Istanbul Cooperation Initiative links control of the Mediterranean with expansion through the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, where the NATO Ocean Shield naval operation is currently being run, and the Arabian Sea into the Persian Gulf.

An earlier article in this series listed the main objectives of the ICI:

-Employing GCC states to base troops, warplanes, cargo and surveillance for operations both in the area and throughout the so-called Broader Middle East.

-[I]ncorporating the Gulf states into a global missile surveillance and missile shield program.

-Bringing the GCC nations not only under the U.S.’s missile and nuclear umbrella, but effectively under NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense provision, the latter entailing the possibility of claiming that one or more GCC members is threatened by a non-member (that is, Iran) and using that as a pretext for “preemptive” attacks.

-Reprising NATO’s Operation Active Endeavor in the Gulf by inaugurating a comprehensive naval interdiction – that is, blockade – in the Strait of Hormuz where an estimated 40-50% of world interstate oil transportation occurs. [9]

In 2006 NATO signed both military intelligence and transit agreements with Kuwait and initiated a new faculty for the Middle East at the NATO Defense College in Rome. NATO held a conference on the ICI in Kuwait in December attended by all six Gulf Cooperation Council states.

The next year four of the six GCC members – Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates – formally joined the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative.

NATO’s penetration of the Gulf continued steadily and in May of 2009 Admiral Luciano Zappata of the Italian Navy and NATO’s Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (based in Norfolk, Virginia), while speaking of the new NATO Strategic Concept currently in progress, praised the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative as a “successful example” of the new model of “partnership and cooperation” the Alliance plans for most of the world.

What Zappata had in mind – the Iranian pretext for Western military expansion into the Persian Gulf for once wasn’t evoked to hide NATO’s real interests – was detailed in discussion of what was described as the “maritime dimension of the new strategy.”

He said that “the network of ports, infrastructure and pipelines as well as vessels sailing along sea lines of communication supports trade and is vulnerable to disruption.

“With the beginning of the exploitation of the resources at the bottom of oceans, there is a shift in security and strategic focus.”

The admiral added that the United Arab Emirates are “a significant trading partner and energy supplier in the global economy. The new French military base opening at Port Zayed will be an important addition to the increasing international efforts in support of maritime security.” [10]

On the same day as the above report appeared, May 26, 2009, French President Nicolas Sarkozy was in the United Arab Emirates to open a new military base, his nation’s first in the Persian Gulf and the first major foreign base in the UAE. The French facility in Port Zayed, on the coast of the Strait of Hormuz, “contains a navy and air force base and a training camp.” [11]

“The base will host 500 personnel from the French navy, the army, and the air force. It will be able to simultaneously accommodate two frigates of the French fleet operating in the region….[T]he French base is the first of its kind in the Arabian [Persian] Gulf.”

A Gulf analyst was quoted on the occasion saying, “The US has a number of military, air and maritime bases in Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain. The Abu Dhabi French Maritime Base is the first foreign military base for a friendly army in the UAE.” [12]

“For France, the military base certainly improves its status within NATO as well as with the US as it would become the only NATO member other than the US that is stationed in the Gulf.” [13]

The following month Sarkozy pushed a deal with the UAE for the purchase of 60 Rafale fighter jets at a cost of $8-11 million.

The previous year France led war games in the UAE, the 12-day Gulf Shield 01, with military counterparts from the host country and Qatar. 4,000 troops participated in the exercises, which “simulated a war pitting two regional countries and their ally against a neighbouring state which has invaded one of the two countries.” [14]

In late October of 2009 a two-day conference called NATO-UAE Relations and the Way Forward in the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative was held in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. It gathered “together 300 participants, including the Secretary General of NATO, NATO Permanent Representatives on the North Atlantic Council, the Deputy Secretary General of NATO, the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee and high level NATO officials with government representatives, opinion leaders, academics and senior scholars from countries in the Gulf region invited in the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative.” [15]

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told an Al Arabiya correspondent that “NATO considers the Gulf region a continuation of the Euro Atlantic security area,” and in reference to Iran – which of course was not invited to the conference – “we all are seriously concerned about nuclear ambitions and about the nuclear domino-effect they could cause in a region that is pivotal for global stability and security.” [16]

In recent weeks the United States announced the sale of land-based interceptor missiles to Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. It has supplied both Patriot Advanced Capability-3 and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile systems to GCC states and has deployed sea-based Standard Missile-3 interceptors in the Gulf on Aegis class warships.

In early February the deputy secretary general of NATO, Claudio Bisogniero, was in Qatar and, “Lauding the support extended by Qatar to Nato since the Istanbul Initiative in 2004,” said “Qatar has become an active participant in most deliberations held under the aegis of Nato….” [17]

GCC states being integrated into international NATO operations are being recruited for the war in Afghanistan. A U.S. armed forces publication disclosed in late January that 125 security personnel from Bahrain were guarding “the headquarters for U.S. military operations in volatile Helmand province, where more than 10,000 Marines are stationed and more are on the way.” [18] The U.S. and NATO are launching the biggest and bloodiest battle of the more than eight-year war in Afghanistan in Helmand.

Troops from the UAE have been serving under NATO command in Afghanistan for years.

The Kuwait News Agency wrote on January 28 that the chairman of NATO’s Military Committee, Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola, said “the Alliance is in discussion with a Gulf state to deploy AWACS planes for reconnaissance mission[s] over Afghanistan in support of its ISAF mission and also for anti-piracy off Somalia.”

In addition, Di Paola was quoted saying “The Alliance is close to closing the basic issue with one of the Gulf countries” and “We are looking forward to be in a position to follow on the temporary deployment that we have today in Oman with a more permanent long-term deployment.” [19] Oman directly overlooks Iran on the Strait of Hormuz.

The true military powerhouse in the Gulf region, Saudi Arabia – armed to the teeth with advanced U.S. weapons – has been engaged in its first-ever war since last November. Riyadh has launched regular attacks with infantry, armor and warplanes in the north of neighboring Yemen against Houthi rebels. Hundreds of Yemeni civilians have been reported killed in the assaults, which rebel spokesmen claim have been accompanied by U.S. air strikes. [20] 200,000 civilians have been uprooted and displaced by fighting in the north since 2004.

The Saudi government acknowledges over 500 military casualties, both dead and wounded.

The population of northern Yemen is Shia in terms of religious conviction, and the Saudi offensive is not only fraught with the danger of being converted into a war with Iran once removed but in fact can serve as a rehearsal – and training – for the genuine article.

In other countries bordering Iran, last July NATO Deputy Secretary General Claudio Bisogniero signed an agreement with the Iraqi Minister of Defense to train the nation’s security forces. The NATO website reported: “This agreement represents a milestone in the cooperation between the Republic of Iraq and NATO and demonstrates the Alliance’s strong commitment….The agreement will provide the legal basis for NATO to continue with its mission to assist the Government of the Republic of Iraq in developing further the capabilities of the Iraqi Security Forces.” [21]

Last month NATO started recruiting ethnic Kurds for Iraq’s national security force in the north of the country near the Iranian border.

On Iran’s western border, during meetings of NATO defense ministers in Turkey late last week Pentagon chief Robert Gates met with Chief of Turkish General Staff General Ilker Basbug and Gates said that he had “discussed, with General Basbug, Turkey’s role in the missile defense system and relations between our armies.” [22]

Former NATO secretary general George Robertson, arguing that U.S. nuclear warheads should be kept in Germany, recently divulged that there are between 40 and 90 American nuclear weapons stored at Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base under NATO arrangements.

To Iran’s northwest, Azerbaijan is increasingly being developed as a NATO outpost in the South Caucasus and the Caspian Sea Basin. Early this month “A working group of the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry and the United States European Command (USEUCOM) held a meeting in Stuttgart, Germany….The meeting [was] held within the framework of the Azerbaijan-US action plan for military cooperation” and lasted five days. [23]

The country has been granted a NATO Individual Partnership Action Plan as have other former Soviet states like Georgia, Ukraine and lately Moldova. In January Azerbaijan hosted a planning conference for the NATO Regional Response 2010 military exercise. Last year “the Regional Response 2009 military training was held within the NATO’s Partnership for Peace (PfP) programme in April 2009 in Baku.

“Commander of US Land Forces in Europe Carter Ham participated in the training.” [24]

Azerbaijan has doubled its troop strength in Afghanistan and will train Afghan National Army personnel at its military schools. The nation’s Foreign Ministry recently announced that Azerbaijan is interested in joining the NATO Response Force along with Ukraine, regarding which the Alliance provides this description:

“The NATO Response Force (NRF) is a highly ready and technologically advanced force made up of land, air, sea and special forces components that the Alliance can deploy quickly wherever needed.

“It is capable of performing missions worldwide across the whole spectrum of operations….” [25]

In late January a former Azeri presidential adviser, Vafa Guluzade, spoke at a seminar called NATO-Azerbaijan Cooperation: A Civilian View and said, “The territory and people of Azerbaijan are ideal for military cooperation with NATO. The country has a favourable geostrategic location….Azerbaijan has military aerodromes suitable for NATO bases.” [26]

To Iran’s east, the U.S. and NATO will soon have over 150,000 troops, and according to a recent study 400 bases, in Afghanistan and both Western belligerents are coordinating military actions with Pakistan, the Alliance through the Trilateral Afghanistan-Pakistan-NATO Military Commission.

The chain is being tightened around Iran from every direction and NATO is forging several of the key links.

1) Obama Doctrine: Eternal War For Imperfect Mankind
Stop NATO, December 10, 2009
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/obama-doctrine-eternal-war-for-imperfect-mankind
2) Hillary Clinton’s Prescription: Make The World A NATO Protectorate
Stop NATO, January 31, 2010
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/01/31/hillary-clintons-prescription-make-the-world-a-nato-protectorate
3) Associated Press, February 9, 2010
4) NATO, February 7, 2010
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/opinions_61395.htm?selectedLocale=en
5) Ibid
6) U.S. Extends Missile Buildup From Poland And Taiwan To Persian Gulf
Stop NATO, February 3, 2010
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/u-s-extends-missile-buildup-from-poland-and-taiwan-to-persian-gulf
7) NATO In Persian Gulf: From Third World War To Istanbul
Stop NATO, February 6, 2009
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/nato-in-persian-gulf-from-third-world-war-to-istanbul
8) NATO, Istanbul Cooperation Initiative
http://www.nato.int/docu/comm/2004/06-istanbul/docu-cooperation.htm
9) NATO In Persian Gulf: From Third World War To Istanbul
10) Khaleej Times, May 26, 2009
11) Radio Netherlands, May 26, 2009
12) Gulf News, May 23, 2009
13) Gulf News, January 27, 2008
14) Agence France-Presse, March 6, 2008
15) NATO, October 28, 2009
16) Al Arabiya, November 1, 2009
17) Gulf Times, February 8, 2010
18) Stars and Stripes, January 23, 2010
19) Kuwait News Agency, January 28, 2010
20) Yemen: Pentagon’s War On The Arabian Peninsula
Stop NATO, December 15, 2009
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/12/15/yemen-pentagons-war-on-the-arabian-peninsula
21) NATO, July 26, 2009
22) World Bulletin, February 6, 2010
23) Azeri Press Agency, February 1, 2010
24) Azeri Press Agency, January 21, 2010
25) NATO, The NATO Response Force
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_49755.htm
26) Novosti Azerbaijan, January 22, 2010

Stop NATO
February 6, 2010

Romania: U.S. Expands Missile Shield Into Black Sea
Rick Rozoff

When Romanian President Traian Basescu disclosed on February 4 that his nation’s Supreme Defense Council had “approved a U.S. proposal that Romania takes part in the anti-rocket shield system” and that “Terrestrial interceptors will be located inside the national territory,” [1] many readers may have been taken by surprise.

They need not have been, though, as the expansion of the U.S. global, layered, integrated interceptor missile system into the Black Sea was as foreseeable as it is inevitable.

Previous articles in this series forecast just such an eventuality. Just that certainty. [2]

Later on the 4th when a better translation of Basescu’s comments was available, the New York Times confirmed that the Romanian head of state pledged that his nation “was prepared to negotiate with the United States to accept ground-based interceptors as part of an antiballistic missile defense system. He said it could be working by 2015.”

Basescu added that “the proposal accepted by the Supreme Defense Council came from President Obama, whose under secretary of state for arms control and international security, Ellen O. Tauscher, was in Romania.” [3]

That he stipulated the year 2015 and mentioned the State Department’s Tauscher are both significant facts. Tauscher signed the agreement with Polish Deputy Defense Minister Stanislaw Komorowski last December to deploy American mid-range interceptor missiles and troops to the Eastern European nation. Two weeks ago Komorowski’s ministry announced that U.S. Patriot missiles and troops would be stationed at a Baltic Sea site only 35 miles from Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave.

Russia was no more pleased with that news than about U.S. ground-based missiles being stationed in Romania, as will be seen later.

Keeping in mind Tauscher’s longstanding role in promoting American interceptor missile plans in Europe, which will be examined in detail further on, the State Department nonetheless formally describes her role as Senior Adviser to the President and the Secretary of State for Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament.

Last year, two days after President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced on the same day, September 17, that the U.S. was abandoning plans to station ten ground-based interceptor missiles in Poland and transfer a modified X-band missile radar from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean to the Czech Republic, Gates described in the New York Times the alternative project, what Obama characterized as a “stronger, swifter, and smarter” missile shield program far broader in scope and intent than his predecessor’s.

Gates wrote of a three-phase plan that would begin with “proven, sea-based SM-3 [Standard Missile-3] interceptor missiles – weapons that are growing in capability,” then be followed by a “second phase, which will become operational around 2015” and “involve putting upgraded SM-3s on the ground in Southern and Central Europe. All told, every phase of this plan will include scores of SM-3 missiles, as opposed to the old plan of just 10 ground-based interceptors….” [4]

While deploying scores – 40, 60, 80, 100? – of SM-3 interceptor missiles adapted for ground deployment in both the south and east of Europe (by Central Europe read Eastern Europe), “our military will continue research and development on a two-stage ground-based interceptor, the kind that was planned to be put in Poland, as a back-up,” Gates added. [5]

The White House and the Pentagon had not retreated an inch on plans to establish an impenetrable missile shield along Russia’s western borders, one that could potentially threaten the nation’s strategic forces and disable its ability to retaliate and so credibly maintain a deterrence capability. In fact, as Gates explicitly stated, plans for ten ground-based midcourse missiles in Poland are to be superseded by several times more SM-3 and Patriot Advanced Capability-3 [PAC-3] anti-ballistic missiles as well as a proposed 50,000-pound mobile missile launcher [6] and ground-based missiles in the final analysis anyway.

Shortly after the official shift in U.S. interceptor plans in Europe – and beyond into the Caucasus, the Middle East and even further – Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs Ellen Tauscher put to rest hopes that even the Polish and Czech locations would be left out of wider-ranging plans. At a symposium hosted by the pro-NATO Atlantic Council, one also addressed by the head of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency Lieutenant General Patrick O’Reilly, Tauscher delivered a speech which the Washington Post commented on as follows:

“The undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, Ellen Tauscher…said discussions are already underway with Poland to base missiles there, and talks have begun with the Czech Republic about making it the headquarters for command and control elements associated with the system.

“Tauscher said European allies, who were initially troubled by the hasty
announcement canceling the George W. Bush-era system, have come to support the Obama administration’s plan, which would permit earlier deployment and provide wider coverage than the earlier one.”

She was quoted saying “Remember, this is a NATO-wide European missile defense system as opposed to a bilateral missile defense system” and paraphrased vowing “there would be additional opportunities for allied countries to participate in missile defense.

“Another land-based radar system, which was also part of the Bush plan, for example, will need to be located in southeastern Europe.” [7]

Not only missile radar but missiles themselves will be based in Southeastern Europe, substantially south of Poland and east of the Czech Republic.

As the last head of the Missile Defense Agency, Lieutenant General Henry Obering, told a Pentagon gathering two years ago, “A powerful, ‘forward based’ X-band radar station could go in southeastern Europe, possibly in Turkey, the Caucasus or the Caspian Sea region.” [8]

There is nothing new and nothing unsurprising about the announcement that American interceptor missiles are headed to Romania.

As for Tauscher, there is no discontinuity with her work, either.

She came to her current position in the State Department from that of chairperson of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee in the U.S. Congress.

During that tenure she was a consistently determined promoter of interceptor missile development and deployment.

A brief chronology from the waning days of the George W. Bush presidency will document the unimpeded continuation of her efforts from the Bush to the Obama administrations.

On missiles in Poland:

“I would feel better if this were a NATO framework we were operating in.” [9]

On global missile shield plans and space war:

“Rejecting the recommendations of a sub-committee, Representatives Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) and John Larson (D-CT) restored $150 million to Pentagon ‘boost phase’ missile defense programs, $48 million for future missile defense systems, including space sensors, $12 million more for sea-based sensors and language to allow $160 million for a highly controversial European missile defense site.” [10]

On expanding Bush’s missile plans to encompass all of Europe:

“This is a crucial element for the US Congress. US missile defense must protect all NATO territories and be fully interoperable with the NATO system. We want more clarity about how these two systems can work together”. [11]

While in the Czech Republic:

“The missile defence system must be fully incorporated in NATO and it must protect Europe and the United States, U.S. Democrat Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher told a press conference today….Tauscher also said that the radar base could not operate without the missile base in Poland.

“She added that the anti-missile system to be stationed in the Czech Republic and Poland is to be connected with another system defending against other type of missiles. ‘We are looking for a system of systems,’ she said.” [12]

Back in Washington:

“House Armed Services strategic forces chair Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) told reporters Nov. 8 that final congressional defense authorization language for fiscal 2008 should hew to her subcommittee’s drive to ‘NATO-ize’ U.S. ballistic missile defense (BMDS) system efforts based in Europe.

“Speaking to defense writers in Washington, Tauscher said she would like to see U.S. ground-based midcourse defense (GBMD) elements there [Europe] – like a proposed radar in the Czech Republic and 10 interceptors for facilities in Poland – become the ‘long-range’ aspect of a NATO system complimented by European short- and medium-range systems.

“Tauscher specifically named NATO’s Active Layered Theater Ballistic Missile Defense (ALT-BMD) program – which could include the PAC-3, THAAD [Terminal High Altitude Area Defense], and Aegis BMD [Ballistic Missile Defense] systems….” [13]

In March of 2009, shortly before assuming her State Department post – for promoting arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament, recall – she remained an avid proponent of missile deployments in Europe and stated “We need to move in a NATOized way. Eventually we will develop a short- and medium-range system….We can certainly bolt on a long-range system once it has been tested.” [14]

She was back in Prague last November and beforehand said “the command for the managing and control of elements of the new version of anti-missile defence could be stationed in the Czech Republic.” [15]

Tauscher’s project for a more sophisticated, diversified, mobile interceptor system in Europe and its expansion into the Middle East, integrated with all 28 NATO member states and doubtlessly with several key partners, is well on the way to realization. Neither Poland nor the Czech Republic are excluded from the designs; rather the number of nations pulled into Washington’s missile shield network will be increased in number and in geographical range.

The first steps have been taken in the Baltic Sea with U.S. PAC-3 missiles and troops to arrive as early as next month and Aegis class warships with Standard Missile-3 interceptors not far behind. The USS Cole, upgraded to an Aegis-equipped guided missile destroyer, made port calls to the capitals of Estonia and Finland in the Baltic Sea region last November.

Also last year the guided-missile destroyer USS Stout visited the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea “in support of Navy Ballistic Missile Defense,” [16] visiting Israel, Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, and Turkey (the last four Black Sea littoral nations) and engaging in maneuvers with the Georgian navy “seen as a show of American support for the former Soviet nation crushed in last year’s war with Russia.” [17]

In the latter half of 2009 the Pentagon’s Joint Task Force-East conducted almost three months of military exercises in Romania and neighboring Bulgaria which included training for U.S. Stryker and airborne units. In October it was reported that the Pentagon will spend $110 million to upgrade two of the seven bases it has acquired in Romania and Bulgaria since 2005; the revamped bases will house over 4,000 U.S. troops.

In October Vice President Joseph Biden was in the Romanian capital on a tour that also took him to Poland and the Czech Republic and met with President Basescu, telling him, “I really appreciate your government’s embrace of the new missile defence architecture we are bringing to Europe. It is a better architecture and has the benefit of protecting you as well as the United States.” [18]

He also reiterated that “Under [NATO’s] Article 5, an attack on one is an attack against all,” [19] according to the Pentagon’s website.

At the time of Biden’s Romanian visit a U.S. army official in Romania stated that “an American military base near the Black Sea port of Constanta will become a permanent facility in the spring….” [20]

A Romanian publication ran a column in November of last year that foreshadowed this week’s news concerning U.S. missile shield deployments in the nation. It included a quote that “A strong and modern surveillance system located in Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey could monitor three hot areas at once: the Black Sea, the Caucasus and the Caspian and relevant zones in the Middle East.”

By process of elimination it continued, “Turkey is very unlikely to host a land-based SM-3 system, because it would not dare position itself so aggressively against its Iranian neighbour.

“This would make Greece, Bulgaria or Romania contenders – and with Biden making the recent visit to Bucharest as opposed to Sofia or Athens in the context of discussions on security architecture, Romania appears to be a more likely location.”

It continued: “By 2011 the Pentagon will roll out its naval anti-ballistic missile system on cruisers and destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean. These ships will be equipped with Lockheed Martin’s Aegis system, containing anti-aircraft and anti-missile radar and weaponry. The ships contain mid to long range SM-3 missiles.”

An extension of the ship-based interceptor missiles into the Black Sea may follow because “The [Romanian] Constanta port and naval facilities, plus Bulgaria with its Burgas port, could be good platforms for a military naval base….” [21]

As an indication of how the bases can be used, on the eve of the invasion of Iraq in March of 2003 Agence France-Presse reported that “An air of secrecy surrounds the arrival of thousands of US military personnel at the Romanian Black Sea port of Constanta in preparation for a war on Iraq.

“Ten giant Hercules C-130 transport aircraft and four H-53 helicopters can be seen parked at a military airbase adjacent to the local civilian airport.”

A Romanian source was quoted at the time as saying, “We are NATO’s advance post in the east.” [22]

The base in question is the Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base north of Constanta, the main headquarters of the Pentagon’s Joint Task Force-East.

Russian Response

When it first became evident that the U.S. was moving into and taking over four military bases in Romania (and three in Bulgaria) for training and deployment for wars in the east, in 2007 then Russian President Vladimir Putin said, “[A] new base in Bulgaria, another in Romania….What are we supposed to do? We cannot just observe all this.” [23]

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov echoed the concern, stating “Russia finds it hard to understand some decisions of NATO like, for example, the deployment of US military facilities in Bulgaria and Romania.” [24]

When Romania’s President Basescu revealed U.S. missile shield plans for his nation on February 4, Lavrov again spoke out and said “We expect the United States to provide an exhaustive explanation, taking into account the fact that the Black Sea regime is regulated by the Montreux Convention,” [25] which prohibits warships of non-Black Sea nations from staying in the Black Sea longer than 21 days and bans the deployment of outside nations’ aircraft carriers.

Dmitry Rogozin, Russian envoy to NATO, was more detailed and more direct in his assessment. “Maybe it’s against Iran, but that same system can be targeted against any other country, including Russia’s strategic nuclear potential. The U.S. is using Iran’s actions to globalize its system of missile defense….Our military shouldn’t believe some promises or intentions. We need to go on the assumption that a foreign military potential is approaching our borders.” [26]

On February 5 the Russian Information Agency Novosti website quoted the editor-in-chief of the National Defense magazine, Retired Colonel Igor Korotchenko, who said “Russia must warn Romania that if the elements of the U.S. missile shield are placed in the country they will become a target of Russia’s preventive missile strikes.”

He also warned “that with ship-based SM-3s in the North, Black and Mediterranean seas, and mobile land-based SM-3s in Central Europe the western borders of Russia would be surrounded by U.S. missile interceptors by 2015.” [27]

At the same time Pentagon chief Robert Gates arrived in Turkey for two days of meetings with fellow NATO defense chiefs and it was reported that he would “urge European allies…to inject more funding into NATO with a focus on Afghanistan and priorities such as missile defense….” [28]

On February 5 Russian President Dmitry Medvedev approved his nation’s new military doctrine, which according to Reuters identifies “NATO expansion as a national threat….”

“The doctrine identifies the expansion of NATO to Eastern Europe and U.S. plans to create an anti-missile shield in Europe as concerns for national security….” [29]

The two are inextricably connected and unless both are halted U.S. military provocations in the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea and the South Caucasus may lead to a new European conflagration.

1) Reuters, February 4, 2010
2) U.S. Expands Global Missile Shield Into Middle East, Balkans
Stop NATO, September 11, 2009
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/11/u-s-expands-global-missile-shield-into-middle-east-balkans

Balkans Revisited: U.S., NATO Expand Military Role In Southeastern Europe
Stop NATO, September 14, 2009
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/14/266

U.S. Missile Shield Plans: Retreat Or Advance?
Stop NATO, September 17, 2009
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/18/u-s-missile-shield-plans-retreat-or-advance

Black Sea, Caucasus: U.S. Moves Missile Shield South And East
Stop NATO, September 19, 2009
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/19/283

U.S. Missile Shield System Deployments: Larger, Sooner, Broader
Stop NATO, September 27, 2009
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/27/u-s-missile-shield-system-deployments-larger-sooner-broader

Dangerous Missile Battle In Space Over Europe: Fifth Act In U.S. Missile
Shield Drama
Stop NATO, September 29, 2009
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/29/dangerous-missile-battle-in-space-over-europe-fifth-act-in-u-s-missile-shield-drama

Bulgaria, Romania: U.S., NATO Bases For War In The East
Stop NATO, October 24, 2009
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/bulgaria-romania-u-s-nato-bases-for-war-in-the-east
3) New York Times, February 4, 2010
4) New York Times, September 19, 2009
5) Ibid
6) Pentagon Intensifies Plans For Global Military Supremacy: U.S., NATO Could
Deploy Mobile Missiles Launchers To Europe
Stop NATO, August 22, 2009
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/pentagon-intensifies-plans-for-global-military-supremacy-u-s-nato-could-deploy-mobile-missiles-launchers-to-europe/
7) Washington Post, October 8, 2009
8) Turkish Daily News, March 12, 2008
9) Defense News, March 28, 2007
10) Bruce Gagnon, U.S. Space First-Strike Program Is Well Underway
Baltimore Chronicle, May 13, 2007
11) PanArmenian.net, May 28, 2007
12) Czech News Agency, September 14, 2007
13) Aerospace Daily & Defense Report, November 9, 2007
14) Agence France-Presse, March 22, 2009
15) Czech News Agency, November 4, 2009
16) United States Navy, September 25, 2009
17) Associated Press, July 14, 2009
18) Romanian Times, October 22, 2009
19) U.S. Department of Defense, October 22, 2009
20) Associated Press, October 23, 2009
21) The Diplomat, November, 2009
22) Agence France-Presse, March 9, 2003
23) New Europe, Week of June 2, 2007
24) Standart News, December 7, 2007
25) Russian Information Agency Novosti, February 5, 2010
26) Bloomberg News, February 5, 2010
27) Russian Information Agency Novosti, February 5, 2010
28) Bloomberg News, February 4, 2010
29) Reuters, February 5, 2010

Stop NATO
February 5, 2010

Brussels, London, Istanbul: A Week Of Western War Councils
Rick Rozoff

A meeting of NATO’s Military Committee

The defense chiefs of all 28 NATO nations and an undisclosed number of counterparts from non-Alliance partners gathered in Istanbul, Turkey on February 4 to begin two days of meetings focused on the war in Afghanistan, the withdrawal of military forces from Kosovo in the course of transferring control of security operations to the breakaway province’s embryonic army (the Kosovo Security Force) and “the transformation efforts required to best conduct the full range of NATO’s agreed missions.” [1]

Istanbul was the site of the bloc’s 2004 summit which accounted for the largest expansion in its 60-year history – seven new Eastern European nations – and its strengthening military partnerships with thirteen Middle Eastern and African nations under the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative.

The Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe Admiral James Stavridis and the top commander of all U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan – soon to reach over 150,000 – General Stanley McChrystal are also in attendance, as are European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton and United Nations High Representative for Afghanistan Kai Eide as well as the defense and interior ministers of Afghanistan.

The meetings follow by a week the International Conference on Afghanistan held in London, which in turn occurred the day after two days of meetings of the NATO Military Committee with the Chiefs of Defense of the military bloc’s 28 member states and 35 more from what were described as Troop Contributing Nations; presumably NATO partner nations with troops stationed in the Afghan war theater. In all, the military chiefs of 63 countries.

The U.S.’s McChrystal was present there also as were Israeli Chief of General Staff Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi and Pakistani Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. Beforehand the bloc’s website reported that “The various meetings will focus on the progress made in ongoing operations and the New Strategic Concept for NATO.” [2] That 35 top military commanders from non-NATO countries were present to hear plans for the escalation of what is already the largest war in the world is understandable, as their forces are on the ground as part of a 50-nation plus force under NATO military command.

That the same conference discussed the bloc’s 21st century new global military doctrine – former U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright delivered an address on the topic – raises the question of how many of the 35 partner states’ military chiefs may have joined their 28 NATO colleagues for that phase of discussions. That such a high percentage of the world’s leading military commanders attended a two-day affair which deliberated on both the war in South Asia and the expansion of the world’s only military bloc’s activities even further outside the Euro-Atlantic area (when it has already conducted operations in four continents) confirms that the Afghan war serves more than one purpose for the West. It is the laboratory for strengthening military ties with nations on every inhabited continent and for building the nucleus of and foundation for a potential future world army.

The London conference on Afghanistan, presented in the West as a benign undertaking tantamount to an economic development or humanitarian aid planning event – the conference’s website described it as “The international community [coming] together to fully align military and civilian resources behind an Afghan-led political strategy” [3] – was preceded by two days of meetings between top military commanders of almost a third of the world’s nations at NATO headquarters and followed by two days of meetings by NATO and allied defense chiefs this week. Many of the same people – EU foreign policy chief Baroness Ashton and the UN’s Eide (who formerly occupied comparable posts in Bosnia and Kosovo and was Norway’s ambassador to NATO from 2002 to 2006) – attended both the London conference and are attending the Istanbul NATO defense ministers conclave. (Ashton’s predecessor’s Javier Solana was Secretary General of NATO from 1995 to 1999 before becoming the EU’s High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy from 1999 until December of 2009, effecting the transition seamlessly.)

By way of reciprocity, the London conference was addressed by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen who said, inter alia, “with more than 85,000 troops from 44 nations deployed to Afghanistan – and with over 39,000 additional forces arriving over the coming weeks and months – the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force remains NATO’s top priority.” [4]

If any further evidence was required that the United Nations is at the service of NATO and not vice versa, that the EU is NATO’s civilian valet de chambre, and that all three are subordinated to the United States, the last week’s events and the roster of attendees at them should suffice.

The chain of command begins in Washington and orders barked out there work their way down to Brussels and New York City.

The two organizations based in the Belgium capital, the “military alliance of democratic states in Europe and North America” (NATO’s self-definition) and the “European military superstate” (Irish opposition parties’ reference to the effects of the Nice and Lisbon treaties), are afflicted with political echolalia, parroting the U.S. position on conflicts armed and with the potential to become so around the world – Afghanistan, Iraq, Georgia-Russia, Georgia-Abkhazia, Georgia-South Ossetia, Russia-Ukraine, Kosovo, Bosnia, Somalia, Yemen, Colombia, Myanmar, Sudan, Chad, the Central African Republic, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Israel-Lebanon, Lebanon-Syria, Israel-Palestine, Macedonia, Ivory Coast, Djibouti-Eritrea, Transdniester and all those to come – with truly impressive fidelity in this otherwise inconsistent age. Condemnations, tirades and threats issued by the U.S. secretary of state and ambassador to the United Nations may as well be printed in triplicate.

Security Council permanent members Russia and China may occasionally – all too occasionally – block hostile Western actions against defenseless third parties in the United Nations, but Washington always walks away with a mandate and the final say in the selection of viceroys to complement U.S. and NATO military forces on the ground in subjugated nations.

As a recent example, during the second day of the NATO Military Committee meetings in Brussels and the day before the Afghan conference in London, an “international” conference on Yemen was also held in London which “Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for…in response to the failed bomb attack on an airliner over Detroit on December 25.” [5]

That bears repeating. The apprehension in the U.S. of a Nigerian national alleged to have been trained in Yemen led the head of state of the United Kingdom to summon representatives of the Group of Eight (Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the U.S.), the Gulf Cooperation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates), Egypt, Jordan – but not the Arab League – Turkey and the European Union, United Nations, World Bank and International Monetary Fund “to bolster Yemen’s fight against al Qaeda….” [7] Soon 50,000 non-American NATO troops will be bogged down in Afghanistan because the bloc invoked its Article 5 collective defense provision in 2001…to fight against al-Qaeda.

Ever-compliant UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon lent legitimacy to this American and British charade, as he did the following day’s Afghan conference where he delivered a speech in the presence of 28 NATO and perhaps dozens of its International Security Assistance Force non-member states foreign ministers.

Yemen has joined the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq as a target for Western “assistance and stabilization.” NATO will conduct more planning sessions with scores of military chiefs and defense and foreign ministers and not only for the war in Afghanistan.

Its new Strategic Concept knows no geographical bounds.

1) NATO, February 3, 2010
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/SID-07E5106A-22C87D27/natolive/news_61170.htm?%5D
2) NATO, January 25, 2010
http://www.nato.int/ims/news/2010/n100126e.html
3) Afghanistan: The London Conference http://afghanistan.hmg.gov.uk/en/conference
4) http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/opinions_61101.htm

5) Deutsche Presse-Agentur, January 28, 2010
6) Reuters, January 27, 2010

Stop NATO
February 3, 2010

U.S. Extends Missile Buildup From Poland And Taiwan To Persian Gulf
Rick Rozoff

On January 20 Poland’s Defense Ministry revealed that a U.S. Patriot missile battery previously scheduled to be stationed near the nation’s capital will instead be deployed to a Baltic Sea location 35 miles from Russian territory; on January 29 the White House approved the transfer of 114 Patriot missiles to Taiwan as part of a $6.5 billion arms package that also includes eight warships the receiving nation plans to upgrade for the Aegis Combat System with the capacity for carrying Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) ship-based anti-ballistic missiles.

On January 22 head of the Pentagon’s Central Command General David Petraeus told an audience at the private Institute for the Study of War that two warships equipped with the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System “are in the Gulf at all times now.” [1] A news report on the same day remarked “That statement – along with the stationing of other U.S. air defense assets in the region – sends a strong signal to Iran….” [2]

The New York Times reported on January 30 that the U.S. was expediting the deployment of Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) interceptor missiles to four Persian Gulf nations – Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates – thereby paralleling the combination of sea-based Aegis and land-based Patriot missiles intended for the Taiwan Strait aimed at China and in the Baltic Sea targeting Russia. The Gulf deployments are intended for use against Iran.

“One senior military officer said that General Petraeus had started talking openly about the Patriot deployments about a month ago, when it became increasingly clear that international efforts toward imposing sanctions against Iran faced hurdles….” [3]

On February 1 The Times of London commented on the coordinated interceptor missile plans: “Tensions in the Gulf between the US and Iran are set to rise further after it emerged that American-made anti-missile systems are to be deployed to Washington’s Arab allies in the region.

“The Obama Administration said yesterday that it was speeding up arms sales to a number of states and that it had also deployed warships in the Gulf….”

As in the Baltic Sea and Taiwan, PAC-3 missiles – “dedicated almost entirely to the anti-ballistic missile mission” [4] and which soon will have their capability increased by 50% with an upgrade called Missile Segment Enhancement – will be used for short- to medium-range and Aegis class warships for medium to long-range missile interceptions. The basic ingredients of a multilayered theater missile shield.

Last May an American news source waxed enthusiastic over Aegis capabilities: “The AEGIS combat system, at its heart, is a computer controlled combat and data system. It can simultaneously launch strikes against missiles or other targets in the air, and on land and sea, either surface or underwater.

“AEGIS is the most capable missile launch system the Navy has ever put to sea. In any weather, including full cyclones, AEGIS can attack multiple targets underwater, and from wave top to directly overhead, at all speeds from subsonic to supersonic.” [5]

Its Standard Missile-3, already in the Persian Gulf and soon to be permanently based in the Baltic, South China, Mediterranean and Black Seas, has an acknowledged range of 500 kilometers but can be enhanced for longer distances and was used by the U.S. to destroy a satellite 130 miles above the Pacific Ocean in February of 2008 in a test inspected by Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. “The satellite was unlike any target the system was designed to go after….The satellite was in orbit rather than on a ballistic trajectory. Also, the satellite was traveling at incredible speeds.” [6]

As to the Patriot missile defense system, it is the only component of the U.S. (and allied) global interceptor project to be used in combat, both times in full-fledged wars.

Patriots were employed in Operation Desert Storm in 1991 against Iraqi Scud missiles and were based in Israel, not a formal belligerent in the war, and Saudi Arabia, which was and which served as a base for a large percentage of the 100,000 sorties by the U.S. and its allies in the air war over Kuwait and Iraq.

The U.S. stationed and used Patriot missiles in Kuwait 2003 during the invasion of Iraq and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization deployed three Patriot batteries (and AWACS) to Turkey before the attack.

Unlike other, longer-range, elements of the layered missile shield system, the Patriot has been proven an effective battlefield weapon. It is only defensive in the sense that a shield was a means of defense for a sword-wielding warrior or armor is for a battle tank. It is designed to protect an aggressor from counterattack.

In commenting on the Pentagon’s plans to move Patriot and SM-3 – and even longer-range – missiles into the Persian Gulf, a newspaper in the region wrote that “US anti-missile systems may be installed in Bahrain to protect the country against possible retaliatory attacks from Iran….” [7] A degree of candor absent in the American press. One which reveals that the U.S. is installing interceptor missiles in the Gulf as it did earlier in 1991 and 2003 to neutralize short- and medium-range missiles fired in response to acts or threats of aggression.

One of the false rationales for the expanded missile deployments dutifully retailed by major American and British newspapers of late is that they are intended in part to prevent rather than encourage attacks on Iran by Israel. That argument is contrary to logic and fact alike. By assuring the second nation and Gulf states Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia which host U.S. infantry, air and naval forces that they are invulnerable to retaliation after attacks on Iran is to increase the risk of unprovoked Israeli and U.S. assaults.

Compared to 1991 and 2003, though, the groundwork for a much broader conflict is being laid, one which will include interceptor missiles several stages more advanced than the Patriot and SM-3.

Last August it was reported that “Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. [United Arab Emirates]…want a wide range of military platforms, with particular interest in missile defense systems such as the U.S. Theater High Altitude Air Defense system [THAAD]. Approval was recently given for the Pentagon to sell this to the U.A.E., THAAD’s first foreign customer.” [8]

THAAD picks up where the SM-3 (which is being transitioned for ground deployment in Europe and the Middle East as part of new – post-September 17, 2009 – U.S. and NATO interceptor missile plans) leaves off and after THAAD comes the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system to intercept missiles in space (the exoatmosphere).

On January 31 the U.S. Missile Defense Agency launched a ground-based interceptor missile from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in what proved to be an unsuccessful test.

Four days before a local newspaper wrote that “A missile-defense system test set for Sunday at Vandenberg Air Force Base will involve a different scenario, this time gauging how the system would react to an Iran-like attack, officials said.”

The report further detailed “a target weapon set to take off from the Kwajalein Atoll, about 4,200 miles southwest of Vandenberg” and that “the launch will be followed about 20 minutes later by a ground-based interceptor launched from an underground silo on north Vandenberg.” [9]

The last such test occurred in 2008 “when [a] target launched from Kodiak, Alaska, was successfully hit by a Vandenberg interceptor.” [10] Staging long-range missile interception tests from Alaska, including from the Aleutian Islands near Russia’s eastern coast, are not limited to plans for Iran.

In mid-January head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency Lieutenant General Patrick O’Reilly visited Fort Greely, Alaska, “the first line in America’s missile defense” and home to ground-based midcourse missiles, and his comments included: “In a time of war we would launch.” [11] Missiles launched from Fort Greely would have to pass over Russia, China or both to reach Iran, incidentally.

News that the U.S. is to deploy a Patriot missile battery in Poland close to its border led to Russia’s ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin stating recently: “Do they really think that we will calmly watch the location of a rocket system, at a distance of 60 km from Kaliningrad?” [12] The deployment of Standard Missile-3s, with several times the reach of the Patriot, on land and sea in the same neighborhood will only makes matters more dangerous.

The official authorization of Patriot transfers to Taiwan – the missiles are produced by Raytheon Company, whose former vice president of Government Operations and Strategy William Lynn is now Deputy Secretary of Defense – resulted in China’s vice foreign minister, He Yafei, saying “We believe this move endangers China’s national security” [13] and to Luo Yuan, senior researcher with the Academy of Military Science, adding “The US action gives China a justified cause to increase its national defense expenditure, to enhance the development and purchase of weapons, and to accelerate its modernization process in national defense….China did nothing to threaten the US, why should the US challenge our core strategic interests?” [14]

China and Russia, by not capitulating to U.S. and Western European pressure to enforce further, even more onerous sanctions against Iran of the type that have in recent years been followed by all-our war against other nations, have frequently been chastised by U.S. leaders, with China lately being dressed down by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, about whom it cannot be said as President John Quincey Adams claimed of the early American republic that “she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.”

China has suspended military contacts with Washington and threatened sanctions against American arms firms involved in the completion of the $6.5 billion deal with Taiwan.

With the release of the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review which calls for a record $708 billion in Pentagon spending next year, Bloomberg News ran a feature titled “China, Iran Prompt U.S. Air-Sea Battle Plan in Strategy Review” which stated “The U.S. military is drawing up a new air-sea battle plan in response to threats such as China’s persistent military build-up and Iran’s possession of advanced weapons.” Pentagon chief Robert Gates was quoted as alluding to – in an obvious reference to China – “the military modernization programs of other countries” and of the Quadrennial Defense Review in general that “This is truly a wartime QDR.” [15]

“The budget underscored the administration’s commitment to a ‘robust defense against emerging missile threats,’ saying it would pay for use of increasingly capable sea- and land-based missile interceptors and a range of sensors in Europe.” [16]

The blatant provocations against Russia and China of late last month are being repeated against Iran.

The Times of London on February 1 reminded its readers that “The UAE and Saudi Arabia have bought more than $25 billion of US arms in the past two years. Abu Dhabi has bought $17 billion of US hardware since 2008, including Patriot anti-missile systems, while the UAE as a whole recently bought 80 F16 jets.”

It also recalled, even more ominously, that “The chairman of the US military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen…said last month that the Pentagon must have military options ready to counter Iran should Mr Obama call for them.” [17]

An integral part of plans to contain and confront Iran is the Pentagon buildup in and near the Persian Gulf. Last year United Press International published a report that “Middle Eastern countries are expected to spend more than $100 billion over the next five years….Most of the procurement will be carried out by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq and Israel….The core of this arms-buying spree will undoubtedly be the $20 billion U.S. package of weapons systems over 10 years for the six states of the Gulf Cooperation Council – Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain.” [18]

On January 27 in the United Arab Emirates “The UAE Armed Forces [began] military training with the US Central Command (Centcom) along with armed forces from other GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] and friendly countries.” [19]

Last October and November the U.S. and Israel conducted their largest-ever joint military exercise, Juniper Cobra 2009, which tested five interceptor missile systems in tandem. [20]

On September 17, while announcing plans to abandon ground-based interceptor deployments in Poland in favor of a broader stratified system in Europe based initially on Patriot Advanced Capability-3 and Aegis missiles, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in reference to Iran and its neighbors that “the United States has already formed a Gulf missile defense network that consisted of PAC-3 and the Aegis sea-based systems….The reality is we are working both on a bilateral and a multilateral basis in the Gulf to establish the same kind of regional missile defense that would protect our facilities out there as well as our friends and allies.”

He added: “We have very strong bilateral relationships in developing missile defense with several of the countries in the Gulf. And now what we’re encouraging is to layer on top of that multilateral cooperation as well.” [21]

What Gates was describing is a comprehensive missile shield in the region that integrates all six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states into a single interceptor grid linked with facilities and deployments in Israel and Turkey (if the latter nation permits it) and a continent-wide NATO system in Europe.

The same source reported:

“Officials said the United Arab Emirates has been the most advanced in plans to form a missile defense umbrella. The UAE has ordered the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, designed to destroy nuclear missiles in the exoatmosphere. Over the last two years, the Pentagon has been meeting GCC military chiefs to discuss regional and national missile defense programs….At the same time, the U.S. military has been operating PAC-3 in Kuwait and Qatar. The U.S. Army has also been helping Saudi Arabia upgrade its PAC-2 fleet.” [22]

The Associated Press stated days after last September’s announced change in U.S. global missile shield plans – in which the “Obama administration shift[ed] its focus on missile defense away from Europe and toward the Middle East” – that “Between 2004 and last year, the Emirates bought more weapons than any other country besides China and India, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The majority of those arms came from the U.S. Lockheed and partner Raytheon Corp. of Waltham, Mass., are leading the push to strengthen the Emirates’ missile defense systems….It is not the region’s only U.S. ally to have placed such an order. Saudi Arabia, Israel and Kuwait have all bought Patriot and other missile shield systems….Abu Dhabi is…pushing to become the first country after the U.S. to deploy what Lockheed says is an even more advanced missile defense system known as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD….” [23]

William Lynn, the Pentagon’s second highest ranking official and former lobbyist for the manufacturer of Patriot missiles, Raytheon, delivered a speech in Washington, D.C. On January 21, the contents of which were reported as containing the demand to “put the Defense Department on a permanent footing to fight both low-intensity conflicts to maintaining air dominance and the ability to strike any target on Earth at any time….The next air warfare priority for the Pentagon is developing a next-generation, deep-penetrating strike capability that can overcome advanced air defenses….” [24] The new Prompt Global Strike system is designed to accomplish just those last three objectives. [25]

Were a leading defense official of any other nation to publicly promote that agenda the newspapers of the world would report it and the Pentagon, State Department and White House would not be silent on the matter. The American media and the government alike would condemn it for what it is: A threat to world peace and to the world itself.

1) Wired, January 22, 2010
2) Ibid
3) New York Times, January 30, 2010
4) Wikipedia
5) OnMilwaukee, May 12, 2009
6) American Forces Press Service, February 24, 2010
7) Gulf Daily News, February 1, 2010
8) United Press International, August 25, 2009
9) Lompoc Record, January 27, 2010
10) Ibid
11) Alaska Dispatch, January 13, 2010
12) Radio Poland, January 29, 2010
13) New York Times, January 29, 2010
14) China Daily, February 1, 2010
15) Bloomberg News, February 1, 2010
16) Reuters, February 1, 2010
17) The Times, February 1, 2010
18) United Press International, August 25, 2009
19) Gulf News, January 27, 2010
20) Israel: Forging NATO Missile Shield, Rehearsing War With Iran
Stop NATO, November 5, 2009
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/israel-forging-nato-missile-shield-rehearsing-war-with-iran
21) World Tribune, September 30, 2009
22) Ibid
23) Associated Press, September 23, 2009
24) Defense News, January 22, 2010
25) U.S. Accelerates First Strike Global Missile Shield System
Stop NATO, August 19, 2009
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/u-s-accelerates-first-strike-global-missile-shield-system/
Militarization Of Space: Threat Of Nuclear War On Earth
Stop NATO, June 18, 2009
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/militarization-of-space-threat-of-nuclear-war-on-earth