US-NATO "Strategic Concept": Global Warfare Missile Shield And
Nuclear Weapons
By Rick Rozoff
URL of this article:www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=18121
Global Research, March 15, 2010 Stop NATO - 2010-03-14
The civilian chief of the worlds only, and historys first self-proclaimed
global, military bloc is having a busy month.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary General Anders Fogh
Rasmussen delivered an address in Washington, DC on February 23 on
the military alliances new 21st century Strategic Concept along
with U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton, her predecessor twice-removed Madeleine Albright
and National Security Adviser James Jones, the last-named a former
Marine Corps general and NATO Supreme Allied Commander. [1]
At the seminar and on the preceding evening at Georgetown University
in what is arguably NATOs true capital, Rasmussen sounded familiar
themes:
Highlighting the need to prevail in Afghanistan, NATOs first ground
war and first armed conflict outside of Europe. Applauding the work
of the blocs new cyber warfare center in Estonia, ostensibly to
protect the comparatively new member state against attacks emanating
from Russia. Identifying Iran and North Korea for particular scrutiny.
He also spoke of deepening our partnerships with countries from
across the globe and affirmed NATO is a permanent Alliance... [2]
The blocs chief announced the creation of a new division at NATO
Headquarters to deal with new threats and challenges. [3]
Since then Rasmussen has visited Jordan, Bahrain, Finland, the Czech
Republic and Poland to promote the broadening of worldwide military
partnerships, the recruitment of more troops and other support for
the Afghan war, and the expansion of an eventual global missile
shield system within the context of NATOs further transformation
into an international and expeditionary security and military force.
In Rasmussens words, the Alliance is to become a global security
forum in addition to being the worlds only permanent military
alliance.
The Strategic Concept meeting held in Finland on March 4 with the
foreign ministers of that country and of Sweden, Alexander Stubb
and Carl Bildt, respectively, as well as Finlands defense minister
the first formal gathering on the Strategic Concept held in a
non-member nation focused on the two Scandinavian nations expanding
role in Afghanistan and what was described as EU-NATO cooperation
and Nordic cooperation.
Regarding supposed threats which within the current context could
only be an allusion to Finlands neighbor Russia, Rasmussen said
that it was no longer sufficient to line up soldiers and tanks and
military equipment along the borders. Instead the blocs members
really have to address the threat at its roots, and it might be in
cyber space, as the enemy might appear everywhere in cyberspace.
[4]
He also reprised the demand he voiced at the Munich Security
Conference on February 7 that NATO assume the function of a global
security forum.
The previous day Rasmussen indicated the nature of that role in
alluding to the currently longest and biggest war in the world:
Afghanistan will serve as a prototype for future civil-military
cooperation in handling crises in other weak or failing nations,
as paraphrased by a major American news agency. [5]
On March 5 he met with the Czech prime, defense and foreign ministers
in Prague where the four discussed missile defence, which the
Secretary General considers an important part of securing the
Euro-Atlantic community against the threat of missiles [6] and
increased contributions to the Afghan war effort.
Rasmussens visit to Jordan on March 7 was in part designed to
consolidate NATOs Mediterranean Dialogue partnership with the host
nation, Egypt, Israel, Morocco, Mauritania, Tunisia and Algeria.
His trip to Bahrain the following day was aimed at solidifying ties
under the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative with the Gulf Cooperation
Council states of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and
the United Arab Emirates in furtherance of NATOs plans in Afghanistan
and the Gulf of Aden and its agenda against Iran. His Royal Highness
Crown Prince Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa was briefed on NATOs perception
of the Gulf and international security conditions and invited to
visit NATO Headquarters... [7]
On March 12 the secretary general arrived in Warsaw to participate
in the NATOs New Strategic Concept Global, Transatlantic and
Regional Challenges and Tasks Ahead conference at the nations Royal
Castle organized by the Warsaw Center for International Relations
and the Polish Ministry of Defense.
His address reiterated the now standard demand that NATO combine
Article 5 so-called collective defense for its members in Polands
case that can only be a reference to Russia with expeditionary
deployments outside NATOs self-defined area of responsibility as
exemplified by recent wars and other armed missions in the Balkans,
Afghanistan, the Gulf of Aden and the Horn of Africa, the Mediterranean
Sea and the Darfur region of Sudan.
Rasmussen did not limit that role to the use of conventional weapons.
NATOs core task was, is, and will remain, the defence of our territory
and our populations. But we need, at the same time, to take a hard
look at what deterrence means in the 21st century.
For our deterrence to remain credible, I firmly believe it must
continue to be based on a mix of conventional and nuclear capabilities.
And our new Strategic Concept should affirm that. [8]
As a warm-up exercise he had spoken the day before at the Transatlantic
Forum 2010 at the University of Warsaw and earlier on the 12th he
met with staff and students from the University of Warsaws Institute
of International Relations and the Institute of Strategic Studies
in Krakow.
Reporting on his position regarding the use of nuclear weapons
during his stay in the Polish capital, Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty reported him advocating that atomic weapons were still
needed for deterrence reasons, [9] and Deutsche Presse-Agentur
quoted him as saying:
Nuclear weapons will remain a major element of credible deterrence
in the future. A world without atomic weapons would be wonderful,
but as long as states and non-state structures exist which aim to
gain atomic weapons, then we should also maintain our nuclear
capacities. [10]
Nine days earlier Rasmussen had advocated the same stance in
announcing the western military alliance will debate the blocs
nuclear policy in Estonia next month. Responding to a recent call
by the foreign ministers of Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, the
Netherlands and Norway to debate the stationing of between 240-350
U.S. warheads at air bases in Europe, the NATO chief said the
Alliance will have to balance calls to remove outdated weapons with
a need for a strategic nuclear deterrent. [11]
There are a lot of nuclear weapons in the world, and a number of
countries that either have them, would like to have them, or could
have them quickly if they decided they needed them. That is just
the way it is. So whatever we do in support of arms control and
disarmament should be balanced with deterrence. [12]
In his main address in Poland he also stressed that our new Strategic
Concept will also need to reflect [the] need to reflect that the
meaning of territorial defence is changing and that another challenge
that we must tackle head-on is cyber security. [13]
Reaffirming demands made earlier in the Czech Republic, he added:
[W]e must develop an effective missile defence. In the coming years,
we will probably face many more countries and possibly even some
non-state actors armed with long-range missiles and nuclear
capabilities. Therefore, I believe that NATOs deterrent posture
should include missile defence.
Thats why deterrence and defence need to go together. And why we
have the obligation to look into missile defence options.
Two days before Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov issued another
warning against U.S. interceptor missile deployments near his nations
borders including those planned in Poland saying, Russia cannot
allow US plans to deploy elements of its missile system in Europe
to threaten the effectiveness of its nuclear deterrent.
Military experts say the planned missile system could be able to
hit Russias ballistic missiles in the next ten years. [14]
As to the pretext that Washington and NATO are employing to ring
Russias western flank with missile shield installations, Lavrov
said:
It is evident that Iran currently poses no threat to the U.S. and
European countries... At the moment, Iran has no missiles capable
of striking Europe, let alone the U.S., and is unlikely to develop
[such missiles] in the foreseeable future. [15]
While in Warsaw Rasmussen also elaborated on the global nature of
21st century expeditionary NATO.
We need more flexible, mobile and deployable armed forces. If our
military is stationary, if our armed forces cant be moved beyond
the borders of each individual member state, the defence of Allied
territory will not be effective.
He called for overhaul[ing] our military command structure, to make
it more flexible and deployable.
Today, NATO is engaged in Afghanistan, in the Balkans, in the
Mediterranean Sea, and off the Horn of Africa. This broad spectrum
of missions and operations is only natural. Todays risks and threats
are increasingly global in nature, and our Alliance must reflect
this fact.
In his address at the Royal Castle in Warsaw he twice employed a
variation of the catch phrase first introduced by President George
H.W. Bush in 1989:
Europe whole, free and at peace. [16]
Europe, whole if not necessarily free and by no means at peace
outside its borders, is to continue being NATOs and the U.S.s base
for military interventions throughout much of the world.
[O]ur first line of defence must be to complete the consolidation
of Europe as a continent that is whole, free and at peace.
What does this consolidation of Europe entail? For one, it means
that NATOs Open Door policy must continue. Rasmussen was speaking
in the immediate sense about candidate nations in the Balkans and
in the former Soviet Union.
In relation to the Afghan war in particular, NATO and the EU should
cooperate and coordinate better.
NATO Headquarters must be less of a bureaucracy and more of a
streamlined, operational headquarters. A headquarters where staff
and resources are realigned to serve the Alliances new priorities,
not outdated legacy activities and narrow national interests.
In relation to where the true first line of defense should be,
alluding to last years Belarusian-Russian military exercises near
Polands borders Rasmussen added:
If our military is stationary, if our armed forces cant be moved
beyond the borders of each individual member state, the defence of
Allied territory will not be effective... We think Russia sends the
wrong kind of signal by conducting military exercises that rehearse
the invasion of a smaller NATO member.
Russia is in fact larger than Poland, but Poland has a population
almost four times that of Belarus and is a member, indeed a major
outpost, of a U.S.-led global military bloc.
Moreover, the NATO chief stated that, in regards to Russias new
military strategy which identifies NATO expansion along its frontiers
and U.S. missile deployments in its neighborhood as the chief threats
to its national security, Russias new military doctrine does not
reflect the real world.
NATO has expanded military partnerships throughout almost all of
Europe, in the Middle East, Africa, the Caucasus, Central and South
and East Asia, and the South Pacific, but despite Rasmussens claim
that Russia has a very outdated notion about the nature and role
of NATO, a time traveller from the last century could be forgiven
for thinking that in relation to post-Soviet Russia the only thing
that has changed is NATOs brazen drive to encircle it.
After delivering his speech at the Strategic Concept seminar,
Rasmussen matched the deed to the word and travelled from Warsaw
to Bydgoszcz to visit the Joint Forces Training Centre (JFTC) part
of NATOs Allied Command Transformation (ACT) military body. The
JFTC prepares officers for deployment to the International Security
Assistance Force in Afghanistan. [17]
He addressed commanders of the Norfolk, Virginia-headquartered
Allied Command Transformation, after which he inspected troops of
NATOs Third Signal Battalion stationed there.
Three days earlier NATOs Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, Admiral
James Stavridis, spoke before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee
and anticipated his civilian colleagues comments in Poland to a
remarkable degree.
Stavridis noted that 100,000 NATO troops are involved in expeditionary
operations on three continents, including operations in Afghanistan,
off the coast of Africa, and in [the Balkans].
Stavridis called the new phased-in approach for European missile
defense timely and flexible, and said it will provide capability
that we can step up and be adaptive, as the Iranian capability to
use ballistic missiles goes forward. The following day Russian
Foreign Minister Lavrov forcefully refuted the excuse Stavridis
resorted to in order to justify American and NATO missile shield
deployments, as seen earlier.
The admiral said he is very confident in the first stage of the
program, which is sea-based with the Aegis weapons system and
reasonably confident in the second phase, which is shore-based. He
also paralleled Rasmussens contentions that The nature of threats
in this 21st century [is] going to demand more than just sitting
behind our borders and that Among the greatest concerns that impacts
both military and civilian realms... is cybersecurity.
[18]
Both the ship- and land-based Standard Missile-3 deployments Stavridis
alluded to are to be centered, among other locations, in the Baltic
Sea and almost certainly on Polish soil. Next month the U.S. will
begin the activation of a Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missile
battery near the Baltic Sea city of Morag, thirty five miles from
the Russian border, and base 100 soldiers there, the first American
troops ever to be stationed in Poland and the first foreign ones
in a generation.
The missile battery will be equipped with elements allowing it to
be integrated with the Polish defense system. [19]
Earlier this month a Polish newspaper revealed that American missile
plans in Poland are far more ambitious than just the construction
of Patriot and Standard Missile-3 batteries: The US is also interested
in building longer-range missile silos near the Poland-Kaliningrad
border. These would be capable of shooting down missiles from as
far as 5,500 kilometers away...
[20]
On March 4 400 Polish troops and scores of U.S. Army soldiers [21]
began military exercises at the Training Center for Peacekeeping
Forces in Kielce in southeastern Poland.
From March 17 to 20 NATO will conduct air exercises over the Baltic
Sea region in a demonstration of NATO solidarity and commitment to
its member countries in the Baltic Region and a show of solidarity
with former Soviet republics concerned about Russia, [22] that will
include Polish, Lithuanian and French warplanes as well as U.S.
tanker aircraft.
The NATO Joint Force Training Center in Bydgoszcz in northern Poland
which Anders Fogh Rasmussen toured on March 12 trained 2,186 personnel
from 32 Allied and Partnership for Peace Nations prior to deployment
to ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] during 11 training
events. The 2010 training year will see an increase in the total
number of personnel impacted by the Joint Force Training Center.
It has a staff of 84 personnel from eighteen member nations consisting
of officers, non-commissioned officers and NATO civilians.
However, in the coming year the authorized strength of the organization
will rise to 105. [23]
While the NATO secretary was in Warsaw, Polish Defense Minister
Bogdan Klich spoke at the same conference, which was timed to
coincide with the eleventh anniversary of Polands full absorption
into NATO, and advocated that NATOs new Strategic Concept prepare
for the worst possible scenarios, even if such scenarios were not
too probable. [24]
Klich also said he wanted to attract NATO infrastructure into Poland
and that he is prepared to organize an exercise involving NATO
rapid-reaction forces in Poland in 2013. [25]
Poland and its Baltic neighbors represent the point at which NATOs
dual strategic objectives defending Europe whole and free, including
with nuclear weapons, and an expansion increasingly global in nature
converge.
Notes
1) 21st Century Strategy: Militarized Europe, Globalized NATO Stop
NATO, February 26, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/21st-century-strategy-mili...
europe-globalized-nato
2) Speech by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen at
Georgetown University North Atlantic Treaty Organization, February
22, 2010 3) Remarks by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen
at the fourth Strategic Concept Seminar on Transformation and
Capabilities, Washington DC North Atlantic Treaty Organization,
February 23, 2010 4) Agence France-Presse, March 4, 2010 5) Associated
Press, March 4, 2010 6) North Atlantic Treaty Organization, March
5, 2010 7) Bahrain News Agency, March 8, 2010 8) Speech by NATO
Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen at NATOs New Strategic
Concept Global, Transatlantic and Regional Challenges and Tasks
Ahead North Atlantic Treaty Organization, March 12, 2010
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/opinions_62143.htm?selectedLocale=en
9) Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, March 12, 2010 10) Deutsche
Presse-Agentur, March 12, 2010 11) Agence France-Presse, March 3,
2010 12) Xinhua News Agency, March 4, 2010 13) Speech by NATO
Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen at NATOs New Strategic
Concept Global, Transatlantic and Regional Challenges and Tasks
Ahead 14) Press TV, March 10, 2010 15) Russian Information Agency
Novosti, March 10, 2010 16) Berlin Wall: From Europe Whole And Free
To New World Order Stop NATO, November 9, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/berlin-wall-from-europe-wh...
free-to-new-world-order
17) North Atlantic Treaty Organization, March 12, 2010 18) United
States Department of Defense, March 9, 2010 19) Polish Radio,
February 28, 2010 20) Warsaw Business Journal, March 2, 2010 21)
Xinhua News Agency, March 5, 2010 22) Reuters, March 2, 2010 23)
North Atlantic Treaty Organization Allied Command Transformation
March 5, 2010 24) Polish News Agency via Xinhua News Agency, March
13, 2010 25) Warsaw Business Journal, March 12, 2010
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