NATO Summit to Focus On IS, Russian Aggression, Afghan War
(Source: Voice of America; issued July 7, 2016)
“Let's be blunt: Alliances don't have a choice. They have to walk and chew gum. You don't prioritize key threats; you have to deal with all of them,” Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told VOA ahead of the summit.
Afghanistan
With U.S. troop numbers no longer uncertain, analysts say NATO leaders need a strategy to help Afghans solve a myriad of problems, including a struggling economy, a failure to restart peace talks with the Taliban and a rise in Afghan casualties following a fierce fighting season.
Cordesman says the Afghan war is something Afghan security forces and their NATO allies “clearly are not yet winning,” despite more than a decade of resources flowing into the country and thousands of lives lost.
In addition to sustaining the alliance mission on the ground in Afghanistan, U.S. Ambassador to NATO Doug Lute says, “the second key thing” NATO leaders will deliver on Afghanistan is a funding commitment to support the Kabul government's army and police until 2020.
Lute told reporters Wednesday the NATO moves are designed to build Afghan government leaders' confidence and to continue progress that’s been made so far.
Russian aggression
Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula, along with its continued support for separatists in Ukraine’s east, have increased NATO’s need to reassure its eastern allies and also take steps to deter further Russian aggression.
“I think one of the greatest keys to deterrence, what would really deter those who would seek to bring pressure on our alliance, is that our entire alliance - the force structure that we already have - becomes more ready and more responsive,” said retired General Philip Breedlove, the former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe. He was speaking at an event in Washington last week hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
To help with the deterrence effort, the U.S., Britain, Germany and Canada are each planning to lead a NATO rotational battalion to be based on the alliance’s eastern flank.
A U.S. official who declined to be identified told VOA Wednesday that President Barack Obama will announce that the United States will lead a battalion in Poland. The other allies will be leading battalions based in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Lute told reporters the “modest and responsible force presence” of four rotational battalions will complement the key commitment leaders made at the last NATO summit, in Wales, where they agreed to place a larger proportion of allied forces on "a higher readiness standard.”
Based on that decision, the alliance today has about 13,000 troops in Spain who are “ready to move anywhere in alliance territory in just days,” Lute said.
Islamic State
To the south, the U.S.-led coalition is helping Iraqi security forces and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters defeat Islamic State terrorists in Iraq, and supporting moderate rebels battling Islamic State in Syria.
NATO is not fighting Islamic State forces as a bloc; instead, members choose unilaterally to contribute troops to the U.S.-led coalition in the region.
After the terrorist attacks in Paris last year, some called for NATO to invoke its Article 5 collective defense authority to step up the fight against Islamic State extremists. Since that could result in official NATO involvement in Iraq and Syria, analyst Daniel Serwer of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies sounds a cautionary note.
“We need Russian cooperation - in Syria, especially - and you're not going to get Russian cooperation if NATO is there,” Serwer told VOA.
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Norway: Allied Unity the Key Focus At NATO Summit
(Source: Norway Ministry of Defence; issued July 7, 2016)
When the heads of state and government convene in Warsaw, they will be meeting on historic ground. This is the city where the Soviet Union and the former East-bloc countries agreed in 1955 to establish the Warsaw Pact – a military alliance rivalling NATO.
‘Today, Poland is one of our close allies in NATO. The Alliance is stronger than ever, and has succeeded in remaining relevant and adapting to a new security environment. We have managed to deliver on the goals we set at the Summit in Wales two years ago. We are now better prepared to meet new challenges. We have strengthened our collective defence,’ Prime Minister Solberg said.
Increasing NATO’s presence in several of the Alliance’s eastern countries will be a key topic at the summit. Other topics will be the situation in the Middle East and North Africa and NATO’s contributions to stabilising these areas. Separate meetings will be held on Afghanistan, Ukraine and Georgia.
‘Norway advocates strengthening NATO’s maritime capability. Strategic developments in the North Atlantic show that this is crucial. We are pleased that this will be discussed at the summit,’ said Ms Solberg.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Børge Brende and Minister of Defence Ine Eriksen Søreide are also taking part in the Summit.
Cooperation between NATO and the EU on security and defence policy is steadily increasing, and will be an important topic at this Summit.
‘Closer cooperation between NATO and the EU is important. The EU and NATO have different tools at their disposal, and Europe’s security challenges can only be addressed through cooperation. The UK’s exit from the EU makes it even more crucial that we succeed in this. Europe needs more cooperation, not less,’ said Minister of Foreign Affairs Børge Brende.
Norway’s contribution to NATO is substantial, both in military terms and through its support for NATO’s capacity-building efforts in fragile states.
‘The proposed long-term plan for the Norwegian armed forces includes strengthening our national capability. This will also be important for NATO and will benefit the Alliance as a whole,’ added Ms Søreide.
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Warsaw Summit Aims to Chart NATO Route Forward
(Source: U.S Department of Defense; issued July 7, 2016)
The summit is a great opportunity for the president “to consult closely with our allies … in the aftermath of Brexit, some of the tensions with Russia over the past several years and some of the broader concerns about the counter-ISIL efforts and the refugee situation,” Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security advisor, told media during a teleconference yesterday.
The president will also discuss operations in Afghanistan, Rhodes said.
“From a NATO perspective, this summit comes at a real inflection point … in the alliance,” said Ambassador Doug Lute, the U.S. permanent representative to NATO.
Lute cited Russia’s more assertive actions to the east of NATO, the alliance’s 1,500 mile-long border with the conflicts in Syria and Iraq, and then the mass migration flows to Europe across the Mediterranean as reasons for concern. “All these factors in multiple directions combine to really mark this [meeting] as different in NATO’s long history,” he said.
Lute, a retired Army lieutenant general, compared the situation today to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Two Themes
There will be two key themes in the sessions at the Warsaw Summit, the ambassador said. The first is to follow-up on progress made in decisions made at the Wales Summit in 2014. “The alliance took measures to put a larger percentage of its force posture on a higher readiness standard,” he said.
This is NATO’s Very High Readiness Joint Task Force, the keystone deliverable from the last summit, Lute said. The force has exercised and is ready, NATO officials have said.
The readiness force will be complemented with “modest and responsible” force presence along the Eastern flank of the alliance. Four NATO battalions -- from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Germany -- will deploy to the Baltic republics and Poland. “You will have forward presence backed up by rapid reaction,” Lute said.
The ambassador noted that NATO remains open to dialogue with Russia.
Exporting Stability
The second major theme revolves around the alliance exporting stability to its periphery, Lute said. This is the focus of the July 9 sessions beginning with meeting with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah. The alliance will sustain its current level of support to the country beyond 2016. Obama’s announcement yesterday that the U.S. contribution will be sustained into 2017 “is a very welcome statement,” the ambassador said.
The second session will discuss the counter-ISIL campaign, Lute said. “We will talk about how we can work alongside the European Union to contend with the mass migration across the Mediterranean,” he said. “We will also discuss how to deal with weak or failing states to buttress their ability to stabilize themselves and defend themselves.”
The last session will concentrate on Ukraine, and that nation’s president -- Petro Poroshenko -- will meet with the Atlantic Council to discuss the political and security situation inside Ukraine.
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