The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created in 1949 by the United States, Canada, and several Western European nations to provide collective security against the Soviet Union.

Signing of the NATO Treaty

NATO was the first peacetime military alliance the United States entered into outside of the Western Hemisphere. After the destruction of the Second World War, the nations of Europe struggled to rebuild their economies and ensure their security. The former required a massive influx of aid to help the war-torn landscapes re-establish industries and produce food, and the latter required assurances against a resurgent Germany or incursions from the Soviet Union. The United States viewed an economically strong, rearmed, and integrated Europe as vital to the prevention of communist expansion across the continent. As a result, Secretary of State George Marshall proposed a program of large-scale economic aid to Europe. The resulting European Recovery Program, or Marshall Plan, not only facilitated European economic integration but promoted the idea of shared interests and cooperation between the United States and Europe. Soviet refusal either to participate in the Marshall Plan or to allow its satellite states in Eastern Europe to accept the economic assistance helped to reinforce the growing division between east and west in Europe.

In 19471948, a series of events caused the nations of Western Europe to become concerned about their physical and political security and the United States to become more closely involved with European affairs. The ongoing civil war in Greece, along with tensions in Turkey, led President Harry S. Truman to assert that the United States would provide economic and military aid to both countries, as well as to any other nation struggling against an attempt at subjugation. A Soviet-sponsored coup in Czechoslovakia resulted in a communist government coming to power on the borders of Germany. Attention also focused on elections in Italy as the communist party had made significant gains among Italian voters. Furthermore, events in Germany also caused concern. The occupation and governance of Germany after the war had long been disputed, and in mid-1948, Soviet premier Joseph Stalin chose to test Western resolve by implementing a blockade against West Berlin, which was then under joint U.S., British, and French control but surrounded by Soviet-controlled East Germany. This Berlin Crisis brought the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of conflict, although a massive airlift to resupply the city for the duration of the blockade helped to prevent an outright confrontation. These events caused U.S. officials to grow increasingly wary of the possibility that the countries of Western Europe might deal with their security concerns by negotiating with the Soviets. To counter this possible turn of events, the Truman Administration considered the possibility of forming a European-American alliance that would commit the United States to bolstering the security of Western Europe.

Signing of the Brussels Treaty

The Western European countries were willing to consider a collective security solution. In response to increasing tensions and security concerns, representatives of several countries of Western Europe gathered together to create a military alliance. Great Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg signed the Brussels Treaty in March, 1948. Their treaty provided collective defense; if any one of these nations was attacked, the others were bound to help defend it. At the same time, the Truman Administration instituted a peacetime draft, increased military spending, and called upon the historically isolationist Republican Congress to consider a military alliance with Europe. In May of 1948, Republican Senator Arthur H. Vandenburg proposed a resolution suggesting that the President seek a security treaty with Western Europe that would adhere to the United Nations charter but exist outside of the Security Council where the Soviet Union held veto power. The Vandenburg Resolution passed, and negotiations began for the North Atlantic Treaty.

In spite of general agreement on the concept behind the treaty, it took several months to work out the exact terms. The U.S. Congress had embraced the pursuit of the international alliance, but it remained concerned about the wording of the treaty. The nations of Western Europe wanted assurances that the United States would intervene automatically in the event of an attack, but under the U.S. Constitution the power to declare war rested with Congress. Negotiations worked toward finding language that would reassure the European states but not obligate the United States to act in a way that violated its own laws. Additionally, European contributions to collective security would require large-scale military assistance from the United States to help rebuild Western Europes defense capabilities. While the European nations argued for individual grants and aid, the United States wanted to make aid conditional on regional coordination. A third issue was the question of scope. The Brussels Treaty signatories preferred that membership in the alliance be restricted to the members of that treaty plus the United States. The U.S. negotiators felt there was more to be gained from enlarging the new treaty to include the countries of the North Atlantic, including Canada, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Ireland, and Portugal. Together, these countries held territory that formed a bridge between the opposite shores of the Atlantic Ocean, which would facilitate military action if it became necessary.

President Truman inspecting a tank produced under the Mutual Defense Assistance Program

The result of these extensive negotiations was the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949. In this agreement, the United States, Canada, Belgium, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and the United Kingdom agreed to consider attack against one an attack against all, along with consultations about threats and defense matters. This collective defense arrangement only formally applied to attacks against the signatories that occurred in Europe or North America; it did not include conflicts in colonial territories. After the treaty was signed, a number of the signatories made requests to the United States for military aid. Later in 1949, President Truman proposed a military assistance program, and the Mutual Defense Assistance Program passed the U.S. Congress in October, appropriating some $1.4 billion dollars for the purpose of building Western European defenses.

Soon after the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the outbreak of the Korean War led the members to move quickly to integrate and coordinate their defense forces through a centralized headquarters. The North Korean attack on South Korea was widely viewed at the time to be an example of communist aggression directed by Moscow, so the United States bolstered its troop commitments to Europe to provide assurances against Soviet aggression on the European continent. In 1952, the members agreed to admit Greece and Turkey to NATO and added the Federal Republic of Germany in 1955. West German entry led the Soviet Union to retaliate with its own regional alliance, which took the form of the Warsaw Treaty Organization and included the Soviet satellite states of Eastern Europe as members.

The collective defense arrangements in NATO served to place the whole of Western Europe under the American nuclear umbrella. In the 1950s, one of the first military doctrines of NATO emerged in the form of massive retaliation, or the idea that if any member was attacked, the United States would respond with a large-scale nuclear attack. The threat of this form of response was meant to serve as a deterrent against Soviet aggression on the continent. Although formed in response to the exigencies of the developing Cold War, NATO has lasted beyond the end of that conflict, with membership even expanding to include some former Soviet states. It remains the largest peacetime military alliance in the world.

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Milestones: 19451952 - Office of the Historian

The United States has limited its reaction to the killing of at least 36 Turkish soldiers in a Russian-backed Syrian government offensive in Idlib, northwest Syria on February 27 to a statement expressing concern over the attack and pledging solidarity with Turkey.

We stand by our NATO ally Turkey and continue to call for an immediate end to this despicable offensive by the Assad regime, Russia, and Iranian-backed forces, the U.S. State Department said in a statement on Friday.

While refraining from blaming Russia - which has total superiority over Syrian air space - for the deaths, Turkey has informed NATO of its plans for a cross-border operation into Idlib and requested support from the alliance to enforce a no fly zone over the region ahead of the offensive.

NATO, without signalling any intention to take the action that Turkey seeks, issued a statement that said: The North Atlantic Council, which includes the ambassadors of 29 NATO allies, will meet on Friday 28 February following a request by Turkey to hold consultations under Article 4 of NATOs founding Washington Treaty on the situation in Syria.

Article 4 of the charter stipulates that any NATO member can request talks when they believe their territorial integrity, political independence or security is threatened. Turkey could also invoke the alliances Article 5, which states that an armed attack against one member is an attack against all and creates the possibility of collective self defence.

Yet, most NATO members are very reluctant to be drawn into conflicts. France in particular has been trying to initiate a debate on what the alliance should do if Ankara requests assistance under NATOs Article 5.

Ankara had called for consultations on Article 4 several times in the past, including after one of its jets was downed by Syrian forces in 2012, and in 2015 after a spate of terrorist attacks in Turkey. NATOs reaction in those instances was confined to verbal condemnations of the incidents and is likely to remain limited to that this time as well.

In what appeared to be an attempt to pacify Turkeys anger with the alliance, after an emergency meeting in Brussels, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Friday called on Russia to halt the offensive in Idlib. He said that NATO stood in solidarity with Turkey, and expressed condolences for the death of Turkish soldiers.

Stoltenberg said that NATO has provided political and practical support to Turkey and that the allies are looking to make further contributions, without going into detail. "The allies will continue to follow developments on the southeastern border of NATO very closely," he concluded.

Well aware that no action beyond verbal condemnation of of its actions would be forthcoming from NATO, Russia blamed Turkey for failing to provide them with accurate coordinates of its forces deployed in Syria. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Turkish troops were among terrorists in the area hit by Syrian fire. However, Turkey maintains the attacks occurred after Turkey had informed Russian authorities of its deployments.

NATO is unlikely to assist the Turkish military in the multilateral conflict in Syria, despite Turkeys strategic importance to the alliance due to its location straddling the Bosporus strait and bordering the Black Sea, and by hosting the ncirlik air base in southeastern Turkey from which the alliance operates aerial surveillance flights.

Ahval English

The views expressed in this column are the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of Ahval.

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Will NATO come to Turkey's aid in Syria? - Ahval

Data science platform Dataiku is teaming up with military alliance NATO to create a system to help it build and "deploy" AI projects.

The deal with NATO's Allied Command Transformation (ACT) aims to use Dataiku's tech and data scientists to solve some of the most "challenging use cases in the field", NATO said, vaguely, without specifying the type of thing they were referring to.

"We were looking to expand our use of data science, machine learning, and AI in the organisation," said General Andr Lanata, NATO supreme allied commander for transformation. "We are invested in sharing ACT's progress with other member states, with the goal of expanding competencies and successful, deployed use cases of AI projects in the field."

Dataiku makes Data Science Studio - an advanced analytics and collaborative data science tool - which comes up against the likes of Teradata, Talend, and IBM. The seven-year-old startup has been valued at $1.4bn and inhaled $101m in its last funding round in December last year.

Dataiku CEO Florian Douetteau said of the military deal: "NATO ACT is in the unique position to leverage data science and machine learning to have global impact."

Earlier this week, the US Department of Defense adopted a set of "ethical principles" on the controversial topic of the deployment of AI technology for military use. Google dropped its association with computer-vision software Pentagon project, Maven, after internal and external backlash last year.

Dataiku got its introduction to NATO via an "innovation hub" competition in Paris, 2018. In an incredibly prescient imaginary scenario, participants were asked to assist in the control of a disease outbreak in a landlocked country.

The outbreak led to a public health crisis complicated by the emergence of rebel groups attacking medical supplies.

The Dataiku team won two of the three gongs up for grabs by applying object detection with deep learning on aerial imagery. Let's hope it does not need to put any of the lessons learned into practice any time soon.

Sponsored: Quit your addiction to storage

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Data science pusher Dataiku hooks arms with NATO on battlefield AI contract - The Register

This is a rush transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.

Greg Wolpert: Its the Real News Network. Im Greg Wolpert in Baltimore. The US military is about to send 7,500 combat troops to Norway for exercise Cold Response 2020 where they will join thousands of allied NATO troops in the Finnmark district along the border to Russia to participate in war games that will take place in mid-March.

These maneuvers have been held every other year since 2006, but their increased size and importance are raising credible fears that NATO and the United States are preparing to use the Arctic as a battleground for a possible conflict with Russia. Why have these NATO games in such a Northern latitude been gaining in importance? US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo openly explained the rationale when he visited Finland in May of last year.

Mike Pompeo: The Arctic is at the forefront of opportunity and abundance. It houses 13% of the worlds undiscovered oil, 30% of its undiscovered gas, and an abundance of uranium, rare earth minerals, gold, diamonds, and millions of square miles of untapped resources, fisheries galore. And its centerpiece, the Arctic Ocean, is rapidly taking on new strategic significance. Offshore resources, which are helping the respective coastal states are the subject of renewed competition.

Steady reductions in sea ice are opening new passageways and new opportunities for trade. This could potentially slash the time it takes to travel between Asia and the West by as much as 20 days. Arctic sea lanes could come before the could come to the 21st century Suez and Panama canals.

Under President Trump, were fortifying Americas security and diplomatic presence in the area. On the security side, partly in response to Russias destabilizing activities, we are hosting military exercises, strengthening our force presence, rebuilding our icebreaker fleet, expanding Coast Guard funding, and creating a new senior military post for Arctic Affairs inside of our own military.

Greg Wolpert: Pompeo also explained that in addition to the threat that Russia represents, so does China.

Joining me now to discuss the significance of NATOs exercise Cold Response are Michael Klare and [Erik Vold 00:02:20]. Michael is The Nations defense correspondent and professor emeritus of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College. His latest book is, All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagons Perspective on Climate Change. Erik, who joins us from Oslo, is a Norwegian political analyst and author and is working as a foreign policy advisor to the parliamentary group of the leftist Red Party of Norway.

Thanks, Michael and Erik for joining us today. So lets start with the Arctic, why the Arctic has become of such great interest to the United States? We saw it earlier as Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo already explained it pretty well in that clip. But January, once again, the month of January, beat all climate records as the warmest January in recorded history. Michael, talk about how climate change is driving this scramble for the Arctic.

Michael Klare: Well, at one point you couldnt go there. You couldnt go near there because it was covered with ice. The region was impenetrable. But because of climate change and the rapidly rising temperatures in the Arctic, the ice cap is receding and thats making it possible to drill for oil and natural gas and other resources in the Arctic region. This has led to a scramble to extract those resources by giant energy firms from around the world. So this has made the region much more of importance from a geopolitical perspective.

Its especially true of Russia because Russia highly depends on the sale of oil and natural gas to prop up its economy. Something like 25% of its foreign income comes from the sale of oil and gas and at present most of that oil and natural gas that it sells to Europe and Asia comes from reserves below the Arctic Circle. But those are running out. So for Russia to continue to rely on oil and gas reserves to power its economy, it has to go above the Arctic Circle.

And so from Moscows perspective, the development of Arctic resources is absolutely crucial. This is something that President Vladimir Putin has said over and over again and has invested vast resources, economic inputs into developing the new oil and gas fields developed, discovered above the Arctic Circle in Russias territory.

But as well discuss, this creates problems for Russia because its very hard to deliver those new oil and gas reserves to the rest of the world because of the distance from markets. This has put a new emphasis on trade routes that pass by Northern Norway, which is where this exercise is being held.

Greg Wolpert: All right. Talk to us also about the US interest that is in the resources because you make an interesting point in one of your articles for The Nation where you point out also that even if we arent right away running out of natural resources in the Middle East, there is an issue that climate change in the Middle East is actually driving also whats happening in the Arctic. Explain that to us.

Michael Klare: Yes, indeed. If you look at the latest scientific literature on what we could expect from climate change in the future, the Middle East region, especially the Persian Gulf, which is where most of oil drilling is occurring at present, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran and so on, those areas are going to become unbearably hot in summer months. You can expect, in decades to come, that summertime temperatures during the day are likely to average above 110 degrees Fahrenheit and very possibly above 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Its almost impossible for humans to survive for very long in those temperatures.

A lot of equipment breaks down under those circumstances. So its very possible that itll become impossible to produce oil and gas in that region. That makes production in the Arctic much more attractive as those areas become impossible to operate in the Middle East. So the oil companies, American and British oil companies are increasingly looking towards the Arctic as a future source of production to ensure that they have adequate supplies.

Greg Wolpert: Erik, I want to turn to you now. Now, what has Norway done to facilitate the scramble for Arctic resources? I mean, Norway is usually seen as a peace loving country, the home of the Nobel Peace Prize after all. To what extent and why is Norway supporting US ambitions there via NATO?

Erik Vold: Well, Norway joined the NATO in 1949 and that was a very controversial decision. And because Norway is a country that is situated on the border with Russia, at that time the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union had just liberated a big chunk of Norwegian territory from Nazi occupation, so there was very little appetite in the Norwegian population to sort of antagonize the Russians by letting the US enter Norwegian territory with heavy military equipment. So we had this self-imposed restrictions on US military presence. For example, not permitting US military bases on Norwegian soil in peace time and not permitting the presence of US nukes on Norwegian territory.

Now, this policy, this very prudent policy that served us very well for about 70 years has been rolled back by this current government, which is more and more inclined to supporting the US and to supporting US militarization off the Arctic that is deemed to be threatening by the Russians. Now I can give you a very illustrative example.

In 2018, the Norwegian government introduced a proposal asking basically asking the parliament for a grant of about 1 billion kroners, about $1 million for satellite-based broadband connection in the Northern Norway. Now this was presented as a proposal to improve internet connection for business, for fishery, for maritime security, shipping and for the Norwegian defense. This grant was voted favorably, unanimously, by the parliament.

Now a couple of days later, it turned out that this grant was going to be used on something completely different. It turned out that these satellites were going to carry communication equipment for the US military directly connected to US nuclear armed submarines that were using the Arctic territories of Norwegian maritime territory getting close to Russia.

It also turned out that the reason why the Americans wanted to use civilian Norwegian satellites instead of US military satellites was because the US military considered that any satellites carrying communication equipment for nuclear, US nuclear capabilities would become possible targets for attacks from those countries that feel threatened by the presence of US nukes close to their borders. In this case, it would be Russia and China.

So what this goes to show is the way that the US is increasingly using Norwegian territory and Norwegian civilian infrastructure to move nuclear and conventional military, offensive military, capabilities closer and closer to the Russian border. And that the way that this is being done is through, to a large extent, through secrecy and deceptions, sometimes even undermining important principles of the Norwegian democracy.

Greg Wolpert: Michael, I want to get to that point that Erik is raising about increasing US military presence in Norway. Were not just talking about the NATO maneuvers that are happening in early March. So what has the US so far deployed there and what kinds of risks do these deployments represent?

Michael Klare: So step back for a minute. The US, over the past two years, has adopted a new military strategy. For the past 20 years or so, since 2001, since 9/11, the guiding strategy of the United States has been the global War on Terror. And thats led, of course to a focus on Iraq to Afghanistan and other countries where the US has been fighting the various ISIS and Al-Qaeda and so on.

Two years ago, the Department of Defense adopted a new national security strategy, which emphasizes what they call great power competition, meaning the rivalry between the US, Russia and China. And on this space is the US increasingly views Russia and China as its main adversary. In this shift in strategy emphasizes that while the US was focusing on the wars, the what we call the Forever Wars, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and so on, that Russia and China have built up their military capabilities and put NATO and the US at a disadvantage and that therefore, its essential that the US and NATO build up their capabilities again to deflect and to contain and push back Russian and then Chinese advances.

So now looking at Norway and Scandinavia, the US sees a big Russian build up in the Kola Peninsula. Thats the area that adjoins Norway in the far North, a huge buildup of Russian forces there. This is seen as a new or an expanded threat to NATO and to US forces in general because those forces that the Russians have deployed in Kola Peninsula, especially in Murmansk the big naval base there include nuclear forces. So in response, the US has undertaken a drive to beef up its forces in that region and that has included, as [inaudible 00:13:28] said earlier, the positioning of a permanent deployment of American forces that is, in this case, Marine deployments of several hundred Marines in North Central Norway.

But more importantly, under agreement with the Norwegian government, this is not well known in the United States at all, I dont even know if go regions know about it, the US has established large, large caves, I think in the area to the East of Trondheim in North Central Norway, which hold hundreds, thousands of tanks and artillery pieces and armored personnel carriers, ammunition, all the stocks you need to fight a major war. So there is an anticipation on the US side that we may have to fight a major war with Russia in the far North in the area adjoining the Kola Peninsula.

The exercise that were about to see, Cold Response 2020, US forces will fly to Norway and then go to those caves and extract all of those tanks that have been pre-positioned in Norway, move to the Northern part of Norway and engage in a mock war with Russia. So there is this, an assumption now in the Pentagon that Northern Norway will be a major battlefield in any war with Russia and in fact could be the starting place for World War III.

Greg Wolpert: Actually, Erik, this is exactly the next issue I want to touch on with you. I mean, just as Michael says, Norway would be in the middle of such a confrontation, whether its a nuclear or conventional. Now, whats been the reaction within Norway to this militarization?

Erik Vold: Thats true. I mean, Norway used to be a kind of a buffer zone between Russia or the USSR and the US. And through those Norwegian policies of limiting US presence in Northern Norway, that position was maintained until pretty recently because the current government has done a lot to tear down those limitations and basically scrap Norways role as a buffer, as a buffer zone.

So, while reactions are slow [inaudible 00:15:55]. I mean, defense policies, the whole security issue, big power competition, that issue has basically been marginalized since the end of the Cold War. The Norwegian people is slowly realizing the risks that this implies for Norway. I mean, we have enjoyed so many decades of peace and the risk of war has basically not been on the agenda.

But what we are seeing now is that by scrapping that prudent policy of maintaining a certain distance to the US even though being allies, by scrapping that policy, the risk of war is not being, is not reduced. Its increasing. Were seeing basically a security dilemma in which the increased military presence of the US in Norway makes Russia look at Norway with different eyes. I mean, well, the Russians never feared Norway, a small country of five million inhabitants with whom theyve maintained peace for almost a thousand years.

When US nuclear capabilities are connected to Norwegian civilian infrastructure, and when Norwegian territory is used to build up US military presence, then Russian guns are slowly being to more of an extent being pointed towards Norway because what the Russians do fear is that Norwegian territory is being used for aggressive purposes by the US against Russia. And so that increases the risk of Norway being drawn into this big power rivalry between Russia and the US.

It also increases the risks for the Russians. So theyre increasing their military spending. And unfortunately, this is also something that might stimulate increase defense spending in the US because to the extent that the US engages in Norway, probably in the case and increasing the risk of a conflict. Maybe the most probable scenario is a conflict arising from a misunderstanding when so much heavy military power is concentrated on such a small area. Thats the way it can happen.

So in case of a misunderstanding in which the Russians fear a US attack, they go to, they take some kind of preliminary action to protect their military capabilities in the Kola Peninsula. Then the U S will feel much more obliged to interfere, to intervene in order to maintain their credibility as a security guarantor towards other NATO States. So it also increases the risk of the US being drawn into a conflict unnecessarily based on a misunderstanding. So, what were going to see is three nations, everyone spending more on defense and getting less security in return from it.

Greg Wolpert: Michael, I was just wondering if you could add to that? I mean this was one of your points in your Nation article as well, that this could be the main area for World War III and why is that? I mean, what is it, why is Russia building up so much? After all, theyve got access to the entire, more access to the Arctic than any other country in the world, so why is it such a hotspot?

Michael Klare: Well, this partly is a matter of geography and I hope that you can put a map of this area to highlight this fact. That is to say that although Russia has a number of ports, the port at Murmansk is the only one that offers Russian submarines open access to the Atlantic Ocean and to the other oceans of the world. They cant on the Atlantic side. They also have ports on the Pacific.

One needs a minute to understand something about nuclear strategy. Russia relies on its nuclear submarines, nuclear missile armed submarines, as its secure deterrent to a US first strike. If the US were to strike first and destroy all Russian missile silos, they count on their submarines submerged as a final deterrent to such a strike because theyre supposedly more secure from detection and attack, but they have to get out into the water. Murmansk is therefore essential to them for that reason.

Hence, the United States, as it increasingly sees it, sees the possibility of a nuclear war with Russia sees that area where the submarines would exit from Murmansk to go out into the ocean as a crucial future nuclear war zone. Hence, the US has established with Norway a radar base at the very far North of Norway and Finnmark just 45 miles from the border with Russia and to track Russian submarines. This means in the event of a clash that had a nuclear potential, Northern Norway would be an immediate nuclear target for Russia. So you could see how this area is being caught up in the nuclear planning scenarios of both sides.

Its important to understand in this discussion that as we are shifting to this great power competition that weve been discussing, the US and I think the other great powers are also moving away from the strategy of mutual assured destruction, MAD as it was called, M-A-D, which said that any nuclear war would be so catastrophic that we are not even going to think about a first strike. Were only going to retain a secure second strike and not even think about nuclear war, but thats changing.

The US and Russia and China, it appears, are thinking more and more about the possibility of fighting and winning a nuclear war. I think this is utterly insane and immoral, highly immoral, but that is the case. And so nuclear battlefields are emerging places where nuclear strikes might occur. This area of Northern Norway and Murmansk would be at the very top of the list of possible targets in the event of a nuclear war. I could say more about this, but this is a matter of geography and you have to see Murmansk adjoining Northern Norway as a prime battlefield in any outset of a nuclear war.

Greg Wolpert: Well, I think its also important to reflect on how these two kind of apocalyptic scenarios, that is of climate change and of nuclear war, are coming together in this particular issue. Its really quite something. But were going to leave it there for now. Well certainly continue to follow this as we usually do.

I was speaking to Michael Klare, The Nations defense correspondent and professor emeritus of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College and Erik Vold, foreign policy advisor for the parliamentary group of the Red Party of Norway. Thanks again, Michael and Erik for having joined us today.

Michael Klare: Thank you.

Erik Vold: Thank you.

Greg Wolpert: And thank you for joining the Real News Network.

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NATO's Arctic War Exercise Unites Climate Change and WWIII - The Real News Network

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The US and the Taliban have signed an "agreement for bringing peace" to Afghanistan after more than 18 years of conflict.

The US and Nato allies have agreed to withdraw all troops within 14 months if the militants uphold the deal.

President Trump said it had been a "long and hard journey" in Afghanistan. "It's time after all these years to bring our people back home," he said.

Talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban are due to follow.

Under the agreement, the militants also agreed not to allow al-Qaeda or any other extremist group to operate in the areas they control.

Speaking at the White House, Mr Trump said the Taliban had been trying to reach an agreement with the US for a long time.

He said US troops had been killing terrorists in Afghanistan "by the thousands" and now it was "time for someone else to do that work and it will be the Taliban and it could be surrounding countries".

"I really believe the Taliban wants to do something to show we're not all wasting time," Mr Trump added. "If bad things happen, we'll go back with a force like no-one's ever seen."

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The US invaded Afghanistan weeks after the September 2001 attacks in New York by the Afghanistan-based al-Qaeda group.

More than 2,400 US troops have been killed during the conflict. About 12,000 are still stationed in the country. President Trump has promised to put an end to the conflict.

The deal was signed by US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and Taliban political chief Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as a witness.

In a speech, Mr Pompeo urged the militant group to "keep your promises to cut ties with al-Qaeda".

Mr Baradar said he hoped Afghanistan could now emerge from four decades of conflict.

"I hope that with the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Afghanistan the Afghan nation under an Islamic regime will take its relief and embark on a new prosperous life," he said.

Meanwhile US Defence Secretary Mark Esper was in the Afghan capital Kabul alongside Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani - whose government did not take part in the US-Taliban talks.

Mr Esper said: "This is a hopeful moment, but it is only the beginning. The road ahead will not be easy. Achieving lasting peace in Afghanistan will require patience and compromise among all parties." He said the US would continue to support the Afghan government.

Mr Ghani said the country was "looking forward to a full ceasefire". The government said it was ready to negotiate with the Taliban.

Within the first 135 days of the deal the US will reduce its forces in Afghanistan to 8,600, with allies also drawing down their forces proportionately.

The move would allow US President Donald Trump to show that he has brought troops home ahead of the US presidential election in November.

The deal also provides for a prisoner swap. Some 5,000 Taliban prisoners and 1,000 Afghan security force prisoners would be exchanged by 10 March, when talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government are due to start.

The US will also lift sanctions against the Taliban and work with the UN to lift its separate sanctions against the group.

In Kabul, activist Zahra Husseini said she feared the deal could worsen the situation for women in Afghanistan.

"I don't trust the Taliban, and remember how they suppressed women when they were ruling," the 28-year-old told AFP.

"Today is a dark day, and as I was watching the deal being signed, I had this bad feeling that it would result in their return to power rather than in peace."

This historic deal has been years in the making, as all sides kept seeking advantage on the battlefield.

The agreement is born of America's determination to bring troops home and a recognition, at least by some Taliban, that talks are the best route to return to Kabul.

It's a significant step forward, despite deep uncertainty and scepticism over where it will lead. When the only alternative is unending war, many Afghans seem ready to take this risk for peace.

Taliban leaders say they've changed since their harsh rule of the 1990s still seared in the memory of many, and most of all Afghan women.

This process will test the Taliban, but also veteran Afghan leaders of the past, and a new generation which has come of age in the last two decades and is hoping against hope for a different future.

Since 2011, Qatar has hosted Taliban leaders who have moved there to discuss peace in Afghanistan. It has been a chequered process. A Taliban office was opened in 2013, and closed the same year amid rows over flags. Other attempts at talks stalled.

In December 2018, the militants announced they would meet US officials to try to find a "roadmap to peace". But the hard-line Islamist group continued to refuse to hold official talks with the Afghan government, whom they dismissed as American "puppets".

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Following nine rounds of US-Taliban talks in Qatar, the two sides seemed close to an agreement.

Washington's top negotiator announced last September that the US would withdraw 5,400 troops from Afghanistan within 20 weeks as part of a deal agreed "in principle" with Taliban militants.

Days later, Mr Trump said the talks were "dead", after the group killed a US soldier. But within weeks the two sides resumed discussions behind the scenes.

A week ago the Taliban agreed to a "reduction of violence" - although Afghan officials say at least 22 soldiers and 14 civilians have been killed in Taliban attacks over that period.

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It began when the US launched air strikes one month following the 11 September 2001 attacks and after the Taliban had refused to hand over the man behind them, Osama bin Laden.

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The US was joined by an international coalition and the Taliban were quickly removed from power. However, they turned into an insurgent force and continued deadly attacks, destabilising subsequent Afghan governments.

The international coalition ended its combat mission in 2014, staying only to train Afghan forces. But the US continued its own, scaled-back combat operation, including air strikes.

The Taliban has however continued to gain momentum and in 2018 the BBC found they were active across 70% of Afghanistan.

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Nearly 3,500 members of the international coalition forces have died in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion.

The figures for Afghan civilians, militants and government forces are more difficult to quantify. In a February 2019 report, the UN said that more than 32,000 civilians had died. The Watson Institute at Brown University says 58,000 security personnel and 42,000 opposition combatants have been killed.

There are many reasons for this. But they include a combination of fierce Taliban resistance, the limitations of Afghan forces and governance, and other countries' reluctance to keep their troops for longer in Afghanistan.

At times over the past 18 years, the Taliban have been on the back foot. In late 2009, US President Barack Obama announced a troop "surge" that saw the number of American soldiers in Afghanistan top 100,000.

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The surge helped drive the Taliban out of parts of southern Afghanistan, but it was never destined to last for years.

The BBC World Service's Dawood Azami says there are five main reasons the war is still going on now. They include:

There's also the role played by Afghanistan's neighbour, Pakistan.

There's no question the Taliban have their roots in Pakistan, and that they were able to regroup there during the US invasion. But Pakistan has denied helping or protecting them - even as the US demanded it do more to fight militants.

More:

Afghan conflict: US and Taliban sign deal to end 18-year war - BBC News

When the Commander of NATO says he is a fan of flexible first strike at the same time that NATO is flexing its military muscle on Russias border, the risk of inadvertent nuclear war is real.

US Air Force Gen. Tod D Wolters told the Senate this week he is a fan of flexible first strike regarding NATOs nuclear weapons, thereby exposing the fatal fallacy of the alliances embrace of American nuclear deterrence policy.

It was one of the most remarkable yet underreported exchanges in recent Senate history. Earlier this week, during the testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee of General Tod Wolters, the commander of US European Command and, concurrently, as the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe (SACEUR) also the military head of all NATO armed forces, General Wolters engaged in a short yet informative exchange with Senator Deb Fischer, a Republican from the state of Nebraska.

Following some initial questions and answers focused on the alignment of NATOs military strategy with the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the US, which codified what Wolters called the malign influence on behalf of Russia toward European security, Senator Fischer asked about the growing recognition on the part of NATO of the important role of US nuclear deterrence in keeping the peace. We all understand that our deterrent, the TRIAD, is the bedrock of the security of this country, Fischer noted. Can you tell us about what you are hearingfrom our NATO partners about this deterrent?

Wolters responded by linking the deterrence provided to Europe by the US nuclear TRIAD with the peace enjoyed on the European continent over the past seven decades. Fischer asked if the US nuclear umbrella was vital in the freedom of NATO members; Wolters agreed. Remarkably, Wolters linked the role of nuclear deterrence with the NATO missions in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere outside the European continent. NATOs mission, he said, was to proliferate deterrence to the max extent practical to achieve greater peace.

Then came the piece de resistance of the hearing. What are your views, Sir, Senator Fischer asked, of adopting a so-called no-first-use policy. Do you believe that that would strengthen deterrence?

General Wolters response was straight to the point. Senator, Im a fan of flexible first use policy.

Under any circumstance, the public embrace of a flexible first strike policy regarding nuclear weapons employment by the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe should generate widespread attention. When seen in the context of the recent deployment by the US of a low-yield nuclear warhead on submarine-launched ballistic missiles carried onboard a Trident submarine, however, Wolters statement is downright explosive. Add to the mix the fact the US recently carried out a wargame where the US Secretary of Defense practiced the procedures for launching this very same low yield weapon against a Russian target during simulated combat between Russia and NATO in Europe, and the reaction should be off the charts. And yet there has been deafening silence from both the European and US press on this topic.

There is, however, one party that paid attention to what General Wolters had to sayRussia. In a statement to the press on February 25the same date as General Wolters testimony, Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister stated that We note with concern that Washingtons new doctrinal guidelines considerably lower the threshold of nuclear weapons use. Lavrov added that this doctrine had to be viewed in the light of the persistent deployment of US nuclear weapons on the territory of some NATO allies and the continued practice of the so-called joint nuclear missions.

Rather than embracing a policy of flexible first strike, Lavrov suggested that the US work with Russia to re-confirm the Gorbachev-Reagan formula, which says that there can be no winners in a nuclear war and it should never be unleashed. This proposal was made 18 months ago, Lavrov noted, and yet the US has failed to respond.

Complicating matters further are the Defender 2020 NATO military exercises underway in Europe, involving tens of thousands of US troops in one of the largest training operations since the end of the Cold War. The fact that these exercises are taking place at a time when the issue of US nuclear weapons and NATOs doctrine regarding their employment against Russia is being actively tracked by senior Russian authorities only highlights the danger posed.

On February 6, General Valery Gerasimov, the Russian Chief of Staff, met with General Wolters to discuss Defender 2020 and concurrent Russian military exercises to be held nearby to deconflict their respective operations and avoid any unforeseen incidents. This meeting, however, was held prior to the reports about a US/NATO nuclear wargame targeting Russian forces going public, and prior to General Wolters statement about flexible first use of NATO nuclear weapons.

In light of these events, General Gerasimov met with French General Fanois Lecointre, the Chief of the Defense Staff, to express Russias concerns over NATOs military moves near the Russian border, especially the Defender 2020 exercise which was, General Gerasimov noted, held on the basis of anti-Russian scenarios and envisage training for offensive operations.

General Gerasimovs concerns cannot be viewed in isolation, but rather must be considered in the overall historical context of NATO-Russian relations. Back in 1983, the then-Soviet Union was extremely concerned about a series of realistic NATO exercises, known as Able Archer 83, which in many ways mimicked the modern-day Defender 2020 in both scope and scale. Like Defender 2020, Able Archer 83 saw the deployment of tens of thousands of US forces into Europe, where they assumed an offensive posture, before transitioning into a command post exercise involving the employment of NATO nuclear weapons against a Soviet target.

So concerned was Moscow about these exercises, and the possibility that NATO might use them as a cover for an attack against Soviet forces in East Germany, that the Soviet nuclear forces were placed on high alert. Historians have since observed that the threat of nuclear war between the US and the USSR was at that time the highest it had been since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

US and NATO officials would do well to recall the danger to European and world security posed by the Able Archer 83 exercise and the potential for Soviet miscalculations when assessing the concerns expressed by General Gerasimov today. The unprecedented concentration of offensive NATO military power on Russias border, coupled with the cavalier public embrace by General Wolters of a flexible first strike nuclear posture by NATO, has more than replicated the threat model presented by Able Archer 83. In this context, it would not be a stretch to conclude that the threat of nuclear war between the US and Russia is the highest it has been since Able Archer 83.

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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

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The threat of a nuclear war between the US and Russia is now at its greatest since 1983 - RT