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UK: ‘NATO to outline partnership with Ukraine’ – Secretary General Rasmussen – Video

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UK: #39;NATO to outline partnership with Ukraine #39; - Secretary General Rasmussen
Video ID: 20140904-004 M/S Convoy of NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen arriving M/S NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen exiting vehicle M/S NATO Secretary General Anders...

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UK: 'NATO to outline partnership with Ukraine' - Secretary General Rasmussen - Video

Ukraines Poroshenko Gets Show of Support from NATO Leaders – Video

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Ukraines Poroshenko Gets Show of Support from NATO Leaders
Ukraine #39;s president, Petro Poroshenko, received a show of support from Western leaders at a NATO summit on Thursday as a Kremlin peace offer failed to halt fighting the country #39;s east where...

By: NewsBlock Ukraine

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Ukraines Poroshenko Gets Show of Support from NATO Leaders - Video

How the Ukraine Crisis Helped Galvanize NATO | Times Minute | The New York Times – Video

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How the Ukraine Crisis Helped Galvanize NATO | Times Minute | The New York Times
A look at how the threat of further Russian aggression has helped to unify NATO. Produced by: Natalia V. Osipova and Christian Roman Subscribe to the Times Video newsletter for free and...

By: The New York Times

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How the Ukraine Crisis Helped Galvanize NATO | Times Minute | The New York Times - Video

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) — Encyclopedia …

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Last Updated 5-2-2014

North Atlantic Treaty Organization(NATO),military alliance established by the North Atlantic Treaty (also called the Washington Treaty) of April 4, 1949, which sought to create a counterweight to Soviet armies stationed in central and eastern Europe after World War II. Its original members were Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Joining the original signatories were Greece and Turkey (1952); West Germany (1955; from 1990 as Germany); Spain (1982); the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland (1999); Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia (2004); and Albania and Croatia (2009). France withdrew from the integrated military command of NATO in 1966 but remained a member of the organization; it resumed its position in NATOs military command in 2009.

The heart of NATO is expressed in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, in which the signatory members 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-defense recognized by Article 51 ... (200 of 2,724 words)

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North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) -- Encyclopedia ...

NATO Too Wary of Russian Threats to Let Ukraine Join

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TIME World NATO Too Wary of Russian Threats to Let Ukraine Join Despite Russia's actions in eastern Ukraine, the U.S.-led alliance is keeping Kiev at a distance

With its aggression against Ukraine, Russia achieved in just a few months what Vadim Grechaninov has been trying to do for a decade. His mission as President of the Atlantic Council of Ukraine, a lobbying organization based in Kiev, has been to convince his countrys leaders, citizens and military officers that joining NATO is Ukraines only path to security. He never had much success. According to a Pew Research poll taken in 2009, a majority of Ukrainians51%opposed NATO membership, while only 28% supported it.

That dynamic is now being reversed. The most recent nationwide survey taken in July suggested that, for the first time in their post-Soviet history, a plurality of Ukrainians44%would favor joining the alliance that Russia sees as a strategic threat. When the Rating Group, a Ukrainian pollster, conducted the same survey in 2012, they found only 19% of respondents in favor of NATO accession. Ukraines new government has likewise embraced the idea, proposing a law last week that would clear the way for NATO membership. But Grechaninov, a retired major general of the Soviet army, is no more optimistic about his country joining the alliance today than he was five years ago, especially after watching the news that came out of the NATO leaders summit on Thursday. They are still bending to Moscows demands, he says of the alliance.

Those demands have been very explicit. The day President Vladimir Putin annexed the Crimean peninsula in March, he warned NATO not to make itself at home in our backyard or in our historical territory. As if that wasnt clear enough, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov drove home the point on Thursday as the NATO summit commenced in Wales. Any attempt to draw Ukraine into the alliance, Lavrov said, would scuttle the fragile peace talks between the Ukrainian government and the separatist rebels whom Moscow has armed and supported since April. The U.S. wants NATO to win, Lavrov said in Moscow. [It wants] a situation where America dictates its will to the whole world. These ambitions, he added, will lead to no good.

A far more alarming message came on the eve of the summit from the Russian military. Yuri Yakubov, an influential general of the Russian army, told the Interfax news agency on Wednesday that Russia would be amending its official military doctrine this year in light of the approach of U.S. and NATO bases right up to our borders. He said the revisions would identify the alliance as a likely opponent in a future conflict, and it would make some dramatic amendments to Russias nuclear strategy. It is necessary to set out the conditions in which Russia could launch a preventative strike with Russias strategic nuclear forces, he said. In its current form, the doctrine only envisions using nuclear weapons in response to a strike against Russia. It does not mention the possibility of a preventative nuclear attack.

This kind of rhetoric was, perhaps thankfully, nowhere to be found during the first day of the NATO summit. Putins recent reminder that Russia is one of the strongest nuclear powers did not come up in any of the public comments, and neither did the warning from General Yakubov about a preventative strike. The most concrete step NATO announced in response to Russias aggression in Ukraine was the creation of a very high readiness force of several thousand troops that could be deployed near Russias borders in the course of about two days. (It took Russian forces no more than a day in late February to sweep into the capital of Crimea and help install a loyal government to prepare the annexation.)

The new rapid reaction force was meant to calm NATO members in Eastern Europenamely Poland and the Baltic statesthough it did not measure up to their demands. What the eastern allies wanted were permanent military bases to be built closer to Russias territory. But their allies in Western Europe, particularly Germany, shot down those requests, as they would break a pact that NATO made with Russia in 1997 not to station permanent combat forces near Russias borders. (It did not seem to matter that, with the conquest of Crimea, Russia broke the pledge it made to the U.S. and U.K. in 1994 never to violate Ukraines sovereignty.) Asked at a press conference on Monday whether NATOs new force would be permanent, its Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said, Actually very few things in life are permanent. He added: The bottom line is you will see more visible NATO presence in the East.

There were, however, some more encouraging signs than that of NATO unity and assertiveness. The day before the summit, France agreed to halt the scheduled delivery next month of an aircraft carrier to Russia, saying that the conditions were not right. It took months of pressure from the U.S. and other allies for the French to stop the weapons transfer, though it is not clear whether France will go ahead with the sale of another warship to Russia next year.

In showing support for Ukraine, the allies also tried to make President Petro Poroshenko feel like the summits guest of honor. The leaders of NATOs five most powerful membersthe U.S., U.K., Germany, France and Italymet with Poroshenko to discuss his countrys conflict with Russia, and they collectively pledged to create several trust funds worth about $16 milliona largely symbolic sumto help modernize the Ukrainian military. But they stopped short of promising to provide Ukraine with any weapons, and they made no commitments to let Ukraine join the alliance at any point in the future.

Speaking by phone from Kiev, Grechaninov says he is disappointed, but not surprised. If Ukraine were to join NATO, every one of its members would be treaty-bound to defend Ukraines in case of a foreign attack, and none of the allies have been willing to risk that kind of confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia. Grechaninov understands these fears, but he warns that the alliance is only delaying the inevitable. Putin can only be stopped by a force greater than his, he says. We waited for this force from NATO, and they have it. They can stop Putin. But right now they dont consider it, he says, pausing to find the right word. They dont consider it expedient.

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NATO Too Wary of Russian Threats to Let Ukraine Join

NATO's big problem

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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- The future of Europe may rest on whether NATO can recover its roots.

With Russian President Vladimir Putin "land grabbing" and violating international law, the alliance is finding itself "brought back to its core," says Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, NATO's former secretary general. But it isn't prepared.

When NATO was founded in 1949, its central task was to protect its members against military aggression and work to promote democracy -- which, in the years following, often meant standing against the Soviet empire.

The alliance declares success in achieving that goal peacefully, saying on its website that "throughout the entire period of the Cold War, NATO forces were not involved in a single military engagement."

Unmarked military vehicles burn on a country road in Berezove, Ukraine after a clash between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian separatists.

But things changed after the Cold War. The focus was no longer on Russia. NATO says "new threats" emerged. The alliance got involved militarily in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s, and later in Macedonia. It established a military force in Afghanistan, and has forces in Somalia and some other parts of Africa.

Now, Russia is increasing its reach, and getting close to NATO terrain. It annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March and is accused of sending its troops into eastern Ukraine in support of pro-Russian rebels, a claim that Moscow denies. So, 55 years into its existence, NATO finds itself, as the Financial Times put it, going "back to the future."

Just how to do that is a central question as the alliance convenes its summit in Wales.

"The problem NATO has is it's not fully ready to be able to protect its own members," Robin Niblett, director of the think tank Chatham House, told CNN. NATO's military preparedness is "paltry compared to the kinds of steps the Russians are taking."

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NATO's big problem

Stopping Nato and the spread of war in Ukraine and beyond – Video

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Stopping Nato and the spread of war in Ukraine and beyond
Stop the War #39;s John Rees on why Nato -- on the coat tails of the United States -- is such a threat to peace and how we can mobilise to stop the relentless drive for more war in Ukraine, the...

By: StoptheWarCoalition

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Stopping Nato and the spread of war in Ukraine and beyond - Video


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