The West should recognize that if NATO is going to expand to the border of Smolensk, that is going to worry the Russians; Also the Russian-Chinese alliance has got the potential to offset America in the terms of military, says political analyst Chris Bambery.

The first ever joint Russia-China drills in European waters started in the Baltic Sea. The military exercise between the two countries will last for a week.

Meanwhile, the US and allied countries have just finished their own massive exercise in the region. Saber Guardian took place in Eastern Europe, on the territory of three countries, aimed at deterring so-called 'Russian aggression'.

Some 25,000 personnel from more than 20 states participated in the biggest drills of their kind in five years.

Despite that, NATO allies are worried by the upcoming Russian war games in Belarus this September. The US Army's top general in Europe even suggested that Moscow might carry out a so-called "Trojan horse" maneuver there.

People are worried, this is a Trojan horse. They say, Were just doing an exercise, and then all of a sudden theyve moved all these people and capabilities somewhere, Lieutenant-General Ben Hodges, commander of US Army forces in Europe, told Reuters on Thursday.

Political analyst Chris Bambery says NATO and America only have themselves to blame for the uptick in tensions.

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RT: The US Army's top general in Europe even suggested that Moscow might carry out a so-called "Trojan horse" maneuver. What do you think about that?

Chris Bambery: I think what NATO and the Americans should be saying is that they themselves are building up their military presence in the region firstly through NATO expansion, something that was specifically promised to Mikhail Gorbachev back when the Soviet Union was collapsing would not happen. That was one of the deals that was done at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was a promise to Russia that NATO will not expand into the former satellite states of former USSR territory. And secondly weve seen not just those countries joining NATO, but NATO sending troops into the Baltic States and elsewhere, putting the missile shields into Poland and the Czech Republic and carrying out exercises in Hungary, Bulgaria, but also in the north in Poland, Sweden and the Baltic States. And this build-up has destabilized the region. We have a potential Cold War in that region, largely stemming from the NATO expansion into it.

But I think also it is something else. The Chinese have got their own ax to grind given what is happening in the South China Sea, where there is a standoff between them and the Americans, the Taiwanese and the Japanese allies over these islands there. So it is not surprising to anyone that China and Russia are allies. Is this news to anyone? Is it news to this General [Ben Hodges] because they have not been following the news, if that is the case. And it is also the case that clearly if NATO and Americans carry out military exercises in this region, that there is going to be a response. I think what sent the West into a tizzy is the fact that Chinese warships have entered the Baltic, which is unprecedented. And it is a demonstration that, while China is not yet able to match America in terms of its military capacity, that that is something which is going to develop over the years. And the Russian-Chinese alliance has got the potential to offset America in the terms of military might in the world. This has revived fears of what China is going to become in the years to come.

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RT: Why's there so much fuss about Russia given that NATO recently carried out huge drills too?

CB: Weve had this strange attempt to portray Russia as being an enemy of everyone. Blame for everything, including attacks on House of Commons emails here in London. And it is still regarded, despite everything that has happened, as being a problem for the West as it was after WWII, as Britain regarded it in the 19th century. There is unresolved business here.

It is the expansion of NATO, despite a promise made at the time of the USSR to Gorbachev, it is that expansion which has destabilized relationships in Eastern Europe. And clearly, if NATO is going to expand to the border of Smolensk, that is going to worry the Russians. And rather than this stuff coming from the American general, perhaps the West should turn around and recognize that what it is doing is causing concern in Russia because of unrelenting NATO expansion.

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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Russia-China exercises a 'natural response' to US-NATO military advances - RT

The much-discussed requirement that NATO members spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense is a crude measure, often misunderstood or criticized. But there are clear benefits to such a benchmark. It focuses attention on the need for adequate military spending especially important in democracies, where votes are typically to be found in tax cuts and social care, not tanks and soldiers pensions. It is a tool that builds unity, enhances NATOs capacity to act, including in humanitarian operations abroad, and is a deterrent, offering no encouragement to adventurism from Moscow or anywhere else.

But all tools can get rusty or outdated, and the existing 2 percent benchmark is a perfect example. Now that war is as much about hacking, subversion, espionage, and fake news as it is about tanks, the West needs a minimal baseline requirement for spending on hybrid defense: police services, counterintelligence services, and the like.

Much of this may sound as if it shouldnt be NATOs business; this is a military alliance, after all, and it should be no more responsible for parachuting forensic accountants in to check whether British banks are laundering dirty Russian cash than it should be hunting spies in the Balkans. But it should matter just as much to members of the alliance when their fellow members underspend on hybrid defense measures as it does when they underspend on the military. Given that NATO now recognizes cyberattacks as possible grounds for invoking Article 5, the alliances mutual defense clause, weak national cyberdefenses are a potential invitation to a wider conflict. More broadly, a failure to address nonkinetic defense undermines the solidarity and common confidence building at NATOs heart.

After all, NATO membership is a powerful but only partial guarantee. Take Montenegro for example (which spends about 1.3 percent of its GDP on defense). The latest country to join the NATO club, the tiny Balkan nation was welcomed under the alliance umbrella in early June, as part of an effort to push for further integration with the West and to secure greater NATO commitment to the Balkan region. Montenegro is now likely safe from overt Russian military action, but what about covert measures? Shortly after joining, the country came under serious cyberattack likely as a consequence of its new membership. The attacks came a few months after 20 Montenegrins and Serbians were arrested and, along with two Russians, charged with planning a coup. Montenegro claimed Moscow was behind the operation, and Russias ritual denials lacked conviction.

Had the coup succeeded, it would have left NATOs newest member in severe disarray, vulnerable to further political subversion. It would have been an ominous warning to the rest of the Balkans: Mess with Moscow, put your faith in the West, and who knows what kind of underhanded dangers youll face. And had Montenegro successfully been destabilized, the chaos likely would have encouraged yet more aggressive Russian adventurism and not just in the Balkans.

With the West, and Europe especially, engaged like it or not in a political war, we ought to pay as much attention to ensuring common minimal standards of hybrid defense as we do to outright military spending. My own preliminary investigation with an assist from Jakub Maco, a research assistant at the Institute of International Relations Prague indicates that spending on the sorts of things that constitute hybrid defense indeed varies widely across the alliance.

Graphic by C.K. Hickey.GDP figures are from Eurostat for 2016. Police figures are from Eurostat (2015) except for Albania, Spain and Turkey. Intelligence budget figures are from various sources, but comparable ones for Greece, Iceland, Italy and Luxembourg were not available. New member Montenegro was not included.

Policing, for example, contributes directly to hybrid security. Not only is organized crime sometimes an instrument of Russian covert activity, but a sense of public insecurity can be mobilized by malign propaganda to generate social tensions and support divisive extremist political agendas. A capable, well-trained, and resourced police force also provides the state with more scalable responses in times of crisis. Deploying soldiers against rioters, for example, is not just bad optics; it increases the risk of escalation. Yet the available data suggest that some countries take adequate funding for policing more seriously than others. While allowing for some discrepancies in the quality of this early and still partial information police spending is often hard to compare across countries because of the variety of local and national forces we still found significant variation. Police spending averages 0.93 percent of GDP, with ranges from Bulgarias and Greeces 1.4 percent to the 0.5 percent of Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway, and Spain.

Security and counterintelligence services are also a critical aspect of hybrid defense. They are necessary to help monitor and close down foreign espionage and subversion operations and the secret black account funding used to support destabilizing groups and activities. When comparing spending here, the quality of data is again worth noting: Frances anomalously low security service figure and Romanias unexpectedly high one are likely artifacts of inconsistent definitions of what qualifies as a security agency. But its possible to draw a broad conclusion namely that such spending varies enormously across the continent. Counterintelligence and security spending among European countries averages 0.07 percent of GDP but (absent France and Romania) ranges from the United Kingdoms 0.15 percent down to Belgiums 0.01 percent. These disparities risk creating vulnerabilities for everyone. It is widely acknowledged, for example, that the Czech Republic (below average on counterintelligence spending) is a hub for Russian intelligence operations across Central Europe and NATO, and the EU headquarters in Belgium (lower yet) is a playground for Moscows spooks. One can certainly question the details here. This was a quick-and-dirty exploratory exercise, aimed less at providing answers than investigating whether there might be grounds for future, more serious analysis. But, nonetheless, it throws up interesting evidence of European priorities and concerns. Countries such as Bulgaria and Estonia, for example, which acknowledge a serious and sustained effort by Moscow to penetrate and subvert them, have above-average counterintelligence spending to match. However, others appear to be neglecting this element of their security, focusing perhaps too much on policing, the regular military, or neither.

Simply having a common benchmark for hybrid defense will inevitably improve the quality of the data. It will also force European countries to do something new to most of them: to consider the whole gamut of nonkinetic defensive measures available, from counterintelligence to media awareness, as part of a single, unified security concept.

So it is time to have this conversation. Nonkinetic security spending, just like defense budgets, buys protection on a variety of levels. It blocks malign foreign activities, provides wider ranges of capability and response, and acts as a deterrent. In an age of hybrid war, minimum common standards of hybrid defense are a must.

Photo credit:Getty Images/Foreign Policy illustration

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Trump Was Right: NATO Is Obsolete - Foreign Policy (blog)

NATOs political intent in the North Atlantic was clearly spelled out in the communiqu of the alliances July 2016 summit in Warsaw: In the North Atlantic, as elsewhere, the Alliance will be ready to deter and defend against any potential threats, including against sea lines of communication and maritime approaches of NATO territory. We will further strengthen our maritime posture and comprehensive situational awareness.

Now is the time to translate that intent into tangible action. The North Atlantic Ocean, a top strategic priority for NATO and the former Soviet Union during the Cold War, has not been a major strategic concern for the alliance in the past two decades. But today, as Russia builds up its maritime capabilities and increases its naval activities in the area, there are reasons for NATO allies to be concerned. The alliance should take concrete and visible steps to enhance its focus on, and presence in, the North Atlantic.

For the Russians, the North Atlantic hasnt gone off the radar screen. Quite the contrary. Russias development of high-end maritime capabilities and its increased presence in the North Atlantic are reflections of the vital importance of this region for the Kremlin.

Russias 2014 military doctrine and 2015 maritime doctrine identified the North Atlantic and Arctic regions as being of prime interest, for two military-strategic reasons. The first is to protect Russias nuclear deterrent forces in the Barents Sea. To do so, Moscow is keen to exert control over and deny access to its Northern flankfrom both the North Atlantic and the North Pacific into the Arctic.

The second reason is to project power and fulfill Moscows global ambitions. The North Atlantic is Russias main maritime gateway to the rest of the worldnot least to the Mediterranean Sea, where in November 2016 Russia demonstratively sailed its aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, which had come all the way from Severomorsk in the Arctic.

Acknowledging the importance Russia attaches to the North Atlantic, and in light of the growing Russian naval posture in the region, the NATO allies are paying greater attention to current and potential future security developments in this maritime space. In recent years, Russia has demonstrated that it has the maritime capabilitiesnuclear, conventional, and nonconventional, including hybridto probe the allies and even challenge NATOs control of the high seas in the North Atlantic. Russian submarines operating close to the UKs submarine base in Scotland in early 2015 and skirting close to vital undersea communications cables are just some examples of Russias more assertive moves in this space.

Looking ahead, Russia may well be in a position where it could, in times of crisis, disrupt critical allied sea lines of communication in the North Atlantic that are needed to deploy and reinforce U.S. forces and supplies in Europe. The credibility of NATOs collective defense and Europes overall stability are at stake.

With this in mind, there are three important steps that the alliance could take to start restoring NATOs presence in the North Atlantic.

To begin with, NATO should conduct an ongoing political-military assessment of the maritime security dynamics in the North Atlantic. This assessment could be an opportunity to bring NATO partner countries Finland and Sweden, as well as the EU, to the table. A more inclusive discussion would help all stakeholders gain better maritime situational awareness in an area of common concern.

Second, allies should ensure that NATOs deterrence and defense posture, including its maritime posture, is adequately strengthened in the North, alongside the East and the South. In recent years, the alliance has largely focused on the Baltic and Black Sea regions, as well as on the Mediterranean. The North Atlanticthe backbone of transatlantic relationsequally deserves to be in the limelight. At the same time as NATO seeks to strengthen its maritime deterrence and defense posture, the alliance could extend its current dialogue with Russia on transparency and risk reduction in the maritime domain to the North Atlantic.

Third, NATO should recognize more visibly that its effectiveness as an alliance depends as much on maritime power as on land and air power. Over the years, NATOs maritime missions have received insufficient attention, and its maritime capabilities have shrunk. It is time to reverse this trend. Aside from updating the alliances maritime strategy (the latest version of which dates from 2011) and beefing up NATOs Maritime Command in Northwood, UK, as several experts have recently argued, the alliance needs a group of allies to lead a maritime initiative and a high-level champion of maritime issues embedded in NATOs headquarters in Brussels. Without a maritime push at a high political level, there is less chance for a discussion on maritime questions to go beyond the immediate operational approach that the alliance has taken in recent years.

All of the above is not to say that NATO is unprepared for potential military challenges at sea in the North Atlantic. Much work is already under way when it comes to strengthening NATOs deterrence and defense posture. Importantly, several NATO allies have the required capabilities, which could be used today, to deal with a resurgent Russia in this space. NATO allied military exercises in the area are another demonstration of NATOs preparedness. Trident Juncture, NATOs largest military exercise, which will be held in Norway in 2018, is a welcome opportunity to get all allied militaries to look North.

Threats in the North may be considered less imminent, but some are critical for the alliance and require NATO and allies to act now. In the words of former NATO supreme allied commander for Europe U.S. General Philip Breedlove, NATO must put the North Atlantic back on its agenda.

Claire Craanen works in the Strategic Analysis Capability at NATO Headquarters and is the secretary general of Women in International Security (WIIS) Brussels. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policies or positions of NATO.

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Putting the North Atlantic Back on NATO's Agenda - Carnegie Europe - Carnegie Europe

WASHINGTON Former U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison testified on Thursday that she would take a tough stance on Russia if she is confirmed as the new ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

"We are beefing up defenses for an aggressive Russia," she told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, adding that she supports lawmakers considering new sanctions on Russian in response to its cyberattacks at home and abroad. "I think that Congress is doing the right thing."

Hutchison's comments were striking given that the man who nominated her to the NATO post President Donald Trump continues to cultivate an oddly close relationship with RussianPresident Vladimir Putin.Several senators, including Democrats, said Thursdaythey found Hutchison's positions reassuring, and they were anything but adversarial in their questioning of her.

"Kay Bailey, I'm so excited you're the nominee," said U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat and 2016 Democratic nominee for vice president."Your nomination sends a signal the NATO relationship is an important one."

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The Senate haspassed Russian sanctionsin a near-unanimous vote, but the legislation is stalled in the House amid procedural and partisan infighting. Most members of Congress believe Trump is against new sanctions, setting the stage for a potential veto or veto override in the coming months.

In her testimony,Hutchison calledit likely that Russia interfered in the 2016 American elections, a conclusion Trump and many Republicans have yet to fully accept despite a consensus among the country's intelligence agencies.

Hutchison was one of several ambassador nominees who participated in Thursday'spanel.Texas' two senators, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, introduced Hutchison to the committee with high praise.

She was relentless; she would not stop until she achieved her objective," Cornyn said of his time serving with her in the Senate.And most importantly, she always did what she thought was the right thing for Texas. Whether it was working with Republicans or Democrats, that was always her guiding star.

As I think about the type of individual best-suited to represent the U.S. on the world stage, I can think of no one better than Kay," he added.

Cruz, who succeeded Hutchison in the Senate, joked to his colleagues that they preferred her to him.

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"You know I agree with the presidents effort to extract more from our allies in support of NATO. I think thats a positive direction for our country," he said. "But I think it is also very good to have a U.S. ambassador who has a strong will and a gracious smile to represent America."

Hutchison is expected to coast to confirmation.

Disclosure: The author of this article briefly worked for Kay Bailey Hutchison more than a decade ago.

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Former U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison,under consideration for the NATO ambassadorship, played a key role in shepherding U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson through hisSenate confirmation. [link]

President Trump has nominated former U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison to be the nation's new NATO ambassador. [link]

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Kay Bailey Hutchison vows toughness on Russia as NATO ... - Texas Tribune

Tens of thousands of troops are on the move from the Baltic to the Black Sea, as NATO and Russia open up a series of massive military exercises the size of which the continent hasnt seen since the Cold War.

Both sides claim the drills, which involve aircraft, warships, tanks and artillery, are purely defensive in nature. But it is clear the exercises are also meant to show off new capabilities and technologies, and display not only the strength of alliances, but how swiftly troops and heavy equipment can move to squash a threat at the frontier.

The most ambitious undertaking on the NATO side is Saber Guardian 17, a series of over a dozen distinct battle drills being carried out by 25,000 troops from 20 countries moving across Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria.

The scenario presented to ground commanders is that a technologically advanced land force has pushed into NATO territory and is threatening the alliance as a whole. The drills include air defense tests, live fire tank engagements, long advances by armored columns, fighter planes and helicopters supporting ground movements, electronic warfare, and airdrops.

Deterrence is about capability, its about making sure that any potential adversary knows that we are prepared to do whatever is necessary, U.S. Army Europe commander Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges told reporters during the exercise. What escalates tensions is when we look weak, not connected, not prepared, that is what invites aggression.

But increasing military capability doesnt have to mean war, he added. The Russians only respect strength, so if we demonstrate cohesion, if we demonstrate that we are together, that we are prepared, then I think we dont have to worry.

The generals blunt comments underscore the planning for Saber Guardian, which doesnt name Russia as the adversary, but clearly has the Kremlin in mind.

The scenario revolves around an incursion into NATO territory by a militarily advanced enemy intent on seizing the economic assets of Black Sea countries. A battle featuring 5,000 NATO troops at the Cincu training range in Romania saw U.S. Apache and Romanian helicopters coordinate with artillery on the ground, U.S. Abrams tanks, and 650 vehicles in support of a large infantry movement to halt the advance.

The U.S. is planning to spend about $23 million on the sprawling Romanian base in order to conduct even larger, more complex battle drills there in the future.

On the other side of the deterrent fence stands Russia, which is preparing to surge as many as 100,000 troops into the field in a series of drills dubbed Zapad, or West in the coming weeks.

The Kremlin claims about 12,700 troops will be active in Belarus and Russia for Zapad. But experts and NATO officials say Moscow is more likely to conduct a series of engagements that will swell those ranks by tens of thousands. Under the Vienna Document agreement of 2011, foreign observers must be present for any exercise that exceeds 13,000 troops.

By coming in under that number while conducting several other large drills at the same time, Moscow can avoid the presence of observers and control the narrative of how its troops performed.

But NATO is wary.

Given that Russia used a massive military exercise in 2014 to obscure its incursion into Crimea, and invaded South Ossetia in Georgia in 2008 during another exercise that covered troop movements, the alliance is keeping a close eye on Zapad.

From previous experiences related to previous exercises, we have every reason to believe there may be substantially more troops participating than the official quoted numbers, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said recently when asked about Zapad.

We dont consider this years Zapad exercise in itself to be a direct threat to [NATO] or a cover for an attack, added Kristjan Prikk, undersecretary for defense policy at Estonias Ministry of Defense during a conference in Washington on July 11. But we have to keep in mind that the Russians have the nasty habit of hiding their actual military endeavors behind exercises.

The last Zapad, in 2014, focused on displaying how quickly Russia could move forces from one part of the country to another, and illustrated how the Kremlin underplays the number of troops involved in its intertwined military drills.

Moscow claimed about 22,000 troops took part in 2014, but outside observers later concluded that up to 70,000 were involved, once all of the smaller but related exercises were added up.

Whatever number of troops ultimately take part, Moscow is going to very actively signal what they can and cannot do militarily, said Olga Oliker of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. And the fact that Russia often conducts nuclear exercises in conjunction with conventional movements adds an extra element of uncertainty for NATO and the West.

This year, Im looking to see what Kaliningrads role is in the exercise, and what supporting and concurrent exercises are being held in Belarus and Kaliningrad, the Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea, Oliker said.

Three Chinese warships are slated to arrive in Kaliningrad in July 21 to take part in a series of drills with the Russian navy and air force.

The upcoming weeks worth of activities will include anti-submarine and anti-ship operations, and practice between the two nations communicating and coordinating while fighting. The main aims of the exercise are to increase the efficiency in cooperation of the two fleets to counter threats to security at sea, [and] train compatibility of the crews of Russian and Chinese combat ships, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

The naval activity in the Baltic comes months after NATO established new brigades in Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, beefed up by prepositioned American tanks and heavy armored vehicles.

In June, the U.S. Air Force also sent B-1 and B-52 bombers to Europe to participate in the massive BALTOPs exercise with Baltic allies, which included 50 allied ships running through a series of defensive maneuvers to protect NATOs northern flanks.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Army deployed a Patriot anti-aircraft missile system in Lithuania for use in yet another NATO wargame, marking the first time the system has been brought to the Baltic region where Russia enjoys a robust air and missile defense capability. The deployment is temporary, U.S. officials cautioned, but officials in Lithuania are looking at purchasing the system. Romania recently committed to a $3.9 billion deal for seven Patriot missile defense systems in July.

Closer to Russias borders and Crimea is another NATO exercise related to Saber Guardian, dubbed Sea Breeze 2017. The 12-day naval exercise currently underway in the Black Sea is co-hosted by the U.S. and Ukraine, and features the U.S. Navy cruiser USS Hue City and the destroyer USS Carney, which join 16 other countries in the Odessa-based undertaking. American surveillance plans and a team of Navy SEALs are also participating.

The naval exercises will be closely watched by Russian forces, who are active in the Black Sea, and have vastly improved their surveillance capabilities in Crimea. Over the past year, Russian aircraft have repeatedly buzzed American warships and aircraft in international waters in the Black Sea, drawing protests from Washington.

In February, an armed Russian aircraft buzzed the USS Porter, and in May armed Russian jets came within feet of U.S. surveillance planes operating over the waterway.

Photo Credit: DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP/Getty Images

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NATO, Russian Troops Rattle Swords Along Hundreds of Miles of Borderland - Foreign Policy (blog)

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

President Trump found NATO wanting. Then true to form, he acted like a CEO, not a president, serving notice that things had to change, or else. The or else he left undefined, creating angst among politicians and policy elites who, sensing their own failures, chose to focus on his manners not his message. Mr. Trumps poor political decorum notwithstanding, his policy judgment is right. NATO has to change.

NATO is at risk, not from without, but from within. Vladimir Putins geopolitical maneuvering is cause for concern to be sure, but the real danger comes from the erosion of NATOs core values, and the rise of a dictator within its ranks. They pose a far greater risk than Russias current meddling.

The North Atlantic Treaty commits every NATO member to the principles of democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law, but a growing number of NATO autocrats ignore these core values. Political expression in particular has taken a beating. Every European country but two is less tolerant of opposing viewpoints today than it was in 2013.

Autocrats shut down public debate, and bureaucrats harass anyone who disagrees. Its happened in Romania, Lithuania, Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary and the U.S., where the IRS subjected conservative NGOs to questionable tactics. Political and media ideologues use identity politics and political correctness to facilitate the crackdowns by condemning as hateful any views with which they disagree.

Weve forgotten the Helsinki Accords, and their making respect for individual liberty a requirement for international legitimacy. Dictators still arrest, and imprison, and torture, to be sure, but today they must have a whiff of freedom about them to avoid the worlds condemnation. Helsinkis effect helped defeat the Soviet Union. It is why the world condemns ISIS. And it is why Ankara is pushing back against reports of Turkeys gulag.

Every members protection under Article V should depend on its commitment to NATOs core values, but the alliance is giving everyone a pass, honoring its reason to exist more in the breach. If the trend continues, then NATO will become a mutual defense pact for dictators posing as democrats.

No NATO member has spurned its values and security interests more flagrantly than Turkey. President Erdogan used Vladimir Putins playbook to establish himself as an equally dominant and despotic ruler in Turkey. Democracy is staggering under government oppression, oligarchs rule the economy, and Erdogan sycophants maintain a cult of personality around him. Turkish media calls him the Great Master,and he lives sultan-like in a 1,100 room White Palace he built for himself as president.

Turkeys drift from freedom accelerated after the failed military coup in July 2016. Mr. Erdogan launched a continuing purge that has so far snared about 118,000 Turks, at least 50,000 jailed, and the rest suppressed with various state sanctions. The stories coming out of Turkey are horrific; people disappearing, children and spouses arrested to punish political opponents, mass arrest of journalists, criminal charges based on spurious allegations that remind one of the Soviet Unions darkest days. While Mr. Erdogan Putinized his countrys democracy, NATO remained silent.

Turkey ignores NATOs security interests as well. For years, aid, weapons, and volunteers flowed across Turkeys southern border to ISIS, and ISIS oil flowed out. A train of Hezbollah-bound, Iranian-supplied rockets derailed in southeast Turkey in 2007. Police stopped Turkish intelligence service trucks carrying mortars, artillery shells, and ammunition to al Qaeda near the Syrian border in 2014. Mr. Erdogans response? Arrest the police and claim it was humanitarian aid. When newspaper editors published photos disproving his claim, they were also arrested.

The Turkey that protected NATOs flank for 50 years is gone, replaced by a replica of Vladimir Putins Russia. Mr. Erdogans silent supervision of peaceful protesters beaten on Washingtons streets by his armed security thugs speaks volumes about his respect for NATOs values. The alliance should not accept the risk of war for an ally with such values, nor should the U.S. sell Turkey sophisticated F35A fighter aircraft for him to use against our Kurdish allies.

Bruce M. Lawlor, a retired U.S. Army major general, is a former member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council and chief of staff of the Department of Homeland Security.

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NATO alliance helping dictators - Washington Times

BERLIN (Reuters) - U.S. allies in eastern Europe and Ukraine are worried that Russia's planned war games in September could be a "Trojan horse" aimed at leaving behind military equipment brought into Belarus, the U.S. Army's top general in Europe said on Thursday.

Russia has sought to reassure NATO that the military exercises will respect international limits on size, but NATO and U.S. official remain wary about their scale and scope.

U.S. Army Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, who heads U.S. Army forces in Europe, told Reuters in an interview that allied officials would keep a close eye on military equipment brought in to Belarus for the Zapad 2017 exercise, and whether it was removed later.

"People are worried, this is a Trojan horse. They say, 'We're just doing an exercise,' and then all of a sudden they've moved all these people and capabilities somewhere," he said.

Hodges said he had no indications that Russia had any such plans, but said greater openness by Moscow about the extent of its war games would help reassure countries in eastern Europe.

NATO allies are nervous because previous large-scale Russian exercises employed special forces training, longer-range missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles.

Such tactics were later used in Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine and in its intervention in Syria, NATO diplomats say.

Hodges said the United States and its allies had been very open about a number of military exercises taking place across eastern Europe this summer involving up to 40,000 troops, but it remained unclear if Moscow would adhere to a Cold War-era treaty known as the Vienna document, which requires observers for large-scale exercises involving more than 13,000 troops.

Some NATO allies believe the Russian exercise could number more than 100,000 troops and involve nuclear weapons training, the biggest such exercise since 2013.

Russia has said it would invite observers if the exercise exceeded 13,000 forces.

Hodges said NATO would maintain normal rotations during the Russian war game, while carrying out previously scheduled exercises in Sweden, Poland and Ukraine.

The only additional action planned during that period was a six-week deployment of three companies of 120 paratroopers each to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania for "low-level" exercises, Hodges said.

"We want to avoid anything that looks like a provocation. This is not going to be the 'Sharks' and the 'Jets' out on the streets," Hodges said in a reference to the gang fights shown in the 1961 film "West Side Story" set in New York City.

Reporting by Andrea Shalal

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US general says allies worry Russian war game may be 'Trojan horse' - Reuters

Political elections are not the only target of Russia's hacking and "fake news" campaigns. Fighting forces can be targeted, as well.As such, Denmark will reportedly train troops against propaganda that it plans to send NATO next year in Estonia as the build-up of forces in Eastern Europe continues, according to Reuters.

Though Russia was not specifically mentioned, President Vladimir Putins government has been directly accused of meddling in the United Stateselection by disseminating false news reports and conducting cyberattacks as well as similar efforts in France, Austria, the Ukraine, Germany and the Netherlands, to name a few.

"It is a whole new world. The Danish soldiers need to be extremely aware of that. Therefore I have arranged with the armed forces that the soldiers being sent out in January are informed and educated in how to protect themselves,"Danish defense minister Claus Hjort Frederiksen said Monday.

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"It is easy to imagine they will become exposed to intimidation and fake rumors," Frederiksen added.

The 200 Danish troops are scheduled to reach Estonia in January.

Denmarks plan comes in response to an incident in February when German NATO troops stationed in Lithuania were falsely accused of raping a 15-year-old girl in emails sent to high-ranking members of Lithuanias government and its media outlets, DW reported.

Prosecutors later opened a criminal investigation because of the false story, and NATO blamed Russia.

Putin, who met with President Donald Trump for more than two hours earlier this month at the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, claimed he firmly denied accusations of election meddling when Trump brought it up. Russia also has denied knowledge ofother alleged hacks.

In Europe, Russias efforts also involve attempts to thwart the increasing number of troops in Eastern Europe as NATO and Russia posture for military prominence.

Most recently, leaders from NATO members congregated in Poland to discuss defense efforts. The new movements will mark the first time multinational forces will rotate in Eastern Europe since the Cold War, according to PBS.

The U.S., alone, had deployed roughly 4,000 troops to Polandand to make rotations in Europeas of January, with other equipment like tanks also making its way to Latvia, Romania and Lithuania.

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NATO Is Fighting Russia's Fake News Schemes by Training Danish Troops How to Spot Propaganda - Newsweek

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NATO provides swift forest fire assistance to new Ally Montenegro - NATO HQ (press release)

Tens of thousands of troops are on the move from the Baltic to the Black Sea, as NATO and Russia open up a series of massive military exercises the size of which the continent hasn't seen since the Cold War.

Both sides claim the drills, which involve aircraft, warships, tanks and artillery, are purely defensive in nature. But it is clear the exercises are also meant to show off new capabilities and technologies, and display not only the strength of alliances, but how swiftly troops and heavy equipment can move to squash a threat at the frontier.

The most ambitious undertaking on the NATO side is Saber Guardian 17, a series of over a dozen distinct battle drills being carried out by 25,000 troops from 20 countries moving across Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria.

The scenario presented to ground commanders is that a technologically advanced land force has pushed into NATO territory and is threatening the alliance as a whole. The drills include air defense tests, live fire tank engagements, long advances by armored columns, fighter planes and helicopters supporting ground movements, electronic warfare, and airdrops.

"Deterrence is about capability, it's about making sure that any potential adversary knows that we are prepared to do whatever is necessary," U.S. Army Europe commander Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges told reporters during the exercise. "What escalates tensions is when we look weak, not connected, not prepared, that is what invites aggression."

But increasing military capability doesn't have to mean war, he added. "The Russians only respect strength, so if we demonstrate cohesion, if we demonstrate that we are together, that we are prepared, then I think we don't have to worry."

The general's blunt comments underscore the planning for Saber Guardian, which doesn't name Russia as the adversary, but clearly has the Kremlin in mind.

The scenario revolves around an incursion into NATO territory by a militarily advanced enemy intent on seizing the economic assets of Black Sea countries. A battle featuring 5,000 NATO troops at the Cincu training range in Romania saw U.S. Apache and Romanian helicopters coordinate with artillery on the ground, U.S. Abrams tanks, and 650 vehicles in support of a large infantry movement to halt the advance.

The U.S. is planning to spend about $23 million on the sprawling Romanian base in order to conduct even larger, more complex battle drills there in the future.

On the other side of the deterrent fence stands Russia, which is preparing to surge as many as 100,000 troops into the field in a series of drills dubbed Zapad, or "West" in the coming weeks.

The Kremlin claims about 12,700 troops will be active in Belarus and Russia for Zapad. But experts and NATO officials say Moscow is more likely to conduct a series of engagements that will swell those ranks by tens of thousands. Under the Vienna Document agreement of 2011, foreign observers must be present for any exercise that exceeds 13,000 troops.

By coming in under that number while conducting several other large drills at the same time, Moscow can avoid the presence of observers and control the narrative of how its troops performed.

But NATO is wary.

Given that Russia used a massive military exercise in 2014 to obscure its incursion into Crimea, and invaded South Ossetia in Georgia in 2008 during another exercise that covered troop movements, the alliance is keeping a close eye on Zapad.

"From previous experiences related to previous exercises, we have every reason to believe there may be substantially more troops participating than the official quoted numbers," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said recently when asked about Zapad.

"We don't consider this year's Zapad exercise in itself to be a direct threat to [NATO] or a cover for an attack," added Kristjan Prikk, undersecretary for defense policy at Estonia's Ministry of Defense during a conference in Washington on July 11. "But we have to keep in mind that the Russians have the nasty habit of hiding their actual military endeavors behind exercises."

The last Zapad, in 2014, focused on displaying how quickly Russia could move forces from one part of the country to another, and illustrated how the Kremlin underplays the number of troops involved in its intertwined military drills.

Moscow claimed about 22,000 troops took part in 2014, but outside observers later concluded that up to 70,000 were involved, once all of the smaller but related exercises were added up.

Whatever number of troops ultimately take part, Moscow is "going to very actively signal what they can and cannot do militarily," said Olga Oliker of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. And the fact that Russia often conducts nuclear exercises in conjunction with conventional movements adds an extra element of uncertainty for NATO and the West.

This year, "I'm looking to see what Kaliningrad's role is in the exercise, and what supporting and concurrent exercises are being held in Belarus and Kaliningrad," the Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea, Oliker said.

Three Chinese warships are slated to arrive in Kaliningrad in July 21 to take part in a series of drills with the Russian navy and air force.

The upcoming week's worth of activities will include anti-submarine and anti-ship operations, and practice between the two nations communicating and coordinating while fighting. "The main aims of the exercise are to increase the efficiency in cooperation of the two fleets to counter threats to security at sea, [and] train compatibility of the crews of Russian and Chinese combat ships," the Russian Defense Ministry said.

The naval activity in the Baltic comes months after NATO established new brigades in Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, beefed up by prepositioned American tanks and heavy armored vehicles.

In June, the U.S. Air Force also sent B-1 and B-52 bombers to Europe to participate in the massive BALTOPs exercise with Baltic allies, which included 50 allied ships running through a series of defensive maneuvers to protect NATO's northern flanks.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Army deployed a Patriot anti-aircraft missile system in Lithuania for use in yet another NATO wargame, marking the first time the system has been brought to the Baltic region where Russia enjoys a robust air and missile defense capability. The deployment is temporary, U.S. officials cautioned, but officials in Lithuania are looking at purchasing the system. Romania recently committed to a $3.9 billion deal for seven Patriot missile defense systems in July.

Closer to Russia's borders and Crimea is another NATO exercise related to Saber Guardian, dubbed Sea Breeze 2017. The 12-day naval exercise currently underway in the Black Sea is co-hosted by the U.S. and Ukraine, and features the U.S. Navy cruiser USS Hue City and the destroyer USS Carney, which join 16 other countries in the Odessa-based undertaking. American surveillance plans and a team of Navy SEALs are also participating.

The naval exercises will be closely watched by Russian forces, who are active in the Black Sea, and have vastly improved their surveillance capabilities in Crimea. Over the past year, Russian aircraft have repeatedly buzzed American warships and aircraft in international waters in the Black Sea, drawing protests from Washington.

In February, an armed Russian aircraft buzzed the USS Porter, and in May armed Russian jets came within feet of U.S. surveillance planes operating over the waterway.

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NATO, Russian troops rattle swords along hundreds of miles of borderland - Chicago Tribune

Western officials have often criticized Viktor Orban's government for backsliding on democracy, but they've tended to praise it for a steadfast commitment to NATO, whose summit Orban attended in May | Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images

Government insists there is no such thing as a special relationship between Russia and Hungary.

By Lili Bayer

7/19/17, 4:01 AM CET

Updated 7/19/17, 8:16 PM CET

NATO allies are worried about expanding Russian intelligence operations in Hungary.

While Western officials have often criticized the government in Budapest for backsliding on democracy, theyve tended to praise it for a steadfast commitment to NATO. But officials from allied countriessay Russia increasingly sees Hungary as an operational backdoor into Europe.

There is tremendous concern that Russia is basically using Hungary as an intel forward operating base in NATO and the EU, said a former official at the U.S. Embassy in Budapest, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Western officials say Russian intelligence agencies have boosted their presence over the past few years in Hungary, which is a member of Europes border-free Schengen zone, to launch a variety of intelligence and sabotage operations in the EU.

Back in 2014-2015 [the Russians] went from maybe 50-100 intelligence officers up to 300 plus in Hungary, said the former embassy official.

Generally we expect they are openly capturing telecoms, running HUMINT [human intelligence] sources all over Europe, planning and staging all kinds of cyber sabotage, linking up with organized crime and supporting folks in parties like [the far-right] Jobbik with fat sacks of cash and maybe even some intel-sourced dirt, this person added.

Located on NATOs eastern edge and bordering Ukraine, Hungary is considered an important component of the alliances eastern defense strategy. Allied troops are currently training in Hungary as part of NATOs 10-day Saber Guardian exercises.

Everyone thinks Hungary is compromised Western NATO employee during part ofOrbns term

With Hungarian troops deployed in Kosovo and Afghanistan and a brigade currently training in Estonia, policymakers in Budapest often make the case that regardless of Prime Minister Viktor Orbns friendliness with the Kremlin, Hungary at its core is a dedicated NATO ally.

Orbn has vowed to boost defense spending, with the goal of it reaching 2 percent of GDP by 2024. All NATO countries have committed to spend 2 percent of GDP on defense, although only five member countries currently do so a matter U.S. President Donald Trump has highlighted in an effort to get European allies to boost their contribution to the organization.

NATO policy is an exception in Hungarian politics, its been consistent, regardless of any governments ideology, said one current Hungarian official, who declined to be identified.

I have never felt like Im not taken seriously by NATO partners, he said, adding that Hungary is quite active in contributing intelligence to alliance members, especially on Ukraine and the Western Balkans.

In the alliances Brussels headquarters, some officials try to highlight the countrys positive efforts. Hungary contributes a lot to the alliance within the constraints of its limited resources, said one NATO official. The country plays a key role in strengthening NATOs defense in the eastern part of the alliance, he added.

But among some of their partners,the Hungarian government and security apparatus are regarded as untrustworthy.

Everyone thinks Hungary is compromised, said one Westerner who worked for NATO during part of the Orbn years. I was told not to share anything classified with Hungarians, even if they had the appropriate clearance, this person said.

The Hungarian government, in response to questions from POLITICO, denied that there are any concerns about Russian operations in Hungary.

There is no such thing as a special relationship between Russia and Hungary, a spokesman for the government wrote, adding that the Hungarian intelligence services fulfill of all their duties regardless of the nature or origin of any given issue.

Since coming to office in 2010, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbn has reached out to Moscow, meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin frequently and sealing a deal for a 10 billion Russian loan for the Paks II nuclear power plant project.

In late 2016, Hungarian online news portal Index reported that a far-right paramilitary leader, who was accused of shooting a police officer, had for years been meeting with Russian intelligence personnel on Hungarian territory. Members of the GRU, Russias military intelligence, have developed relationships with several far-right Hungarian groups, according to the Index report.Some Russian diplomats, moreover,participated in airsofta sport that uses non-lethal equipment resembling guns with far-right activists while Hungarian intelligence services turned a blind eye, the report said.

Suspected Russian intelligence operations have also impacted Hungarians directly. In April, online news portal 444.hu reported that the governments national consultation website where Hungarians were asked to answer a series of questions on their personal views used a tracking code belonging to Russian firm Yandex, which forwarded Hungarians data to a server in Russia. Hungarys National Data Protection Agency, under pressure from critics who say Yandex is bound by Russian law to share information with Russian security services if asked, later announced it would investigate any potential mishandling of Hungarians personal data, which the government had originally assured users would not be shared with foreign third parties.

Some Hungarians, meanwhile, see Western critics as simply hypocritical.

Some Hungarian intelligence professionals are concerned that the Orbn government is leaving Hungary vulnerable to Russian operations.

If we just look at the past six months, we see obvious Russian activities that cannot be explained in a normal NATO or EU member state, Ferenc Katrein, a former director of counterespionage and counterterrorism operations at Hungarys civilian counterintelligence agency, told POLITICO.

He pointed to cases like the national consultation websites forwarding of Hungarians personal information to a Russian server and the recent intimidation of an opposition activist in Budapest by a Chechen who, according to some Hungarian media reports, threatened the activist with the encouragement of a Russian diplomat.

The frequent appearance of stories from Russian state media in Hungarian state-owned outletsand media close to the ruling party has also raised questions about the relationship between Budapest and Moscow.

While the official Hungarian media is constantly attacking the allies, there is no criticism of the Russians This contradiction is telling, said Katrein.

Bilateral military-to-military information-sharing with Western allies almost evaporated after Orbn was elected in 2010, said Gyz Zakaris, a retired Hungarian army colonel who has studied the challenges facing Hungarys armed forces.

Some Western officials say the Orbn government is allowing Russian activity to go unchecked for political reasons.

The Hungarians are tracking [Russian activity] and arent exactly thrilled either, but our read was that Hungarian officials dont believe they can kick them all out without provoking Russia, said the former U.S. Embassy official.

Some Hungarians, meanwhile, see Western critics as simply hypocritical.

What we think, we say, and thats unusual in international politics, said the Hungarian official, adding that many NATO members are in constant communication with the Kremlin but are simply not as open about their ties.

I dont think anyone doubts for a moment that its in Hungarys interest to be part of NATO, said Eleni Kounalakis, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Hungary between 2010 and 2013.

Orbn doesnt want Russian influence in Hungary, she said. The prime minister sees his role as navigating among surrounding powers and protecting Hungarys interests.

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Moscow spooks return to Hungary, raising NATO hackles - POLITICO.eu

President Trumps assertion that NATO countries are not carrying their fair share of the security burden rings hollow across military bases in Eastern Europe this month, where 45,000 troops from the United States and 23 other countries are staging war rehearsals for a Russian invasion.

Eighteen exercises are underway this summer in the Black Sea region, an area that has grown especially nervous about Russias aggressive posture.

U.S. military leaders do not expect an imminent invasion, but they understand why countries along the Russian border are jittery. These exercises should help them prepare to fight back if and when Russia threatens them, said Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, commander of U.S. Army Europe.

I dont think thats likely to happen, but it has happened, Hodges said. And certainly anyone who lives close to that area, from Finland and Sweden all the way down to Romania, believes it is possible.

Hodges spoke Tuesday from Bezmer Air Base, Bulgaria, in a live webcast hosted by the Association of the U.S. Army.

In the largest of the 18 exercises, dubbed Saber Guardian, 14,000 U.S. soldiers are participating. Other troops came from Armenia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Germany, Croatia, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Macedonia, Republic of Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey, Ukraine and the United Kingdom.

The naval piece of the combat rehearsal is called Sea Breeze, co-hosted this year by the United States and Ukraine. Air, land, sea, and amphibious forces from 17 nations will simulate maritime interdiction operations, air defense, anti-submarine warfare, damage control tactics, search and rescue, and amphibious warfare.

Patriot anti-missile batteries were deployed in Lithuania for the Tobruk Legacy exercise, which focuses on long-range anti-aircraft and missile defense.

Hodges said these drills should not be viewed as provocative acts but as deterrence.

We want to be ready, he said. We are practicing how we would mass power and assemble multinational teams quickly so our political leaders have some options.

A sense of urgency is especially acute among the three Saber Guardian host nations: Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania. They are all in on this thing, said Hodges. These countries are completely committed. The public there has welcomed U.S. soldiers, he added. Ive been very pleased with that.

U.S. allies are fretting over Russias upcoming military exercise, called Zapad. About 3,000 Russian troops and 800 tanks will be in Belarus later this year to rehearse and train for a potential confrontation with NATO. There is anxiety about the Russian exercise, said Hodges. This will be the first Zapad since Russians annexation of Crimea in 2014.

The incursion into Crimea was the event that forced NATO to rethink its security posture. Russian aggression in the 21st century has pushed warfare into unfamiliar territory, Army officers Amos Fox and Andrew Rossow wrote in a recent Institute of Land Warfare white paper.

In conflicts in Chechnya, Georgia and Ukraine over the past decade, Russia has perfected hybrid warfare tactics, they noted. It is a whole of government approach that includes covert action, manipulation of public opinion and cyberwarfare.

The exercises in Eastern Europe are important for the U.S. Army as well, said Deputy Commander of U.S. Army Europe Maj. Gen. Timothy McGuire.

What do we do in a crisis? he said via webcast from Bulgaria. The U.S. military for a long time has not trained for the type of war that it would have to fight against a sophisticated enemy like Russia. We have to bring back that toughness, McGuire said. We are trying to get back to being agile, he said. The days of going to a FOB [forward operating base] with three meals a day provided by [military contractor] KBR are over.

One of the challenges is logistics, he said. Youve heard the saying: Tactics are for amateurs, logistics are for professionals. The U.S. Army has three combat brigades based in Germany, so moving troops and supplies to Eastern Europe would require careful planning. We have to get diplomatic clearances from nations, said McGuire. Weve had friction at the borders; the coordination is not as solid as it should be. Even routine checkpoints can hold up supply convoys.

In the United States, meanwhile, the debate continues over how much of the Army should be permanently based in Europe.

The presence there was downsized dramatically after the Obama administration in 2012 adopted a pivot to Asia strategy that deemphasized Europe. Two armored brigades in Europe were eliminated. Two brigades a Stryker and an airborne infantry remained.

Priorities had to be reevaluated in the wake of Crimea. An armored brigade and a combat aviation brigade now rotate there for nine-month tours. A study by the Army War College suggested the Army should consider stationing a brigade in Poland.

Most U.S. military leaders have pointed to Russia as their top national security concern. Trump administration officials have not said much on the issue, which is not surprising, as the White House remains embroiled in scandals related to Russians meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

Trumps nominee for principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, David Trachtenberg, explained his thinking on Russia last week during his confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee. We face no shortage of challenges. Russia has invaded a neighbor whose territorial integrity it pledged to respect, violated its arms treaty commitments, and threaten NATO allies with nuclear attack.

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NATO Is Staging War Rehearsals for the Ultimate Nightmare: A Russian Invasion - The National Interest Online (blog)

With Adam Rawnsley

Trump, Putin, alone: The White House failed to disclose a second, hour-long private meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 summit in Germany earlier this month. And the most remarkable bit? The only other person involved was Putins Russian translator, a Russian government employee. No other American official was present.

The dinner with leaders from G-20 countries was on the presidents public schedule, and press was not allowed inside. The presidents decision to leave his seat and engage the Russian leader was not planned (we think), and White House officials did not mention it until forced to on Tuesday.

And remember this bit, from the NYT: The evening after his two meetings with Mr. Putin the first lasting 135 minutes and the second an hour Mr. Trump returned to Washington. On the Air Force One flight back, his top advisers helped draft a statement about a meeting his son Donald Trump Jr. attended last year with a Kremlin-connected lawyer who promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton.

North Korea can hit the U.S. Maybe. The Pentagons second highest-ranking military officer, Gen. Paul Selva, told Congress Tuesday that North Korea cant yet hit the United States with any degree of accuracy. The Norths missiles have the range, but not the ability to hit a specific target, he said. What the experts tell me is that the North Koreans have yet to demonstrate the capacity to do the guidance and control that would be required, Selva added.

NATO, Russia, China drill. Tens of thousands of troops are on the move from the Baltic to the Black Sea this month, as NATO and Russia open up a series of massive military exercises the size of which the continent hasnt seen since the Cold War. FPs Paul Mcleary writes that while both sides claim the drills, which involve aircraft, warships, tanks and artillery and Chinese warships in the Baltic are purely defensive in nature. But it is clear the exercises are also meant to show off new capabilities and technologies, and display not only the strength of alliances, but how swiftly troops and heavy equipment can move to squash a threat at the frontier.

Pentagon Gets new No. 2. The Senate on Tuesday confirmed President Trumps pick for the Pentagons second-highest ranking civilian official. The 92-7 vote confirmed former Boeing exec Patrick Shanahan to be the next Deputy Defense Secretary, the person who runs the day-to-day operations of the Defense Department. Hell replace Bob Work, who has held the job since the Obama administration and was asked to stay on while Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and the White House struggled to agree on a replacement.

Four more coming. A group of White House nominees for other top Pentagon positions had an easy go of it Tuesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee and look to be a lock for confirmation: John Gibson, nominee for deputy chief management officer; Ellen Lord, tabbed to be undersecretary for acquisition, technology, and logistics; Lucian Niemeyer, pending assistant secretary for energy, installations, and environment; and Matthew Donovan, picked for Air Force undersecretary.

Payday. The U.S. government is paying Donald Trump $130,000 a month to lease space in Trump Tower, despite the fact that Trump hasnt spent a night in New York since January. More from the Wall Street Journal: The militarys lease in Trump Tower puts the space far above market rate for similarly sized apartments in the luxury high rise market and makes it one of the most expensive residential rentals in Manhattan.

Kurds make their case. Iraqi Kurds are mounting a campaign in Washington this week to rally U.S. government support for an independence bid before a referendum in September. But Baghdad opposes talk of secession, and with the United States committed to a one-Iraq policy, its going to be an uphill fight, FPs Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian reports

Welcome to SitRep. Send any tips, thoughts or national security events to paul.mcleary@foreignpolicy.com or via Twitter: @paulmcleary or @arawnsley.

Ambassador. The Trump administration is nominating Jon Huntsman, former Utah Governor and Obama administration ambassador to China, to be U.S. ambassador to Russia.

Theres always one. Jon Huntsman called to see me. I said no, he gave away our country to China! @JonHuntsman. Donald Trump in 2012, tweeting his disdain for Huntsmans service as ambassador to China.

Mass graves. Transnational Justice Working Group, a human rights NGO, released a new report pinpointing the location 40 mass graves in North Korea based on satellite imagery and defector interviews. North Korean civilians and former officials interviewed for the report said they had witnessed public executions at over 300 different sites.

Defections. North Korean defector Jeon Hye-sung has done what few North Koreans have done before gone back to the North after living in the South. Jeon appeared in a recent North Korean propaganda video, bemoaning life in the South. But intelligence officials in South Korea believe that Jeon, who had a high profile career in television, may have been kidnapped by North Korean agents while working to help family members still in the North make it across the border into China.

Summer getaways. Forgotten to book your summer vacation yet? Theres no need to worry as North Koreas National Tourism Administration has a new website up offering you all the information you need to take the spouse and kids for an unforgettable trip to the workers paradise north of the 38th parallel.

Negative content. China is unhappy with the latest version of the National Defense Authorization Act because of provisions calling for joint exercises and training with Taiwanese forces and the U.S. military.

Malorossiya. Novorossiya, the self-declared New Russia proclaimed by Russia and the rebels it backs in Ukraine, is gone, replaced by the rebranded breakaway Ukrainian statelet name Malorossiya or Little Russia. The head of the Donetsk Peoples Republic, Alexander Zakharchenko, proclaimed the new country this week, although Russia and Malorossiyas rebel enclave cousins in the Luhansk Peoples Republic, have been notably cool to the declaration.

Game of Thrones. The New York Times has the inside scoop on how Mohammed bin Salman managed to elbow former heir to the throne Mohammed bin Nayef out of the line of succession. Mohammed bin Nayef, told that King Salman wanted to see him, was summoned to a palace in Mecca where princes stripped him of his phone and told him to give up his government post and claim to the throne while other Saudi officials spread rumors that he was addicted to pain pills prescribed to him after being wounded by an al-Qaeda suicide bomber.

Yemen. A Saudi airstrike killed 20 civilians in the village of al-Atera in Taiz province with some of the victims including women and children.

Sanctions. The Trump administration has applied new sanctions to Iran, targeting industries and individuals that support the countrys Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The sanctions come as a kind of consolation prize for the administration, which has certified Iranian compliance with the nuclear deal signed by the Obama administration but is nonetheless unhappy with the agreement.

Think tanked. The American Enterprise Institutes Katherine Zimmerman has a new report out, The Salafi-Jihadi Movement, arguing that the U.S. is losing the war on terror, defining its enemy too narrowly and prioritizing military action against terrorist groups to the exclusion of addressing political grievances fueling their support in Sunni communities.

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SitRep: Trump's Secret Putin Meeting; Pentagon Gets New No. 2; NATO, Russia Square Off in War Games - Foreign Policy (blog)

More than 6 million people in Turkey spent the last weekend in the streets commemorating the failed coup attempt of July 15, 2016.

The reason why the people's reflexes are still alive after all this time is that they believe that the danger is not yet over.

Now, the whole world knows what that belief is. Turkish people think what happened on that night was not an ordinary coup like the previous ones in the country and that the purpose was to make the country vulnerable to invasion.

As opposed to what some Western politicians and strategists think, the only factor in the proliferation of this conviction is not the political atmosphere in Turkey.

The West itself has the lion's share in the emotional break of Turkish people from the West.

This is because Turks personally witnessed that the West and its institutions did not even formally side with them on that night.

Feeling alone in the face of the silence of Western institutions such as the EU, NATO and the U.N. on the night of the coup attempt, the people joined hands. They clamped together even more tightly as a result of the fact that soldiers deemed responsible for the coup escaped to U.S. bases or took shelter in EU countries such as Greece and Germany.

Moreover, there were examples in front of them such as the embarrassing design of the West, which pretends to be the knight of democracy, in Egypt and Syria.

Obviously, this course of things has brought Turkey, which has been in the Western bloc for a century since the founding of the modern Republic, to a crossroads. However, the path that Ankara points to and moves toward is poised not only to influence its EU accession talks, but also its relations with institutions like NATO, which has high symbolic value.

For instance, the fact that Turkey, a member of NATO since 1952, is purchasing S400 air defense systems from Russia, the de facto enemy of the organization, is an issue that must be emphasized.

News from Ankara and Moscow reveal that the parties even discussed concrete figures regarding the rocket batteries and their cost.

There is no problem with NATO. In other words, Turkey's NATO membership does not prevent it from pursuing a multifaceted policy, including procurement. Experts argue that this diversity in defense will not create a contradiction for Turkey's close relations and interests in other regions.

Obviously, however, such a de facto situation will make NATO, the most iconic institution of the Western bloc against Russia, rather than its function, lose credibility.

Brussels is aware that it will not be able to make up for Turkey, its strategic border ally, with the new member countries it has in Eastern Europe or with alternatives in the chaotic Arab world.

I think that NATO's condemnation of the July 15 coup attempt, even though delayed by a year, and its rejection of Germany, which demands pressure on Turkey because of the base visit crisis, are signs of this awareness.

However, almost all of the Turkish electorate now wants more solid assurances from the West and its institutions. Hence, NATO should not adopt a rigid attitude like the EU and must increase its gestures in its dialogue with Ankara, which indexes its presence to the electorate's reflexes.

NATO should do this before Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has looked at an ally like Turkey with great aspiration for years, comes much closer to Turkey.

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EU failed, NATO in the limelight - Daily Sabah

In nominating former Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison to be Americas next ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, President Trump tapped a top-notch stateswoman to serve in an important diplomatic post. By any objective forecast, Hutchisons confirmation should proceed smoothly. She is a distinguished politician who served in the U.S. Senate for 20 years, during which time she sat on both the Armed Services Committee and the Intelligence Committee.

But there is at least one reason senators should take their time with Hutchisons confirmation: The American people and their allies abroad need clarity on President Trumps NATO policy and Hutchisons confirmation offers the best near-term opportunity to obtain that.

The Constitution provides Congress with few better opportunities to define and shape foreign policy than the Senate confirmation process. Nominees to ambassadorial posts must first obtain the Senates advice and consent before their appointments take effect. That process can move swiftly for someone with Hutchisons record, but other considerations also play a role. Here, those considerations include the heightened importance of Americas NATO ambassador given recent Russian hostilities, as well as President Trumps incoherent NATO policy.

Forged in the early years of the post-World War II world order, NATO served as the Wests bulwark against Russian aggression throughout the Cold War. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, many observers understandably questioned whether time had rendered NATO obsolete. The alliance, however, proved to be a useful guarantor of freedom and security for its members even without the Soviet Union as its principal adversary. Indeed, NATOs collective defense covenant commonly referred to as the Article 5 commitment provided a strong foundation for political cooperation among NATO members.

Any lingering doubts about NATOs continued relevance should be put to rest in light of Russias jingoistic return to the world stage after a decade of wandering in the geopolitical wilderness. Since ascending to power in 2000, Russian President Vladimir Putin has aggressively pursued Russias perceived interests both regionally and globally. And Russias high-risk, high-reward policies have cost the United States and its interests dearly.

Russias illegal annexation of Crimea and its blatant meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election are but two of the most egregious examples of Russias belligerence. Hence, recent history has shown NATO to be an important safeguard against a clear and present danger posed by Russia.

Unfortunately, Trump has offered scant detail on his policy toward NATO. And what information the administration has provided is vague, incomplete and often contradicts earlier and sometimes even contemporaneous statements. As a candidate, Trump excoriated NATO, thereby eliciting acclaim from the nationalistic wing of his base. As president, however, Trump has softened his views, albeit without demonstrating a nuanced understanding of NATOs history, membership and mission. Indeed, the president recently proclaimed that NATO is no longer obsolete without elucidating why, when and how the alliance took on new value and purpose in his mind.

Individually, any one of Trumps bizarre statements about NATO could be written off as a misinformed gaffe. But collectively, they suggest that the president is wholly untethered to an adequate understanding of a crucial pillar of Americas national security policy. And that, coupled with the pall of investigations into the Trump campaigns ties to the Russian government, demands swift attention by senators with the power to take a hard look at the administrations heretofore haphazard NATO policy.

Therefore, members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee which will presumably consider Hutchisons nomination in the coming weeks should obtain clarification on at least three fundamental issues:

First, senators should demand a clear and complete explanation of the Trump administrations NATO policy, including the presidents position on honoring Americas Article 5 commitments. Going back to President Truman, all of Trumps predecessors have affirmed Americas commitment to its NATO allies; any departure from that policy should require a convincing explanation.

Second, senators should categorically ascertain which entity within the U.S. government authoritatively speaks on U.S. policy vis-a-vis NATO. Normally, the presidents word is final on such delicate matters of statecraft. Yet, time and again, Trump has confused, if not outright contradicted, his own administration's messaging on matters of policy. Tweets have consequences, so senators should ascertain whether future midnight Twitter rants will constitute an official break from established doctrine.

Finally, senators should advise Hutchison on Americas proper posture toward NATO and inquire where the would-be ambassador stands on the question of what constitutes a presidential action in contravention of Americas national interests. The Senate would be remiss if it failed to establish an ethical baseline for such an important ambassadorial assignment.

Americans, not to mention Americas allies, deserve to know how the president views Americas most important institutional fortification against Russian hostility. The Senate should see that they get it.

Scott A. Olson is a former congressional staffer and is a Political Partner of the Truman National Security Project. Views expressed are his own. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.

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Hutchison's confirmation hearing chance to clarify NATO policy | Opinion - Sun Sentinel

ISLAMABAD

NATO confirmed Tuesday that Afghanistans vice president, Abdul Rashid Dostum, tried to return to the country overnight but that his private plane was denied permission to land in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

Dostum, a 63-year-old ethnic Uzbek warlord, and some of his militia guards, have been under investigation for months over allegations of torturing and sexually assaulting an elderly political rival by the name of Ahmad Ishchi.

The first vice president left the country for Turkey about two months ago, saying he needed health care, a move prompting allegations Afghan President Ashraf Ghani allowed Dostum to travel abroad under a secret deal to escape prosecution.

What happened with General Dostum was that he was denied permission to land in Mazar-i-Sharif, a spokesman for NATOs Resolute Support mission, Bill Salvin, told VOA.

While we were asked to make a phone call to try and get permission for the first vice president to land, we declined to make that phone call because our commander up in the north said that this is not the role of Resolute Support, Salvin added, without naming the caller.

He noted that the international missions role is to provide training, advice and assistance to Afghan security forces and it would not have been appropriate to intervene in internal Afghan matters.

Local media reported that aviation authorities directed Dostums plane to Kabuls international airport but instead, it turned back and landed in the neighboring central Asian state of Turkmenistan.

Dostums spokespeople and political allies in Afghanistan have denied that he was on the plane, saying the first vice president is still in Turkey.

The Afghan government has not commented.

Reports of comeback attempt

The controversial Uzbek strongman attempted to stage Mondays dramatic comeback days after he formed a three-party political alliance, which also involved Governor Mohammad Atta Noor of the northern Afghan province, where the aircraft tried to land on Monday.

The formation of the coalition was announced in Turkey and it brings together discontented political groups that are also part of the government.

Noor has also rejected reports Dostum was on board the plane. A statement quoted the governor as saying a group of engineers was on the flight and technical problems forced the plane to return to Turkey.

Afghan judicial officials announced earlier this month that the probe into allegations against Dostum and his men has been completed and sent to the court for further action.

President Ghani has been under pressure at home and from Afghanistans international backers led by the United States to ensure extremely serious charges against his vice president are reviewed and follow-up legal action is taken.

The acting U.S. ambassador to Kabul last week emphasized that the legal process underscores the Afghan states effort to uphold the rule of law and combat impunity, and to send a signal to the world that no one is above the law in Afghanistan.

Late last year, Ishchi, a former provincial governor, said in a nationally televised interview that Dostum's militiamen detained, tortured and sexually assaulted him. He alleged that Dostum had ordered the detention and abuse.

Observers say that Mondays incident is likely to fuel tensions between Dostum and Ghani. The warlord, who enjoys a strong following in northern Afghan regions, has rejected charges against him as politically motivated and an attempt to marginalize him.

Ghani has defended Dostum's departure from Afghanistan, saying he left with the permission of the attorney general and that the laws do not bar someone suspected of wrongdoing from seeking medical treatment abroad.

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NATO: Plane Carrying Afghan VP Denied Landing Rights - Voice of America

Russia's summer wargames, named Zapad ("West") 2017, are set to kick off in September but are already setting off alarm bells across Europe. Held every four years, the Zapad exercises are a window into Russia's military prowessand perhaps future intentions.

The exercises, held jointly between Russia and neighboring Belarus, will take place later this summer in the two countries, involving the armed forces of both. According to Belarus' defense minister, "Up to 12,700 servicemen are planned to be involved in the drills. About 10,200 troops will be involved on the territory of our country, including 7,200 servicemen from the Belarusian Armed Forces and about 3,000 from the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation." The minister also stated that 680 pieces of military hardware, including armored vehicles, would take part in the exercises. Zapad 2017 will take place at six different training grounds scattered across the two countries.

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The location of the exercises, in Central Europe near NATO members states Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, has made NATO nervousespecially after Russia's secret 2014 war in Ukraine and annexation of the Crimean peninsula. The Zapad 2013 exercises, also held by Russia and Belarus, were publicly claimed to involve approximately 12,000 troops but in reality that number was more like 90,000, according to the Atlantic Council. How many troops will really exercise in September is anyone's guess, although some NATO members believe the true number of troops will be around 100,000.

Exercises are also used by the Russian government to shift forces around to prepare for actual combat operations. In 2008, military exercises preceded Russia's invasion of neighboring Georgia. In 2014, the Russian government staged exercises involving 150,000 troops near the Russian-Ukrainian border. After the exercise many of the units stayed in the area to participate in the subsequent war with Ukraine.

2S5 Giatsint self-propelled guns firing during an exercise in the Russian Far East, 2017.

Getty Yuri Smityuk.

Past Zapad exercises have also featured new tactics and technologies later seen in subsequent conflicts. Western observers first noticed Russia's use of unmanned aerial vehicles to spot for artillery and assess the effects of artillery strikes at Zapad 2013. The exercise was also notable for its use of tactical missiles for deep strikes and anti-guerrilla operations, which were later put to use in Syria.

Zapad actually predates the Russian Federation, having originated in the old Soviet Union. The Zapad '81 wargames were huge, involving involved between 100,000 and 150,000 Soviet Warsaw Pact military personnel, tank armies, large numbers of aircraft and ships, and even simulated use of tactical nuclear weapons.

For its part, Russia claims it is trying to be as transparent as possible with the exercises, including inviting 80 observers from NATO, the United Nations, and other countries. But the only know the aftermath is to wait and see.

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Russia's Summer Wargames Are Making NATO Nervous - Popular Mechanics

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Danish troops will get training in how to deal with Russian misinformation before being sent to join a NATO military build-up in Estonia in January, Defense Minister Claus Hjort Frederiksen said on Monday.

"It is a whole new world. The Danish soldiers need to be extremely aware of that. Therefore I have arranged with the armed forces that the soldiers being sent out in January are informed and educated in how to protect themselves," Frederiksen told Danish broadcaster DR.

"It is easy to imagine they will become exposed to intimidation and fake rumors," he said of the 200 Danish soldiers being deployed.

In February, Lithuanian prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into a false report of a 15-year-old girl being raped by German NATO soldiers which spread quickly on social media.

NATO accused Russia of being behind the false report and said it expected more propaganda of this sort in the future.

Both NATO and the European Union are concerned by Russia's ability to use television and the internet to project what they say is deliberate misinformation. Russia has denied being involved in any cyber warfare targeting Western governments or institutions.

Reporting by Julie Astrid Thomsen; Editing by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen and Robin Pomeroy

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Denmark to train NATO soldiers to combat Russian misinformation - Reuters

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the West won the Cold War. And with the end of this struggle eventually came new European NATO member states among them, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, the three Baltics States, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, and some of the republics that emerged out of Yugoslavia. But how well can NATOs new allies contribute to their own national defense, let alone contribute to collective defense? Relatedly, how effective have old NATO members been in assisting their former adversaries to create modern reliable capabilities? The United States alone has spent billions for training and modernization , as well as assisting in building modern civil ministries of defense. Yet universally, since the end of the Cold War all of NATOs newer members continue to struggle to create, let alone sustain, reliable modern capabilities.

Instead of tackling these problems head on, Western officials have leaned on the old trope that nations need to spend at least 2 percent of GDP on defense. The alliance declared in 2014 that those nations not meeting this goal would endeavor to do within a decade in order to meet alliance commitments and goals. This aim, wittingly or otherwise, is premised on a number of questionable assumptions, not least of which is that increased spending by newer member states will translate into new or more capabilities.

I have been intimately involved in planning, directing, and delivering advice and assistance to every country in the region (save Lithuania) for almost 20 years. The results of this experience and loads of hard thinking about the problem can be found in a book published last month. And on the basis of this experience, I am confident that more spending wont do the job. Indeed, many important issues related to capacity, capability, readiness, and training are being overlooked by the alliance.

Unfortunately, Western officials have long lacked a full appreciation of the actual state of reform of new members armed forces. After all, any likely aggression by Russia would almost certainly fall on Central or Eastern Europe. It is therefore incumbent on these armed forces to be capable of responding in a coherent fashion. In reality, the reform of new NATO allies armed forces, and indeed their entire defense institutions, remains a work in progress. Newer member states continue to struggle to adopt the most basic Western democratic defense governance concepts. But due to a lack of commitment by governments in the region to reform and inconsistent political pressure from leading Western nations, ministries in the region plan and manage ineffectually all the while their armed forces are literally rusting away. This can be observed in their airfields, ship docks, and vehicle parks. Worst of all, this equipment is not being modernized and/or replaced. An easy and objective example can be found in the low number of flight hours combat pilots get per annum in relation to their old NATO counterparts.

How did the alliance get to this point? There are a number of possible explanations. First, in making troop contributions to Afghanistan and particularly Iraq, the armed forces of these countries have avoided objective scrutiny of their actual state of reform from Washington and other leading NATO capitals. A pernicious habit has developed of Western military officials in particular offering insincere compliments on how well reform is going when such praise is not warranted. Second, early on in these states transition to democracy, Western officials determined that their advice and assistance would be technical and delegated its management to their armed forces. Thus, Western support has been based on a trinity of being defined as technical, focused at the tactical level, and using training as the preferred tool. Western officials continue to hope without evidence that they can change public institutions through technical advice while ignoring that reform is fundamentally political in nature. Due to this inattention, these armed forces have failed to modernize, maintained hollow units, and forgone essential leadership, individual, and, particularly,collective training. It is little wonder that the House and Senate Armed Services Committees in the last Congress held hearings into the effectiveness of the Department of Defenses management of security cooperation programs. Lawmakers skepticism of current policies is clearly expressed in the latest National Defense Authorization Act.

In light of this situation, old and new NATO members must fundamentally change their policies. The alliance needs an honest defense initiative. Senior Western officials need to take a harder line in their interactions with their allied counterparts on NATOs eastern flank and start demanding painful political decisions in order to adopt Western democratic defense governance concepts. As Western and legacy concepts are antithetical to each other, the latter should be retired in order to adopt the former. Specifically, political capital will need to be spent to develop non-complex and effective defense planning methods, stop practices that preclude their armed forces from training and developing military leaders in accordance with Western practices, and radically transform their ineffectual legacy logistics organizations. Equally, newer allies and partners must insist Western officials end the corrosive practice of offering false compliments and become brutally honest with their failures and weaknesses. In essence, these officials need to demand Western officials take them seriously and deal with them on the basis of equality and honesty.

Thus, the long-standing canard, articulated particularly by U.S. officials, that members must simply increase their defense budgets is in urgent need of refinement. On its own, encouraging new members to spend more on defense in no way guarantees new funding actually will produce new and needed capabilities. An honest defense initiative could encourage deep reforms and provide appropriate advice and assistance to enable legacy defense institutions to prepare to contribute effective capabilities as quickly as possible. Ominously, Russian aggression against Ukraine demonstrates that weak defense capabilities all but invite Russian mischief-making. The alliance has allowed this disquieting situation to go unaddressed for some 25 years. It is doubtful the West can count on President Vladimir Putin allowing NATO another 25 years to complete the reform of these legacy defense institutions.

Thomas-Durell Young is Program Manger Europe at the Center for Civil-Military Relations of the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California. He is the author of Anatomy of Post-Communist European Defense Institutions: Mirage of Military Modernity (Bloomsbury, 2017). The views expressed in this article are those solely of the author and do not reflect the policy or views of the Naval Postgraduate School, Department of the Navy, or the Department of Defense.

Image: NATO

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NATO's Blind Spot: Getting to Honest Defense - War on the Rocks

NATO and Russian aircraft and ships have drawn ever closer in the skies and seas around Eastern Europe in recent years, engaging in a kind ofcat-and-mouse game that has led to many near misses.

A significant number of these encounters have taken place above the Baltics, where NATO members border a Russia they see asgrowing increasingly aggressive in its near abroad.

June alone saw several such incidents, including a Russian jetinterceptinga US B-52 over the Baltic Sea early in the month, another Russian jet flyingwithin a few feetof a U.S. Air Force reconnaissance jet over the Baltic Sea in mid-June, and a NATO F-16buzzingthe Russian defense ministers jet later in the month.

Western officials and the research and advocacy group Global Zero which analyzed 97 mid-air confrontations between Russian and Western aircraft over the Baltic between March 2014 and April 2017 have saidthat Russian pilots are more often responsible for unsafe interceptions; some of which arise from negligence or are accidents, while some are deliberate shows of force.

What we see in the Baltic Sea is increased military activity we see it on land, at sea, and in the air, and that just underlines the importance of transparency and predictability to prevent incidents and accidents, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenbergtold The Wall Street Journal. And if they happen, it is important to make sure they dont spiral out of control and create dangerous situations.

Western officials and analysts believe Moscow is using such incidents as geopolitical tactics, responding to events in Europe and elsewhere, such as in Syria. Russia has denied this and said that recent reports about its abilities and activity in the region are total Russophobia.

Both sides are working toward risk reduction policies for the Baltics. But the uptick in aerial encounters comes amid increased military activity by both sides on the ground in Eastern Europe.

Some 25,000 troops from the U.S. and 23 other countries are taking part in the Saber Guardian military exercise in Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romaniathis month the drills are designed as adeterrentand are larger in both scale and scope than previous exercises, U.S. European Commandsaidin June.U.S. bombers alsotraveledto the UK in June in preparation for two separate multilateral exercises in the Baltics and elsewhere in Europe that month.

Those military exercises come ahead of war games planned for September by Russia and Belarus. Those exercises could involve up to 100,000 troops and include nuclear-weapons training.

Neighboring countries haveexpressed concernthat those war games could leave a permanent Russian presence in Belarus the U.S. plans tostation paratroopersin Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania during them andwill adjustits fighter-jet rotation to put more experienced pilots in the area to better manage any encounters with Russian forces.

The U.S. and NATO have increased troop deployments to Eastern Europe. UK and Canadianforces are headedto Poland, Latvia, and Estonia, and NATO personnel are already in Lithuania. The latter country has called for a permanent US military presence there as a game changer to counter Moscow.

In the wake of this months G20 summit in Germany, several countries in Eastern Europe are moving to boost their air-defense capabilities, with the US aiding the effort.

In early July, Poland and the U.S. signed a memorandum of understanding for an$8 billion saleof U.S.-made Patriot missiles.

This week, the State Department gave tentative approval toa $3.9 billion saleof Patriot missiles and related equipment, like radars, to Romania.

Patriot missiles have also beenstationedin Lithuania for the first time, albeit temporarily, as part of military exercises focused on air defense and involving five NATO countries.

Russian President Vladimir Putinhas said several timesthat the deployment of defensive missile systems by NATO allies would be a great danger, and he has threatened to respond by boosting Russias own missile systems.

The way I view the Patriots deployment is that it also forms part of a broader U.S. response in the region to the upcoming Russian exercise nearby, Magnus Nordenman, a Nordic security expert at the Atlantic Council,told AFP.

Air defense has not been a priority for the last 15 years when NATO was busy in Afghanistan, dealing with piracy and peacekeeping, he said. There was not much of an air threat but now that Russia is building up air forces, it is different.

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Russian, NATO Pilots Test Wills In Skies Above Eastern Europe - Task & Purpose