Re: Tell PM, Merkel Cold War is over, Feb. 22.

Au contraire Mr. Petricevic. The Cold War is not over, in fact these are the most dangerous times in 25 years. There is a Russian army threatening Europe, that has already annexed Crimea, is occupying Eastern Ukraine, has shot down a commercial airliner, is menacing the Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia, and is putting missiles aimed at Europe in Kaliningrad between Poland and Lithuania.

Russian President Vladimir Putin aided Bashir Al Assad against the rebels rather than ISIS and every once in a while threatens to cut off gas supplies to Europe. Putin has allied his military with Iran. He has hacked into the U.S. elections, threatening elections in Germany and France.

NATO is needed now more than ever. Trump is way off base suggesting NATO is obsolete. He has coddled Russia for whatever reason, although one can hazard a guess. Fortunately, Gen. Mattis understands the threat that Russia poses and will counter Trumps non-expertise in military matters.

Arne Suutari

Levack

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Letter: NATO more important than ever - The Sudbury Star

At the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union had so many hundreds of deadly submarines at sea that Western war planners willing to try almost any possible countermeasure, however goofy sounding.

Some seemingly crazy ideas proved actually worthwhile, such as the underwater Sound Surveillance Systema vast chain of seafloor microphones that patiently listened for Soviet subs and remains in use today.

Other less elegant anti-submarine tools survive only as anecdotes. In his book Hunter Killers, naval writer Iain Ballantyne recalls one of the zanier ideasair-dropped floppy-magnets meant to foul up Soviet undersea boats, making them noisier and easier to detect.

From the late 1940s on, captured German technology boosted Soviet postwar submarine design. Soviet shipyards delivered subs good enoughand numerous enoughto pose a huge danger to Western shipping.

By the time of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the USSR controlled the largest submarine force in the worldsome 300 diesel-electric submarines and a handful of nuclear-propelled models. NATO navies couldnt keep up. We simply do not have enough forces, Vice Adm. R.M. Smeeton stated.

NATO war planners feared only nuclear escalation could check the Soviet submarine wolf packsthat is, atomic strikes on sub bases along the Russian coast.

But the nuclear solution was worse than the problem. We can take steps to make sure the enemy is fully aware of where his course of action is leading him without nuclear weapons, Smeeton said, but we cannot go to war that way.

Desperate planners sought ways of making Soviet subs easier to hunt. Any technology that could speed up an undersea search was worth considering. A submarines best defense is of course stealth, remaining quiet and undetected in the ocean deep, Ballantyne notes. Something that could rob the Soviets of that cloak of silence must have seemed irresistible and, at least initially, a stroke of genius.

A Canadian scientist figured some kind of sticky undersea noisemaker would make a Soviet sub more detectable. He designed a simple hinged cluster of magnets that could attach to a submarines metal hull.

Movement would cause the flopping magnets to bang against the hull like a loose screen door, giving away the subs location to anyone listening. The simple devices would take time and effort to remove, thus also impairing the Soviet undersea fleets readiness.

At least that was the idea.

GodawfulRacket:

In late 1962, the British Admiralty dispatched the A-class diesel submarine HMS Auriga to Nova Scotia for joint anti-submarine training with the Canadian navy. The British were helping Canada establish a submarine force, s0 Royal Navy subs routinely exercised with Canadian vessels.

Auriga had just returned to the submarine base at Faslane, Scotland after a combat patrol as part of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Other subs of the joint Canadian-British Submarine Squadron Six at Halifax had seen action during the Crisis.

The 1945-vintage Auriga spent much of her time in Nova Scotia simulating Soviet diesel subs during hazardous under-ice ASW practice with U.S. and Canadian forces. During a typical three-week exercise, Auriga would be subject to the attentions of surface vessels, aircraft and other subs, including the U.S. Navys new nuke boats.

During one open-ocean exercise, Auriga was given the floppy-magnet treatment. A Canadian patrol plane flew over Aurigas submerged position and dropped a full load of the widgets into the sea.

As weird as it sounded, the magnet concept proved a resounding success. Enough magnets fell on or near Aurigas hull to stick and flop. Banging and clanking with a godawful racket, the magnets gave sonar operators tracking the sub a field day. Then the trouble started.

As Auriga surfaced at the end of the exercise, the magnets made their way into holes and slots in the subs outer hull designed to let water flow. They basically slid down the hull, Ballantyne says of the magnets, and remained firmly fixed inside the casing, on top of the ballast tanks, in various nooks and crannies.

The floppy-magnets couldnt be removed at sea. In fact, they couldnt be removed at all until the submarine dry-docked back in Halifax weeks later.

In the meantime, one of Her Majesty's submarines was about as stealthy as a mariachi band. No fighting, no training, no nothing until all those floppy little magnets were dug out of her skin at a cost of time, money and frustration.

The magnets worked on the Soviets with the same maddening results. The crews of several Foxtrots were driven bonkers by the noise and returned to port rather than complete their cruises.

Now, the Soviet navy could afford to furlough a sub or two, but NATO could not. Anti-submarine crews couldnt practice with floppy-magnets attached to their exercise targets.

The floppy-magnets worked exactly as intended, but they were simply too messy to train with to be practical on a large scale. It seems NATO deployed them only a few times.

The submarine-fouling floppy-magnet turned out to be, well, a flop.

This first appeared in WarIsBoring here.

Image: Creative Commons.

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NATO's Crazy Plan to Find Russian Submarines Was a Total 'Flop' - The National Interest Online (blog)

Poland's 6th Airborne Brigade soldiers walk with U.S. 82nd Airborne Division soldiers during the NATO allies' Anakonda 16 exercise near Torun, Poland, on June 7, 2016. Kacper PempelReuters

Getting NATO allies to spend more on defense is one of President Donald Trumps most consistent foreign policy proposals. He might be on to something.

According to NATOs own figures, just 5 of the 28 alliance members meet the requirement agreed upon in 2006 that members spend at least 2 percent of their GDP on defense. Here's a deeper look at the handful of countries actually meeting their obligations:

1. The U.S. 3.61 percent of GDP on defense

The self-imposed 2 percent threshold has never made much practical difference to the U.S., which has been spending on its military at a much higher rate since World War II. Thats what happens when youre locked in an arms-race with a nuclear-armed superpower. But even after the Soviet Union fell in 1991, U.S. military spending dipped but never went below 2 percent. And since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, its moved sharply higher. Today, the U.S. outspends the next seven nations combined when it comes to defense. In fiscal year 2017, the U.S. plans to spend $582.7 billion on defense, more than the entire national economic output of all but 20 countries in the world.

Trump is not wrong when he says the U.S. pays more than its fair share. After all, the rest of NATOs members combined spent less than half of what the U.S. budgeted (in absolute terms) in 2016. But, in rattling NATOs cage, Trump also has to contend with the alliances popularity among Americans. Some 77 percent of Americans believe NATO membership benefits the U.S. Then theres the fact that his message for more NATO solidarity is undercut by his support for Brexit and other moves to diminish the E.U.

2. Greece 2.38 percent of GDP spent on defense

Given its current economic woes, you might be surprised to see Greece on the list. But Greece has been splashing out for decades, averaging a defense budget of 6.2 percent of GDP throughout the 1980s . Much of this has to do with its historically tense relationship with Turkey, a fellow NATO member currently helmed by a president prone to brash rhetoric and not-so-veiled threats.

Then theres the fact that the Greek military employs 2.7 percent of the Greece labor force , according to 2013 figures. With an overall unemployment rate at around 23 percent , every little bit helps. Mandatory conscription also doesnt hurt. And its worth noting that Greeces overall GDP shrunk 45 percent between 2008 and 2015 , which helps keep their NATO contribution as a percentage of GDP look bigger despite massive cuts. Back in 2009, Greece was spending roughly $10 billion on defense. By 2015, it was spending just $4.6 billion, but that still managed to push it over the NATO threshold.

3. United Kingdom 2.21 percent of GDP spent on defense

At the end of the day, 2 percent is an arbitrary figure, and one thats difficult to calculate at that. That much has been made clear by the current row gripping the UK; the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) announced last week that the UK was not in fact meeting its 2 percent commitment. Instead, the London-based think tank estimates the government is only spending 1.98 percent of its GDP on defense. Ministry of Defense officials hit back, saying that NATOs own figures show that the country is meeting its commitments, while the British opposition accused the government of changing its accounting methods to give the illusion of keeping the commitment.

Whether or not Britain is actually meeting its NATO commitments is a big deal. When U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May visited Donald Trump in January, she pledged to encourage other NATO members to fulfill their obligations in exchange for Trumps 100 percent commitment to NATO . The fact that the U.K. may not be fulfilling those same obligations may rankle Trump at a time when the Brexit-bound Britain needs all the friends it can get.

4. Estonia 2.16 percent of GDP spent on defense

Then there are the Baltics, on the frontlines with Russia. While Estonia is the only one of the three Baltic states that actually meets NATOs 2 percent threshold, it actually spends less than Lithuania in absolute terms . On the heels of Russias 2014 annexation of Crimea, both Latvia and Lithuania pledged to meet the NATO threshold by 2018. Theyre well on their way, and by 2020 the three Baltic countries are together planning to spend nearly $2 billion a year on defense, more than double when they first entered NATO in 2004.

But as I discussed with the Estonian president, Kersti Kaljulaid, over the weekend at the Munich Security Conference, the fear of Russia has fundamentally morphed. Shes no longer worried about cross-border tensions or the roughly 26 percent of ethnic Russians who make up her countrys population. Instead, shes focused on Kremlin-sponsored propaganda and fake news aimed at delegitimizing her government. And as the U.S. can attest, big military spending alone isnt enough to prevent that.

5. Poland 2 percent of GDP spent on defense

Rounding out the list is Poland, which just squeaks past the mandated 2 percent threshold. But Poland is a particularly interesting story. Even though Warsaw scrapped compulsory military service back in 2008, the last few years have seen a rise in organized paramilitary forces. These groups pay for their own uniforms and weapons, and practice military exercises over the weekend. The fact that Poland borders a piece of isolated Russian territory called Kaliningrad is not lost on these Poles. Since Russias invasion of Crimea, the absolute number of people joining the approximately 120 paramilitary organizations has tripled . Theyve also won support from the nationalist-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government, which intends to have 53,000 of these part-time soldiers spread throughout the country by 2019 as a sort of national guard. That would be equivalent to 1/3 of all Polish military personnel . Sometimes, military preparedness goes beyond the headline number.

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The Only 5 Countries That Meet NATO's Defense Spending Requirements - TIME

NATO has developed a multinational telemedicine system, enabling medical specialists to provide real-time recommendations to first responders at emergency scenes or in combat zones. On Friday (24 February 2017), a high-level conference at NATO headquarters marked the completion of this project, supported by the NATO Science for Peace and Security Programme.

The telemedicine system can be used both by the military and civilian paramedics. In the event of a disaster, telemedicine helps eliminate distance barriers and improves access to medical services that would often not be available on the ground, even in remote areas, explained Ambassador Sorin Ducaru, NATO Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges.

Thanks to telemedicine, medical specialists, located in different parts of the world, are ableto assess patients, diagnose them and provide real-time recommendations. Portable medical kits allow first responders at the scene to connect to the system, receiving expert advice from medical specialists. This allows the right aid and care to reach those who need it most quickly, with the potential to save many lives in disasters.

Launched in 2013, the project was led by scientists and experts from NATO Allies Romania and the United States and partner countries Finland, Moldova and Ukraine. Allies and partners provided advanced equipment, such as kits for connectivity and solar panels, as well as training for experts. NATOs Communications and Information Agency (NCIA) provided expertise on communications technologies.

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NATO develops telemedicine system to save lives in emergencies - NATO HQ (press release)

By Air Force Staff Sgt. Daniel Ter Haar, Iowa Air National Guard

NATO AIR BASE GEILENKIRCHEN, Germany, Feb. 24, 2017 This month, members of the Iowa Air National Guard's 185th Air Refueling Wing based in Sioux City, Iowa, are refueling NATO Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft while assigned here.

Approximately 40 members from the 185th are in Germany for two weeks supporting NATO missions.

The AWACS involves multifaceted radar equipped aircraft that provide surveillance and command and control for NATO areas of responsibility. Onboard aircraft crews provide communications and control for U.S. and partner nations, while also keeping a close eye on potential adversaries. These missions require long flight times and inflight refueling provided by Air Guard units like the 185th.

According to Royal Netherlands Air Force Capt. Andr Bongers, a public affairs officer stationed at Geilenkirchen, the long-standing partnership with the Air Guard is important to maintaining stability in the region.

A Very Successful Partnership

"This has always been a very successful partnership. During 40 weeks per year the Air Guard provides essential training to the NATO E-3A Component. This is vital because pilots at the E-3A Component normally stay around for only four years, Bongers said. This means theres a high demand for training to ensure new crew members are combat ready. The high level of professionalism and flexibility delivered by the Air Guard is of great importance to get the right amount of training."

NATO AWACS play a critical role in many ongoing missions in the region, Bongers said, such as counter-Islamic State of Iraq and Syria operations, Eastern Europe surveillances and Mediterranean maritime operations. He said they also fly for high visibility events such as the recent NATO summit in Warsaw and big regional exercises like Red Flag and Arctic Challenge.

According to Air Force Lt. Col. Joseph Bosch, the Air National Guards liaison in Geilenkirchen, the Air Guard has been working with NATO forces since 2015. Bosch also said that the Air Guard brings a level of unmatched experience to refueling operations, especially units like the 185th.

"It is always a pleasure having the 185th. This wing has a special dedication to this mission and shows time and again how much they love our mission here. Sioux City always brings their "A" game to make this special spot better than when they arrived," Bosch said.

Continued here:

Iowa Air Guard Refueling Wing Supports NATO Missions - Department of Defense

PODGORICA - Montenegro received guarantees that the US Senate will ratify the NATO Accession Protocol, said Minister of Foreign Affairs Sra Darmanovi in an interview for Reuters, Montenegrin CDM reports.

He said that he was expecting Montenegro to become a full fledged member by the end of May. He said that they received a 100% guarantee that the US Senate would ratify the Protocol.

He denied claims that the ratification could be victim to Trumps administration desire to improve relations with Russia.

We understand that Trump wants to improve relations in Russia, especially when it comes to war on terrorism, but we do not see signs that point to sacrificing basic US national interests, Darmanovi said.

He reminded that out 28 NATO members, four have not ratified yet, out of procedural reasons the US, Canada, Netherlands and Spain.

We expect audition at the next summit in the end of May. It is reasonable to expect that all the procedures would be finalized by then, Darmanovi said.

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Darmanovi: Montenegro in NATO by the end of May - European Western Balkans (press release)

During a panel at the Brookings Institution on Thursday morning, Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, strongly assured his audience that the US remains committed to NATO.

The problem is that the Trump administration keeps suggesting otherwise and many allies arent sure what to believe.

During his remarks, Dunford said other NATO members needed to spend more on their militaries, but stressed that there was no ambiguity about Washingtons devotion to the alliance. And he reaffirmed that the US is bound by the duty enshrined in Article 5 of the NATO charter that an attack against one member is an attack against them all.

"I don't think there is any question about our commitment to NATO," Dunford said in a soothing tone.

But his words are unlikely to bring much comfort to Washingtons allies in Europe. They have questions many of them. President Donald Trump and his team have been offering conflicting signals on NATO for months, and its becoming exceedingly difficult to parse the exact meaning of the administrations rhetoric.

While the US has long chided fellow NATO members for failing to spend the required 2 percent of GDP on defense most fall below it Washington is for the first time threatening to act on its complaint by cutting US support for the alliance or possibly even withdrawing altogether.

On Monday, Vice President Mike Pence said in Brussels that the Trump administrations support for NATO is unwavering.

But alongside the carrot, Pence offered a stick: "The president expects real progress by the end of 2017, he said. The patience of the American people will not endure forever. Its unclear what an exhaustion of patience would actually mean for the USs commitment to NATO.

Last week, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis offered a vague blend of encouragement and warning to NATO allies during his debut trip to Brussels. He affirmed US backing of NATO, which he characterized as a fundamental bedrock for the US and all the transatlantic community.

But he also made it clear that the bond wouldn't necessarily last forever.

"America will meet its responsibilities, but if your nations do not want to see America moderate its commitment to this alliance, each of your capitals needs to show support for our common defense," he said.

Diplomats and analysts were left scratching their heads, wondering what Mattis actually meant. What would moderate mean? When exactly would that happen? And how can the USs commitment be so strong and so precarious at the same time?

Trump is at the heart of the uncertainty surrounding the future of NATO. On his path to the White House, he repeatedly slammed NATO as obsolete and criticized allies for not pulling their weight on defense spending. Then he reversed his position on NATO, based on the either misguided or deliberately false claim that NATO had changed their policy due to his criticism. Later on, he expressed ambivalence about it. Then right before taking office, he decided that the alliance was, in fact, obsolete. Now in office, his team is trying to thread the needle by saying the US loves NATO but its love is conditional.

There are other factors contributing to allies concerns about Trumps commitment to NATO as well. Diplomats the world over know that Trump likes to conduct diplomacy using Twitter without consulting experts or the rest of his administration; official statements from his press secretary or Cabinet members can easily be unraveled by a furious tweet in response to the latest report Trump watched on Fox News.

That impulsive unpredictability cuts both ways it might make Europe more anxious to try to appease him, and make leaders try to rally their countries to spend more on defense just in case Trump really means what he says. But it may also make it harder for leaders to convince their countries that his words are more than thoughtless stream of consciousness, forgotten shortly after theyre uttered.

Then there is Trumps sustained interest in warming ties with Russia. From effusive praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin to business ties with Russian investors to his personal lawyers recent meeting with pro-Russian advocates seeking a path to lift sanctions on Russia, Trumps fondness for Russia has NATO allies on edge.

The military alliance was originally formed after World War II to deter Soviet aggression, and today one of its functions is to discourage Russian expansionism in Europe. But Trumps bid to win over the Kremlin could lead him to be less concerned about that priority. European nations dont know how seriously Trump takes their security.

The only thing thats clear right now is that the US is losing the trust of its friends.

Original post:

Why Europe is so confused by the Trump administration on NATO - Vox

Polands conservative government has replaced almost all of its military leadership after hundreds of officers left, an exit that coincides with a call from Warsaws to its NATO allies for help boosting its defense.

With the government moving to rid institutions of officials appointed by the former ruling Civic Platform party, which it defeated in 2015 elections, 90 percent of the General Staff leadership and more than 80 percent of the armys top brass have gone, according to the Defense Ministry. They include Chief of Staff General Miroslaw Gocul, who stepped down last month and Army Commander General Miroslaw Rozanski.

The ruling Law & Justice Party has pledged to purge government of what its leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski has called the worst type of Poles -- people with ties to Civic Platform or the communists who ruled the country last century. It is also thinning out experienced soldiers who have served in wars alongside their allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which Poland joined with other former eastern bloc states in 1999.

Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz has conducted a widespread change at top positions in operating units, each time replacing officers selected by the Civic Platform with experienced officers trained in Iraq and Afghanistan and trained by NATO, the ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

Among the departures are 26 generals and more than 250 colonels, about a quarter and a sixth of the armys total, TVN24 television reported. While media say the numbers are higher than compared with previous years, the ministry says the total size of the army increased to 106,000 in 2017 from 96,000 in 2015.

Probably part of the departures are natural, but theres also part thats forced, for example by transfer orders sending officers into reserves, retired Brigadier General Stanislaw Koziej, who was head of the National Security Bureau under the Civic Platform government from 2010 to 2015, said by phone. The worrying element is that some departures are at the highest level where the military command links with political leadership. This is a bad signal.

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The government in Warsaw is also pushing to bring more U.S. troops to Poland as it warns against what it says is an increasing security threat from an expansionist Russia and the war in Ukraine.

A soldier has no other means of protest besides taking off the uniform, Koziej said.

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Exit by 80% of Polish Top Brass Guts Command on NATO Front Line ... - Bloomberg

France's far-right presidential front runner Marine Le Pen sounded a full-throated rejection of global trade deals and multilateral governance, defending in soaring terms Thursday the importance ofcultural identity and national independence.

In a keynote foreign policy speech in Paris, Le Pen offered withering criticism of the European Union and NATO and decried what she essentially described as Western meddling in countries like Iraq, Syria, Libya, Russia and Turkey that she claimed have increased instability, broken bilateral promises and betrayed the wishes of the people.

"I don't want to promote a French or a Western system. I don't want to promote a universal system," Le Pen told a packed audience of reporters, diplomats and supporters in an elegant conference hall near the Champs Elysees. "To the contrary, I want to promote a respect of cultures and peoples."

Le Pen's lofty discourse offered a stark counterpoint to the Front National's more abrasive grassroots image as an anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, populist party. She described France under her governance as a champion of "oppressed people, which speaks out for the voiceless and carries something powerful and great."

Le Pen has indicated she would seek a new deal with the EU, or "Frexit"

She also took no questions and continued calmly on after a bare-chested Femen protester sought to interrupt her remarks, before being carried, still shouting, out of the room.

Scandal over EU funds

A pair of polls out Thursday confirmed Le Pen remains the favored candidate in a presidential race that has been full of surprises, despite being mired in an ongoing scandal over the alleged misuse of European Union fundsto pay for several Front National staff. Still, almost every survey to date shows her winning the first round of presidential elections in April, but failing to prevail in a May runoff.

For 48-year-old Le Pen, Thursday's speech was the second chance in a week to burnish her foreign policy credentials. European leaders have snubbed her, but she had better luck earlier this week in Lebanon, where she met with the country's president and prime minister. She also stirred controversy by cancelling a meeting with the Lebanese grand mufti after refusing to wear a headscarf.

"Going to Lebanon showed she could look presidential," says Philippe Moreau Defarges, senior fellow at the French Institute of International Relations in Paris. Noting the country was both a former French colony and held an important Christian community - a key them for the National Front - he added, "it allowed Mrs. Le Pen to look like both a patriot and a Christian."

Old and new themes

Le Pen's address touched on some familiar themes, as she railed against the European Union, NATO and free trade. But she also waded into new territory - or at least offered new nuances - as she described forging a new relationship with Africa based on "frankness, respect and mutual cooperation."

Like UKIP's Nigel Farage, Le Pen has warm words for US President Donald Trump

Yet much of her discourse was thin on specifics. Le Pen called for environmental security without defining it, and did not address key issues like whether France would stick to the Iran nuclear agreement under her leadership or a two-state solution in the Middle East.

"If you don't pay attention to the details and just listen to the rhetoric, it sounds very French, very classical legalism," Manuel Lafont Rapnouil, Paris office head of the European Council of Foreign relations think-tank, describing Le Pens traditional discourse.

"If you pay a bit more attention, it's a clear departure from the kind of mainstream foreign policy followed by France since the cold war."

Hike in defense spending

On defense, Le Pen reiterated her distaste for NATO, instead calling for a policy based on French national interests and vowing to hike French defense spending to two percent of its GDP - increased to 3 percent by the end of her five-year term.

On the Middle East, she criticised western efforts to strike deals with Syria's moderate opposition - which ultimately "helped arm the Islamic State." She said cutting off relations with Damascus had been "more than an error" that made France, which has sustained three major terrorist attacks in two years, more vulnerable at home.

"How many attacks on French soil could relations with Syrian services have avoided?" Le Pen asked.

'Change of software'

She also renewed calls for forging better relations with Moscow, saying Russia had been 'badly treated' by both the EU and the United States. France's 2014 cancelation of a sale of Mistral warships to Moscow over the conflict in Ukraine, she said, was a case in point.

Not surprisingly, Le Pen had warm words for Donald Trump; she was among the first foreign politicians to hail his November victory, even before it was formally announced. Criticizing his predecessor Barack Obama for a failed foreign policy in the Middle East and elsewhere, Le Pen predicted the current Trump administration would represent "almost a change of software that will not only be positive for the world, but positive for the United States."

Germany's Merkel targeted

But Le Pen spent a significant chunk of her discourse railing against the European Union with German Chancellor Angela Merkel as its biggest mascot.

"The conception of a failed Europe is carried by Mrs Merkel that defies understanding," she said of the German leader.

Le Pen said French policies on Syria had put France at greater risk of terrorism

If elected, Le Pen vows to renegotiate a new deal with the EU - and failing that, hold a "Frexit" referendum on leaving the bloc. Coupled with the Brexit referendum in the UK, the EU is feeling the brunt of the nationalist surge. In nearby Netherlands, far-right politician Geert Wilders also leads the polls ahead of March elections.

"The question for Germany is do you make this a kind of casus belli or deal with the cards you have?" asked analyst Lafont Rapnouil. "Just as Brexit was not what all EU members wanted, you have to get the best out of it for both sides, and not some kind of sterile tit-for-tat."

"It will be a very difficult and cold relationship," Moreau Defarges of IFRI says of diplomatic ties between mainstream European leaders and Le Pen. "Of course, Mrs. Merkel or Teresa May will receive Mrs Le Pen as head of state. But it will be a big European crisis - an earthquake - if she's elected."

New relationship with Africa

Le Pen also said she would overhaul relations with Africa, breaking from France's "moralizing discourse" towards its former colonies and instead focus on "non-interference, which doesn't mean indifference."

She called for development assistance, particularly focusing on agriculture, and for maintaining French military presence in countries like Mali, Chad and Cameroon which are all fighting militant Islam.

Yet that stance raises contradictions, Lafont-Rapnouil points out. France's African operations were realized in cooperation with the United Nations and with EU support - the very multilateral institutions that Le Pen rejects.

"How would that work," he asks, "if you have a National Front foreign policy which is not in favor of EU integration on defense - and which is not interested in the UN?"

Original post:

Le Pen blasts EU, NATO, praises Trump - Deutsche Welle

It has become a staple of diplomatic rhetoric that, whatever problems the United States has with the current government in Turkey, diplomats must ameliorate President Recep Tayyip Erdogan because Turkey is too important to NATO and also a staging ground in any operations against the Islamic State.

A Turkish flag (R) flies among others flags of NATO members during the North Atlantic Council (NAC) at the Alliance headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, July 28, 2015. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir.

Certainly, that is the position of the new administration. Vice President Mike Pence has said he foresees a new day in U.S.-Turkey relations. Trump himself stressed the close U.S.-Turkey relationship during his first phone call with the Turkish leader. Ted Malloch, a businessman and Trump ally who is a leading candidate to become US ambassador to the European Union, argued that the United States should bite the bullet and give into Erdogans political demands in order to reset U.S.-Turkish relations.

Alas, what the Trump team appears not to realize is that Erdogans problem with the United States and the West more generally is ideological and not based on grievance. In particular, Erdogan hates NATO. That may sound counterintuitive given that Turkey contributes the second-largest troop component to NATO and participates with NATO countries in Afghanistan. But Erdogans upbringing was against the backdrop of Cold War diplomacy blessing Turkish dictatorships. So why doesnt Erdogan just pull Turkey out of NATO? Here, the sad truth is that Erdogan can do far more damage from inside NATO because the defensive alliance is governed by consensus. By remaining inside NATO, Erdogan can paralyze the organization with a de facto veto.

But, Erdogans game is deeper. His party is now demonizing NATO as a terror organization. Here is what AKP Gaziantep parliamentarian amil Tayyar had to say:

Turkey has been subjected to coups since it joined NATO. NATO has always been in charge of the dirty and bloody deeds in the country. The 1960 military coup was staged by the British, the 1971 coup was staged by the CIA, and the 1980 coup was staged by NATO. In NATOs new plan, a Turkey with [President Recep Tayyip] Erdoan should not exist NATO has become a threat and is spreading terror organizations across the region. You can designate NATO along with DEASH [Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ISIL], the PKK [Kurdistan Workers Party] and FET [Fethullahist Terror Organization].

In a country where saying or thinking the wrong thing can lead years in prisoneven for members of parliamentaryit simply isnt possible that Tayyar was speaking absent Erdogans approval.

Turkish state media, meanwhile, has sent reporters to Ramstein Air Base in Germany to broadcast programs accusing NATO of involvement in terrorism.

So what is Erdogans game here? He believes he is engaged in a win-win strategy. If the United States and European officials refuse his demands, his incitement will transform NATO into an enemy in the eyes of most Turks. Such actions would also feed Russian propaganda and anti-American forces worldwide. It will also allow him to play the nationalist card against the NATO bogey in the run-up to the April 2017 referendum on a new constitution which would formalize Erdogans dictatorial powers.

On the other hand, if Trump caves into Erdogans demands, he will justify his purge of officers and civil servants whose only crime was having been posted to NATO offices and legitimize his broader crackdown. This, too, would play into Erdogans hands ahead of the April referendum.

So what is NATO to do? Turkey poses a problem the defensive alliance hasnt experienced in its nearly seven decade existence: What to do when the enemy is internal rather than external. Appeasing Erdogan only kicks the can down the road, but it is not a sustainable strategy. It is time for NATO to get serious about the Trojan horse which Turkey has become.

Read more here:

Can NATO survive Turkey? - American Enterprise Institute

A year ago, before the term "fake news" became ubiquitous, Germany was reeling from the "Lisa case," a fable fanned by social media in which immigrants reportedly raped a Russian-born teenager. The story was propagated by multiple sources all the way up to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and taken up by street protesters, before it was completely discounted. The falsified incident - widely believed to have been created by the Kremlin - demonstrated perfectly the toxicity of internet-driven disinformation.

Earlier this month, outside influences, again widely believed to be Russian, tried to replicate the success of the "Lisa" faux-scandal in Lithuania. They instigated the affair by planting a report via an email to the speaker of the Lithuanian Parliament claiming German soldiers, who are leading NATO's new battle group there, had raped a teenager.

This time, however, the targets weren't such easy prey and the rumor never really got off the ground. Czech General Petr Pavel, head of NATO's military committee, got out ahead of Lithuanian investigators in blaming the incident on Moscow and saying he expects there will be more. Lithuanian police are thus far just confirming the attack came from "outside the EU."

But whether or not this particular attempt is ultimately traceable to Kremlin-funded propagandists, Vilnius was expecting such provocations. With reinforcements of NATO troops moving in to guard against a ground or air assault, Lithuanian officials presumed that sooner or later, an information attack of this sort would be launched against the "Enhanced Forward Presence" (EFP). Lithuania's Defense Ministry Spokeswoman Vita Ramanauskaite explains her country's fatalistic anticipation in two words: "history lessons."

"Lithuania has a sad history of being occupied twice without a single shot," she said, "in 1795 by the Russian Empire and in 1940 by Soviet Russia." While central and Eastern Europe may be just starting to comprehend what a threat these faceless adversaries are, Ramanauskaite says such hostilities were detected in Lithuania already a dozen years ago and counter-propaganda measures were put in place. She credits this early awareness with the successful snuffing out of the rumor. The "fake rape" claim was quickly red-flagged in communication channels throughout the armed forces, police and government institutions and within NATO. In addition, she notes, the general public has been sensitized to the dangers of propaganda and information attacks, with 68 percent agreeing in a recent survey that they pose a threat to national security.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg himself rapidly got word of the case, crediting Lithuanian media with not spreading the "fake news."

"One of the important lessons we shall learn from this kind of incident is that it is extremely important to check facts," he said following NATO's defense ministerial meeting on February 16. "That has always been the case but it's perhaps even more important now because we have seen several attempts of disinformation and the spread of stories which are not true."

Weapon of mass distraction

In an exclusive interview with DW, NATO's Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges, Ambassador Sorin Ducaru, was still extremely concerned about the incident, despite its failure to escalate.

"This is a clear example of information manipulation with a sense of weaponization," Ducaru said, "because it really was supposed to affect the perception about the presence of German troops as the [EFP] framework nation in Lithuania. It was supposed to affect morale; it was supposed to affect everything - the operational functioning."

And despite the failure of this particular attempt, says Dr. Stefan Meister with the German Council on Foreign Relations, Russia has seen clearly that disinformation is its most successful weapon to weaken and divide the West.

"It fits much more in line with their goals and it's much cheaper than any military buildup or any modernization of the army," Meister explained. "And in the end it works. We are so insecure about our media system, our politicians and growing populism and so on."

Russia is still winning the propaganda war against NATO and EU countries, Meister believes, and that's their own fault. He says the age-old resistance to sharing data, especially regarding security threats, comes into play here. EU governments are choosing to tackle it by themselves rather than funding and equipping the bloc as a center point of counter-propaganda.

"It's a lack of strategy," Meister says, "and even the lack of will to have a strategy. I think that's a big mistake."

Echoing Lithuania's Ramanauskaite, Meister says the Baltic states, Finland and Sweden have been dealing with the reality of the threat much longer than countries to their South and would have a lot to share with, for example, France and Germany, which are late to the game.

Meister believes Germany will increasingly be a target due to both its role in NATO's deterrence measures in the East and its coming elections, but also because its society is so divided about those issues.

Meanwhile, Russia says it's setting up a new counter-disinformation unit of its own, similar to the EU's, so that it can identify Western mainstream media articles as "fake news."

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Why the fake rape story against German NATO forces fell flat in ... - Deutsche Welle

Islamic preacher Fethullah Glen is pictured at his residence in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania, in 2013. REUTERS.

Ted Malloch, President Trumps presumptive pick to be ambassador to the European Union, has reportedly said that he expects the Trump administration to extradite US-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Glen. Here, for example, is a report from Sabah, a paper which Erdogan confiscated, transferred to his son-in-law, and transformed into the Turkish equivalent of the old Soviet Pravda:

US President Donald Trumps potential pick for EU ambassadorship Ted Malloch said that he believes the new US administration will likely extradite Glenist Terror Group (FET) leader Fetullah Glen, saying the new administration will have better relations with Turkey. Speaking in a live, televised interview on Turkish broadcaster NTV on Monday, Malloch said that he believes, [Trump] will get along really well with President [Recep Tayyip] Erdoan. Malloch went on to say that Turkey is a member of NATO and our strategic partner, while emphasizing the importance of Glens extradition and acknowledging that he was behind the July 15 failed coup attempt. He continued by saying that President Trump and his Turkish counterpart have held very constructive meetings over the phone and may meet in person in the coming months.

It is possible that Malloch is just speculating, projecting his own opinion onto Trump, and/or seeking to ingratiate himself with the Turkish press. If he speaks the truth, however, Trump is on the verge of a huge mistake.

Erdogans obsession with and hatred of Glen has many reasons. The basic fact remains, however: While there is much to criticize with regard to the Glen movements past actions, the Turks have yet to offer any proof that Glen himself was involved in the coup. Some soldiers involved were his followers, but others were not, and some may even have been Erdogan supporters. Many of the deaths on the evening of the coup appear to have been caused by snipers or members of SADAT, an Islamist militia run by the man subsequently appointed Erdogans military counselor.

Sacrificing Glen, however, will not bring Turkey in from the cold. The purge in which Erdogan has engaged has been immense. While the pretext might have been rooting out Glens followers, the reality is that Erdogan has used the purge to target secularists, liberals, and those officers whose training and experience in NATO he believes make them prone to oppose his vision and goals for Turkey.

Heres the problem: To appease Erdogan by extraditing Glen might seem like an easy solution to bilateral strains but, in reality, Erdogan would use his return to affirm to the public the wisdom of his purge and justify the arrests after the fact. In effect, Trump would be handing a death sentence not only to Glen but also to hundreds of officers whose only crime was service in NATO.

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Deporting Glen would undercut NATO - American Enterprise Institute

Many fear electronic voting machines can be hacked and tampered with.

The hacking campaign around the US presidential election, cyberattacks against Ukrain's power grid, and even the internet crippling Mirai botnet DDoS attack all demonstrate how cyberattacks have grown to threaten the very fabric of society itself, NATO has warned.

Citing the impact of high profile incidents like these, Jamie Shea, deputy assistant secretary general for emerging security challenges at NATO, suggests that hackers aren't just a threat to individuals and organisations, but to the fundamental nature of democracy as a whole.

No smoking gun for Russian DNC hacks

The Russian government may have hacked Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to support Donald Trump's campaign, but there's no hard technical proof.

"Cyber is facilitating more advanced and more effective psychological warfare, information operations, coercion and intimidation attacks. We used to worry about [hackers targeting] banks or credit cards or inconvenience to customers, now we worry about the future of democracy, the stability and health of our institutions," he said, speaking at the European Information Security Summit in London.

Russian-backed interference in the US Presidential election has already caused some other countries to rethink the use of electronic ballot boxes. The Netherlands, for instance, is reverting back to traditional vote tallying by hand due to fears that electronic votes could be manipulated or tampered with.

"It's quite remarkable that the Netherlands is going to have an election and they've decided not to bother with electronic counting. After what happened in the US, the credibility is too risky," said Shea. "We are essentially, with democracy, somewhat losing the faith in the very instruments we've created to spur our economy and spur globalisation."

The attacks against the Democratic National Committee aren't an isolated incident. Shea detailed cases in France and Germany where politicians have been warned of hacking campaigns looking to "destabilise organisations, publicly undermine their reputation, undermine public confidence in the democratic systems and meddle in elections".

German intelligence services have reported attempts to hack into the systems of the Bundestag and the German political parties, while Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French Defence Minister, called all of the French parties together ahead of the Presidential campaign in order provide information about hacks against French political parties.

"Only two sites needed to be hacked in order for Russian intelligence services to acquire compromising data, which they used at judicious points during the campaign to inflict maximum damage," said Shea.

"The threat was not to a bank or an institution or an individual, the threat was to society itself, its ability to function and the trust that we have in the credibility and integrity in our democratic model."

In an effort to combat the threats posed by cyberattacks and hackers, NATO has declared cyber a domain of operation alongside land, air, sea and space. It has also recognised the role it will play in the security of all of those areas, as military equipment and infrastructure will need to be continually updated in order to fight off cyber threats

"All of our current weapons programmes -- whether it be missile defence, joint information reconnaissance, drones, and so on -- have to now retrofit cybersecurity in a way that possibly wasn't planned in the outset," said Shea.

It might be a difficult task to carry out, but NATO must undertake it, to ensure that it has the ability to fight cyber attackers and remain on top.

"There's no doubt that cyber is going to have an impact on our military strategy and if we don't dominate it, then sooner or later an adversary is going to come up with a method to ensure it dominates us," Shea said.

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Cyberattacks threaten democracy itself, warns NATO - ZDNet

Germany is to increase its army by 5,000 soldiers, the country's defence ministry has announced, bringing the total to 198,000 in 2024, at a time when USpressure is mounting on European Nato members to raise military spending.

The German army faces demands like never before, Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement, adding that the army had to be able to respond in an appropriate way to developments abroad and security concerns.

Germany, reluctant for decades after the SecondWorld War to get involved in military missions abroad, has in the last few years become more active in supporting international deployments such as in Afghanistan, Mali and against Islamic State militants.

In January, Germany sent a battlegroup of more than 1,000 to Lithuania as part of a Nato mission to protect its eastern border with Russia in response to its annexation of Crimea and its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine.

It will now dispatch a number of tanks and armoured vehicles to Lithuania to support its existing defence deployment in the country.

On top of the 5,000 extra soldiers, Germany will further add 1,000 civilians posts and about 500 reserves to its ranks at home.

The increase, long flagged by von der Leyen, comes at a time when USPresident Donald Trump is pushing Nato members, especially from Europe, to raise their military spending.

A map showing Nato's military buildup in Eastern Europe (Statista)

The defence alliance in 2014 agreed to end years of defence cuts and meet a target of spending 2 percent of economic output on defence by 2024. German defence spending is currently at 1.22 percent.

A defence ministry spokeswoman said provided the plan goes ahead, the increase would mean additional costs of about 955 million euros ($1.01 billion) per year from 2024.

Reuters

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Germany to expand army and send tanks to Lithuania as Nato-Russia buildup continues - The Independent

The recent visit by Secretary of Defense James Mattis to NATO allies does not erase the fact that, as a presidential candidate and president-elect, Donald Trump stated on many occasions that NATO is obsolete. It is a bigger problem than just burden sharing. Trumps key message is that the world has changed to the detriment of the United States, and that NATO no longer fits comfortably into this new world order. Of course, the United States will not withdraw from the organization, but NATO will get less attention from the Oval Office in the coming years. That is for sure.

For those in Europe who care about the alliance, this is a nightmare. But instead of clinging to the past, they should wake up. The world today is indeed fundamentally different from the one we happen to know, and certainly from the times into which NATO was born. It is indeed bizarre that NATO is still alive. Defense alliances are, by definition, temporary. Realists do not believe in long-term structural cooperation between states, and certainly not in the field of security. At most, states can try to cooperate in an alliance on a short-term basis to defeat a common enemy, like during the two world wars and during the Cold War. Once the enemy is gone, alliances have no meaning anymore. It was on this basis that John Mearsheimer and many others predicted the end of the alliance after the end of the Cold War. The implosion of the Warsaw Pact and the USSR itself should, indeed, have led to the demise of NATO.

It did not. The least bad explanation is organizational inertia. NATO tried to adapt to the changed circumstances by finding new enemies: proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, rogue states, failed states, ethnic conflicts (as in the Balkans) and, later on, terrorism. It is not difficult to come up with real or imagined dangers. But states do not need to be part of a militarily integrated organization to protect oneself against these kind of minor threats. Collective defense organizations, based on the premise of an attack on one is an attack on all, are established to defend oneself against an attack by a major power: Germany in 1914, Germany and Japan in the first half of the 1940s, the USSR during the Cold War, and maybe China in the future. Not for peacekeeping.

Collective defense organizations are not the best match for threats like terrorism and ethnic conflicts. For countering terrorism, coalitions of the willing will do. For managing ethnic conflicts, collective security organizations (like the UN and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) should take the lead, both for peacemaking and peacekeeping. Collective security organizations regulate the use of force amongst its member states, and they arein contrast to collective defense organizationsnot meant to serve against an external enemy. Because NATO stepped in for these collective security tasks, organizations like the UN and the OSCE got sidetracked.

NATOs postCold War track record is dismal, which is not surprising, given the nature of the beast. Apart from the Balkans, which are more or less stable (although tensions are flaring up again these days), the NATO military interventions in Afghanistan and Libya are a complete failure. Thirteen and six years after NATO's intervention, respectively, these states have hardly stabilized. On the contrary, Afghanistan and Libya are breeding places for terrorists. Again, this should not come as a surprise, because collective defense organizations are not meant for carrying out peace-building operations.

The biggest mistake, however, was NATO expansion. It is hard to refute the thesis that the Ukraine crisis is the result of interference by NATO and the EU in Russias spheres of influence. A red line was crossed, in the eyes of Moscow, and Russia had repeatedly made that position clear in advance. NATO expansion also contradicted Western promises. On the basis of these oral guarantees, in February 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev gave the green light for German reunification talks. And what did the West do? Expand NATO. Not just once, but twice. At the NATO Summit in Bucharest in 2008, President Bush even pushed through (against the wishes of the Europeans) a third extension, namely the promise to include Georgia and Ukraine into NATO. What did he expect Russia would do? Just take notice and agree?

More fundamentally, the West made the mistake after the end of the Cold War not to include Russia into the Euro-Atlantic security architecture on an equal basis. Contrary to positive examples in 1815 and 1945, the loser of the Cold War was left alone. Instead of replacing NATO with a regional collective security organization, the West kept NATO artificially in existenceand Russia in the dark. Ironically, the Baltic states, which wanted to feel more secure by becoming NATO members, are now feeling less secure. All this was predicted in the 1990s by foreign-policy giants like George Kennan and Paul Nitze.

Currently, there is a major split among the twenty-eight NATO member states: those in the south worry about migration and ISIS, but are relaxed with respect to Russia; those in the east are relaxed about ISIS, but worry about Russia. There is no common threat assessment. In addition, tensions between member states (Turkey and Greece) and within member states (Poland and Hungary) are rising.

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Take It from a European: NATO Is Obsolete - The National Interest Online

Edmonton Sun

Canada's commitment to NATO mission in Poland continues Edmonton Sun Since the operation began in May 2014, about 1,600 Canadian troops have rotated through the region to improve "interoperability" between NATO nations and to act as an "assurance and deterrence measure" against Russian aggression in the region. Edmonton-based soldiers head to Poland for NATO missionGlobalnews.ca all 3 news articles »

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Canada's commitment to NATO mission in Poland continues - Edmonton Sun

The USS Porter transits the Bosphorus out of the Black Sea on February 13 after conducting NATO exercises. (photo: U.S. Navy Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Ford Williams)

NATO countries have agreed to increase the alliance's activities around the Black Sea, including more air and naval patrols of the sea, further increasing pressure in an area Russia considers to be of vital strategic importance.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced the decision at last week's defense ministerial in Brussels."Today, we agreed on two additional maritime measures: an increased NATO naval presence in the Black Sea for enhanced training, exercises and situational awareness, and a maritime coordination function for our Standing Naval Forces when operating with other Allied forces in the Black Sea region," he said.

Stoltenberg didn't provide any more specific information, but that seems to fall short of what was originally being proposed by Romania: some sort of permanent NATO structure dealing with the Black Sea. Asked for more details, a NATO official told The Bug Pit that the specifics were still being worked out, but thus far the plan involved a greater tempo of air and sea patrols, and expanding the already existing land forces brigade based in Romania:

The Black Sea is key to NATOs security and in response to Russias build-up there, the Alliance is increasing its presence in the region. On land, this presence will be built around a Romanian-led multinational brigade. It will focus on the training and interoperability of allied forces. This year we also plan more air patrols over the Black Sea and NATOs Standing Naval Forces will be in the Black Sea more frequently for training and port visits. This will increase our situational awareness and contribute to NATOs overall deterrence posture.

In response, Russia's ambassador to NATO Alexander Grushko said Moscow is "thoroughly analyzing" the move."The decision to increase NATOs naval presence in the Black Sea is, in any case, yet another step towards escalating tensions in the regions of vital importance for Russia," he said.

Others were less diplomatic. If the U.S. tried to challenge Russia in the Black Sea, "the American ship has just a few minutes to live in the Black Sea, I tell you honestly, since the rocket complexes that the Black Sea Fleet has, will not allow them to carry out their operational and strategic missions in the Black Sea," Vladimir Romanenko, a former commander of Russia's coastal defense forces, told RIA Novosti.

"Russia has all the necessary resources, both material and moral, to maintain supremacy on the Black Sea," added Igor Kasatonov, former commander of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, in an interview with the military network TV Zvezda. "Our fleet has enough force to oppose the NATO forces in the Black Sea; the Black Sea Fleet dominates in this region."

Of course no one forsees an open naval battle between Russian and NATO on the Black Sea, and the move is likely some combination of NATO showing force and looking like its showing force.

"The goal of NATO is to restrict our actions in the Black Sea region and to increase the political-military pressure," said Mikhael Alexandrov, of the Military-Political Research Center at Moscow's leading foreign relations school, MGIMO. "The new NATO member states in Eastern Europe are trying to attract attention and raise the issue of security guarantees against the Russian threat," added another MGIMO scholar, Ivan Timofeev. "Brussels, in response, is making symbolic steps to show that it doesn't give up its own."

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NATO Promises Increase in Tempo of Air, Naval Patrols on Black Sea - EurasiaNet

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Soldiers of the "Fighting Eagles" 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, walk by tanks that arrived Feb. 14 via train at he U.S. base in Mihail Kogalniceanu, eastern Romania. (Associated Press File)

President Donald Trump is dead wrong in his repeated assertions that the NATO alliance is obsolete.

NATO is responsible for the longest period of peace in European history. Its basic assertion that an attack on one of its 28 members is an attack on all is a powerful deterrent that is effective in practice.

As the president denigrates the alliance, its interesting to note that the only time that NATO has invoked the measure responding as one to a single attack was in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States.

Likewise, contrary to the presidents assertion, the alliance heavily is engaged against terrorists. NATO troops are the primary trainers of Iraqi and Kurdish ground troops who are grinding down the Islamic State terrorist organization.

Mr. Trump is on the mark, though, when he complains that some NATO members do not contribute adequately to funding the alliance. The administrations call for NATO members to spend at least 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense is fair and reasonable.

The United States spends 3.61 percent of its GDP on defense. In dollars, it spends more than all other NATO members combined. Greece, Estonia, Britain and Poland spend at least 2 percent of their GDP on defense. Canada spends less than 1 percent. Germany spends 1.19 percent and France spends 1.78 percent.

While maintaining the U.S. commitment to the alliance, the administration should continue to press other alliance members to pick up their fair share of the costs.

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Better spread NATO costs - Scranton Times-Tribune

The US is preparing to deploy 1,000 troops and vehicles to northeastern Poland by the end of March to reassure Nato'sEastern European allies in the face of rising tension with Russia.

The unit, which will be part of 4,000 US troops deployed in rotation along Nato's eastern flank, will be located at Orzysz,Deutsche Wellereports.

The town sits 85 miles from Russia's Kaliningrad exclave, which is wedged between Poland and Lithuania.

Poland's leaders hold ceremony to welcome US troops as part of Nato build-up

It comes after Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov described NATO as a "Cold War institution" whose expansion had led to unprecedented tensions in Europe over the past thirty years.

Worried since Russia's 2014 seizure of Ukraine's Crimea that Moscow could invade Poland or the Baltic states, Nato is bolstering its eastern flank with troops, war games and warehoused US equipment ready for a rapid response force of up to 40,000 personnel.

A map showing Nato's military buildup in Eastern Europe (Statista)

The first German troops have arrived in Lithuania, where Berlin is leading a battalion of some 1,000 troops.

From around April, Britain will head the deterrent force in Estonia, while Canada is deploying in Latvia and US troops are arriving in Poland and across the Baltics.

Kremlin officials claim the build-up is the largest since the Second World War andsayit threatens the stability of central Europe.

Russia has some 330,000 troops amassed in its Western military district around Moscow, Nato believes.

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US to deploy 1000 troops to Poland as Russian foreign minister accuses Nato of being a 'Cold War institution' - The Independent

February 21

The Feb. 19 editorial A time for Europe to step up noted that the United States is spending more on defense thanmostNATO members and implied that other countries need the United States more than the United States needs them.

Many of these countries came to our aid in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Moreover, Russia is building a pipeline and a nuclear power plant in Turkey.If Turkey dropped out of NATO,we couldface a situation in which Russia, whichhas a reliable client state in Syria and a working relationship with Iran, signed a defense pact with all three countries and with Iraq, where Iran has influence. That would allow Russia toextend its influence over the price of oil and could make anymilitary action in the MiddleEast by the United States or Israel extremelyproblematic.

Perhaps we should be more grateful for our NATO partners.

Susan Altman, Washington

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America should be grateful for its NATO partners - Washington Post