Monthly Archives: June 2017

General Petr Pavel, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee visited Wellington and Auckland, New Zealand, on 14-17 June 2017. During his stay, the Chairman met with Secretary of Defence, Ms Helene Quilter; the Minister of Defence, the Honourable Mark Mitchell; Chief of Defence of the New Zealand Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Tim Keating; Commander of Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) Base Auckland, Air Commodore Darryn Webb; the Chiefs of the Army, Navy and Air Force, Deputy Chief of the Army, Brigadier Christopher Parsons; and Special Operations Component Commander, Colonel Rob Gillard. General Pavel also attended a Defence meeting chaired by Lieutenant General Keating and delivered a speech at the New Zealand Institute for International Affairs at Victoria University.

Arriving in Wellington, General Pavel was greeted with a traditional Welcome Ceremony, a Pwhiri, and Honour Guard at the Pukeahu National War Memorial. While at the War Memorial, the Chairman paid his respects and laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior. It is a privilege to be able to pay my respects and honour those men and women who have lost their lives serving their country, said General Pavel.

Discussions with Ms Helene Quilter and the Hon. Mark Mitchell centered on New Zealand and NATOs increased dialogue and cooperation, the NATO-led Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan to train, advise and assist the Afghan Security Forces and institutions, as well as regional and global threats and challenges. The Chairman thanked New Zealand for its enduring engagement in Afghanistan and the need to continue to work together to counter terrorism. Geography and distance no longer protect us. By ensuring our regional security and working together on common threats and challenges we can increase global peace and security, remarked General Pavel.

Attending a Defence meeting with Lieutenant General Keating, General Pavel was briefed on the current Operations and Missions the New Zealand Armed Forces are undertaking and their view on national, regional and global security challenges. He thanked Lt Gen Keating for New Zealands continued commitment to NATO-led Operations, Missions and Activities as both Generals agreed to look for further ways to enhance military-to-military cooperation which is of benefit to both NATO and New Zealand. New Zealand may not have a large defence force but it consistently contributes what it can to defend our shared values of democracy and protect rule of law. Your contribution is always highly regarded and valued by the Alliance, stressed the Chairman.

Meeting with the Air Component Commander of the RNZAF Base, Group Captain Tim Walshe, the General was briefed on the the Air Bases' capabilities and activities and visited a P-3K2 Airbourne Surveillance Plane. Visiting the SAS base at Papakura, the Chairman met Colonel Rob Gillard, Special Operations Component Commander. He received a briefing on their training capabilities and activities, and toured the recently completed multi-purpose training camp. Commenting on these visits, the General noted, I am continually impressed with how the New Zealand Armed Forces are committed to ensuring their capabilities are of a high quality, make the best use of their resources, and maintain interoperability with all partners to provide real added value.

Speaking with academics and government representatives at the New Zealand Institute for International Affairs, the Chairman highlighted the main challenges facing the Alliance, its current adaptation and its continued unity and solidarity in the face of threats from both state and non-state actors. The representatives in turn shared with the General their perspectives on regional and world affairs.

Read the original post:
NATO - News: NATO and New Zealand share genuine partnership ... - NATO HQ (press release)

By Nicholas L. Waddy SPECIAL TO THE NEWS

On May 25, President Trump, during his visit to the headquarters of NATO in Brussels, Belgium, sharply criticized our European allies for, in effect, freeloading off the military dominance, and the military spending, of the United States. This is an accurate analysis, since only four of the 26 European countries in NATO currently spend the minimum level of GDP, 2 percent, judged by the organization itself to be sufficient to meet their obligations. (The U.S., by contrast, spends 3.5 percent of GDP on defense, and its defense budget roughly triples the spending of all other NATO countries combined.)

Moreover, the U.S. faces most of its military challenges in the Middle East, and European countries consistently lack either the will or the capability to contribute meaningfully to those missions. Ergo, Europe continues to rely on the United States to provide for its collective defense, but it fails to spend adequately to supplement and support U.S. forces, and it fails also to support U.S. operations elsewhere in the world, even when those missions are clearly relevant to European security (e.g., the struggle against ISIS). In a nutshell, the U.S. pays to defend Europe, and gets little or nothing in return.

Those who favor a continuation of this ruinous policy do so largely because they are stuck in a Cold War mentality, and, indeed, during the Cold War NATO made excellent sense to all of its member states. NATOs core mission was and is collective defense, achieved by Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, penned in 1948-49 at the start of the Cold War. Article 5 states that if a single NATO country is attacked, all NATO countries will respond as if they were themselves attacked, and consequently rush to the rescue. During the Cold War, this meant that if the Soviet Union attacked any country in Western Europe, all of Western Europe, plus the United States and Canada, would go to war with the Soviet Union.

Whether this pledge was genuine or merely a bluff, it succeeded in preventing Soviet aggression. And, in the tense atmosphere of the Cold War, although the United States bore the primary burden of defending Europe against Soviet assault, most NATO members took their defense obligations seriously and maintained militaries that could credibly have assisted U.S. forces. They also sometimes contributed substantially to anti-communist military operations around the world during the Korean War, for example. In short, during the Cold War, NATO imposed great burdens and risks on its members, but those burdens and risks were shared, and no one disputed the seriousness of the challenge posed by communist aggression.

Today, though, the Soviet Union no longer exists. For those panicked by the latest upsurge of Russophobia, this may seem like a hollow declaration, since Russia still possesses powerful military forces, and has proved willing to use them against several of its neighbors. The fact, though, is that no country, including Russia, poses a threat to Europe in any way analogous to that of the Soviet Union. European countries have the human, technological, industrial and economic resources to defend themselves, with ease, from any credible enemy. Yet, unsurprisingly, they choose not to do so, because the United States continues to provide Europe with a blank check in the form of a security guarantee.

Europes position is understandable, as is American resentment of European freeloading. But what is different about the administrations position is that Trump is pointedly insisting that European countries boost their defense spending, and Trump has not explicitly endorsed Article 5 and the concept of collective defense. In other words, he is being cagey about whether, if a European country was attacked, the U.S. would uphold its treaty obligations and use armed force to assist it. He has not disavowed the treaty, but he seems to regard its obligations as reciprocal and therefore contingent on European nations paying their fair share. They seem to be minimally receptive to this demand.

One can naturally criticize the message this policy sends to potential aggressors, since it calls into question NATOs reliability, but the only alternative is for the U.S. to fund Europes defense indefinitely and without conditions. Surely, this is unacceptable. Something has to give.

For diplomatic reasons, Trump has backed off the claim he made during the campaign that NATO is obsolete, but in many ways he was right. NATO was founded based on two presuppositions: that Europes freedom was in imminent jeopardy, and that Europeans were incapable of defending that freedom by themselves. Neither of these assumptions holds water today. Thus, we should applaud Trump for pushing NATO members to rethink their roles and obligations. His message may not have been a popular one, but it is ultimately in the best interests of Americans and Europeans to heed it.

Nicholas L. Waddy, Ph.D., is an associate professor of history at SUNY Alfred.

Originally posted here:
Viewpoints: Trump's position on NATO is absolutely correct - The ... - Buffalo News

Although the loss of the R1 fleet may be a sad pill to swallow for the Royal Air Force, and the MoD as a whole, it represents a real opportunity for the US that could be aggressively explored in the near term. Sadly, the powers that be within the Pentagon and in the US defense industry will likely fight any sort of second hand acquisition of the Sentinel fleet because it will, even if to a relatively small degree, put in jeopardy the scope of lucrative E-8 JSTARS replacement contract. With careers being bet on this procurement initiative both inside the DoD and in the ranks of its biggest vendors, the retired R1s, which are needed today and can fit right into the USAF's inventory and order of battle, will likely be passed over. We can only hope this won't be the case as America's warfighters can seriously benefit from having these aircraft overhead in hotspots around the globe.

Alternatively, NATO could acquire these aircraft for the alliance's collective use under a similar scheme as their E-3 AWACS fleet, but they are already receiving GMTI and SAR capability via their five aircraft, Global Hawk-based "Alliance Ground Surveillance" initiative. But NATO will likely want more capacity and in a more flexible manner than the unmanned Global Hawks can provide. Instead of buying more Global Hawk derivatives, they could diversify their capabilities and likely save large sums of money by taking on the R1 fleet.

Such a transfer of capability would also make losing the aircraft more palatable for the UK. But where exactly the funding for operating and maintaining the Sentinels will come from is unclear. The Trump Administration could tell the alliance pitch in to adopt the fleet, as making demands of NATO partners has been part of the White House's core foreign policy agenda, but it could take time for making such an arrangement a reality. Like any weapon system, the longer the R1s sit in limbo the more expensive it will be to return them to service.

Either way, these aircraft need a home. Hopefully the US will step ineither with money or leadershipand see that they find one that is beneficial to the US and its allies.

Contact the author: Tyler@thedrive.com

Read more:
USAF Or NATO Should Snap Up The RAF's Retiring R1 Sentinel Radar Planes - The Drive

Finlands air force has spotted increased activity over the Baltic Sea as a flock of Russian military jets, including supersonic, long-range supersonic Tu-160 bombers, were seen flying near the Gulf of Finland, the military branch announced on Twitter.

Finnish jets scrambled between Wednesday and Thursday to identify and photograph a swarm of aircraft flying in international space andnearing sovereign Finnish skies.

Finnish jets spotted and photographed a handful of Russian fighter jets and bombers, namely Ilyushin Il-22, Sukhoi Su-24, Sukhoi Su-27, Sukhoi Su-34 and Tupolev Tu-160 aircraft, flying through the Gulf of Finland, a statement by the Finnish air force said. It did not give exact numbers of the aircraft encountered.

Daily Emails and Alerts- Get the best of Newsweek delivered to your inbox

The jets soon left the gulf, but instead of turning back, several Tu-160 bombers headed in a westward direction, prompting escorts from Swedish air force jets, and Danish ones too, Russias Ministry of Defense announced via state news agency Itar-Tass.

Finland and Sweden are nonaligned statesdespite cooperating with NATO in some regional exercises. Denmark is a member of the alliance, which has endured a tense relationship with Russia since the annexation of Ukraine in 2014, which NATO has strongly objected to.

Read more: Why is Russia flying nuclear-capable bombers near Alaska?

The Russian ministry said on Thursday that Su-27 fighter jets and A-50 aircraft accompanied its bombers, nicknamed "Blackjack" by NATO, in a move that Moscow said was not unusual.

According to plan, long-range pilots regularly carry out flights over neutral waters of the Atlantic, Arctic, Black Seaand Pacific Ocean, the statement read. All flights go ahead with strict adherence to international regulation on using airspace above neutral waterswithout violating borders of other states.

The Baltic Sea has recently undergone several periods of high military trafficon NATO and Russias side, with Moscow set to hold mass drills in the regionalongside ally Belarusin September. Lithuania, a NATO ally bordering both countries, has accused Moscow of practicing warfare with the alliance through the drill.

See more here:
Russian Bombers in Baltic Tailed By NATO, Finnish and Swedish Jets - Newsweek