Category Archives: NATO

Published October 28, 2014

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg gives a policy speech entitled "A unique Alliance with a clear course" at an event hosted by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, in Brussels on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2014. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)(The Associated Press)

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg gives a policy speech entitled "A unique Alliance with a clear course" at an event hosted by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, in Brussels on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2014. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)(The Associated Press)

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg gives a policy speech entitled "A unique Alliance with a clear course" at an event hosted by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, in Brussels on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2014. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)(The Associated Press)

BRUSSELS NATO's new secretary general says only a strong Western alliance can negotiate better ties with Russia.

Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday that his experience as Norway's prime minister was that robust defense capabilities and a strong trans-Atlantic bond were fundamental to bring about constructive relations with Russia.

In his first policy speech since taking office Oct. 1, Stoltenberg said there was no contradiction between wanting to keep NATO strong and continuing to attempt to engage with the leadership of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"NATO is here to say. Russia is here to say. So we're going to have some kind of relationship," Stoltenberg said. The question, he said, is "what kind."

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NATO secretary general: strong alliance needed to secure better ties with Russia

STUTTGART, Germany As NATOs first secretary-general to hail from a country that shares a border with Russia, Jens Stoltenberg says todays tensions with Moscow conjure memories from a Cold War childhood when NATO was there to protect us.

I remember visiting that border when it was completely closed back in the days of the Soviet Union. When looking across was like staring into something dark and scary, Stoltenberg, a former Norwegian prime minister now heading up the 28-nation alliance, said on Tuesday.

Nowadays, there is a visa-free zone between Norway and Russia, where hundreds of thousands of people cross the border each year. But Russias moves around Ukraine during the past year have threatened such progress and brought about echoes from the past, which NATO must be prepared to counter, Stoltenberg said during a speech at the German Marshall Fund in Brussels.

NATOs new top official laid out his priorities during his first major policy speech since assuming leadership of the 28-nation alliance earlier this month. Stoltenberg took up his post from Anders Fogh Rasmussen, his predecessor as the military alliances secretary-general who had been criticized by some NATO allies for his sharp comments about Moscows policies in Ukraine.

Much of Stoltenbergs speech also focused on Russia.

NATO does not seek confrontation with Russia. And nobody wants a new Cold War, 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, he said. But we cannot and will not compromise on the principles on which our alliance and the security of Europe and North America rest. This is my firm conviction.

Going forward, Stoltenberg said his main goals will be pushing forward with a new action plan that aims to elevate NATOs overall state of readiness through the placement of equipment at strategic staging bases in eastern Europe, a new rapid-reaction force and a heightened presence of rotational forces on NATOs eastern frontier.

This is the biggest reinforcement of our collective defense since the end of the Cold War, Stoltenberg said. We are making our forces more agile. And able to deploy quickly whenever threats emerge. From any direction.

The size and shape of NATOs new spearhead reaction force, expected to be around 4,000 troops, will be decided when defense ministers meet in February.

At the same time, Stoltenberg struck a more conciliatory and diplomatic tone than Rasmussen, emphasizing the need to find ways to work with Moscow.

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New NATO chief plots course for 28-nation military pact

By Dow Jones Business News, October 28, 2014, 07:35:00 AM EDT

BRUSSELS--The new civilian head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization said the alliance sought a cooperative relationship with Russia, and said the best way to achieve that was to ensure NATO remained strong.

In his first major policy speech since assuming the role of NATO secretary-general on Oct. 1, Jens Stoltenberg said Russia was NATO's biggest neighbor and both were here to stay.

"We simply can't ignore each other. One way or another, we will have a relationship. The question is what kind of relationship," he said.

"NATO continues to aspire to a cooperative relationship with Russia but to get there Russia would need to want it and to take clear steps to make it possible."

He said the relationship needed to have "greater transparency and predictability" to "make sure that crises don't spiral out of control."

Mr. Stoltenberg, a former Norwegian prime minister, said the opening of Norway's formerly closed border with the Soviet Union had benefited Russians. Russians had gained from the freedom and prosperity that had come from open borders and integration with the rest of the world.

The speech, which followed a fiery condemnation of NATO and U.S. actions last week from Russian President Vladimir Putin, was less combative toward Moscow than statements from Mr. Stoltenberg's predecessor, Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

But Mr. Stoltenberg said Russia's actions in Ukraine had severely damaged trust with Moscow and posed a major challenge to alliance security.

NATO needed to remain strong, he said.

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NATO''s New Head Seeks Cooperation With Russia

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WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 (UPI) -- The U.S. and NATO congratulated Ukraine for holding successful parliamentary elections on Sunday.

According to a preliminary assessment released by the OSCE's International Election Observatory Mission, the elections "were transparent and assessed positively overall."

The OSCE, U.S., and NATO recognized that unrest in Ukraine's eastern region and the illegal annexation of Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula by Russia had impacted the ability of all Ukrainians to participate in Sunday's election.

"Despite a challenging security environment in certain regions, millions of Ukrainians turned out across the country to cast their ballots in an orderly and peaceful manner," President Barack Obama remarked Monday.

Secretary of State John Kerry applauded Kiev for its voter outreach to embattled areas, notably in Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk.

"Their hard work to provide for alternate voting arrangements, including for internally displaced persons, was a particularly laudable effort to overcome actions by Russian authorities occupying Crimea and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine to prevent voters from exercising their democratic rights."

Obama included a message intended for Moscow in his congratulatory statement:

"I call on Russia to ensure that its proxies in eastern Ukraine allow voters in the parts of Donetsk and Luhansk subject to the Special Status Law to choose their representatives in legitimate local elections on December 7, in keeping with the agreement that Russia and separatist representatives signed in Minsk, Belarus, on September 5, 2014."

NATO Secretary Genera Jens Stoltenberg applauded Ukrainians for embracing "an ambitious reform agenda and a European path. I welcome their determination to further promote an inclusive political process based on democratic values and respect for human rights, minorities and the rule of law."

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's bloc was the clear winner in Sunday's election, followed by Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk's People's Front. Both parties are pro-European and support further Ukranian integration with the European Union.

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U.S., NATO applaud Ukraine for holding successful parliamentary elections

KABUL, Afghanistan, Oct. 27 (UPI) -- NATO concluded its combat mission in Afghanistan's Helmand Province on Sunday, transferring responsibility of two bases and an airstrip to the Afghan military.

A ceremony was held at the Bastion-Leatherneck complex to mark the momentous occasion in the 13-year war and edging closer to NATO's full military withdrawal. American and British flags were lowered one final time.

"This is truly a historic day," said commander of the International Security Assistance Force Joint Command, U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson.

"Years of continuous combat, countless hours of sun-baked patrols and numerous casualties -- this day marks the end of the [coalition] mission here in southwest."

"It is with pride that we announce the end of UK combat operations in Helmand... Our Armed Forces' tremendous sacrifice laid the foundations for a strong Afghan Security Force, set the security context that enabled the first democratic transition of power in the country's history, and stopped it being a launch pad for terrorist attacks in the UK," remarked British Secretary of State for Defense Michael Fallon.

Afghan National Army Maj. Gen. Sayed Malouk, commander of the army's 215 Corps in central Helmand, expressed confidence in the ANA, noting "the ANA has already been conducting operations by themselves, in the battlefield, and no district has been taken over, no checkpoint has been taken over by the Taliban," adding, "We are ready."

2014 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

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NATO ends mission in Afghanistan's Helmand Province

Sweden's recent obsessive search for a Russian submarine is an amusing story indeed. The Swedes could not see where the signal was coming from: it could be a Russian, a Dutch submarine or even divers. The performance has its director, though - NATO. Pravda.Ru interviewed the head of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems Konstantin Sivkov about the situation in the Stockholm Archipelago.

"As long as they have been looking for a strange object so persistently, it appears that there are serious reasons for that. Could it be our submarine indeed?"

"Technically, it could be anything. Technically, a Russian submarine may find itself both in the fjords of Sweden, and elsewhere in the world ocean. But practically, this is impossible. It goes about "Triton" submarine. This is a midget submarine designed for solving tasks in the vicinity of bases. To be used in remote areas, it should be transported on board a surface ship, as a rule, because its range and the time of autonomous work is not large.

"The duration of a typical anti-submarine search operation that NATO forces conduct makes up from three to five days. If they have not found anything there during this time, they are not likely to find anything then. The area of the possible location of the alleged submarine was small. Some reports said that it was discovered visually, other sources said that it was detected by radio-electronic equipment. The primary location of the submarine was indicated with high accuracy. If the sub was there indeed, it would be found within hours after the detection of an electronic signal.

Sweden has anti-submarine aircraft equipped with powerful sonar equipment and radio-acoustic buoys that can detect such a submarine. Therefore, if it was not found then it means that it was not there. Compare it with the recent detection of a state-of-the-art American submarine, Virginia tyoe, that was found in Russian territorial waters near Novaya Zemlya. Everything was very quickly established, proven and appropriate measures were taken.

All the talk about the Russian submarine in Swedish waters is based on NATO's intention to feverishly sculpt an enemy from Russia, to justify its existence. The attempt to create an enemy in the form of international terrorism has led to nothing.

No one believes that. Therefore, one should model a more real and more visible image of an enemy. The myth of existence of a Russian submarine in the area was intended to create an idea of Russia's highly aggressive behavior. This will allow the military to require additional funding, whereas political hawks will seek Sweden's entry into NATO."

"Are reconnaissance missions of submarines to territorial waters of other countries a common occurrence?"

"Of course, they are. The Americans do that regularly. Soviet and Russian submarines do that too, certainly. Yet, why would Russian submarines get into the territorial waters of neutral Sweden? There are more dangerous opponents."

"The Voice of Sweden said one could install special sensors in those fjords to record information and then use the fjords to shelter Russian submarines in an event of emergency. Could it be possible?"

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NATO troops to march into Russia as peacekeepers?

NATO Intercepts Russian Jets Over Baltic Sea
HELSINKI NATO scrambled fighter jets twice in two days to intercept Russian military aircraft over the Baltic Sea, it said Tuesday amid reports that Russia...

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NATO Says Russian Army Still in Ukraine: Putin denies sending troops into Ukraine
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By: UKRAINE TODAY

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NATO Says Russian Army Still in Ukraine: Putin denies sending troops into Ukraine - Video

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