Category Archives: NATO

KARACHI: The FIA has started a probe to determine if Rs 80 billion tax has been evaded in fuel supply to NATO.

Adnan Afridi lodged a complaint with the FIA Karachi Zonal Office, which was put into the verification process on September 7, 2020. The investigation was entrusted to Inspector Fazal Muhammad of the Corporate Crime Circle. Later, the investigation was handed over to Inspector Attaullah Memon. After two months, he submitted a report, saying: The complainant seems to be anonymous and his email is fake. So the investigation should be stopped.

The advice to stop the investigation in just two months is strange as verifications and inquiries remain pending with the FIA for years. Later, on December 29, 2020, the zonal office was directed that the investigation should be transferred to the Federal Board of Revenue.

In the application submitted to the FIA, it was mentioned that the Pakistan State Oil first supplied fuel (jet fuel and diesel) to NATO forces in Afghanistan and deposited 17 per cent Customs Duty in the national exchequer. Then after using influence, this contract was given to Senator Taj Haiders two companies Alhaj Enterprises Pvt Ltd and Al-Noor Petroleum Pvt Ltd. Then ships carrying fuel from foreign countries started arriving in Pakistan and the cost of the fuel carried by a ship was shown as $3 million. According to an estimate, the above-mentioned companies brought 250 ships. If $3 million are multiplied into 250, it amounts to Rs 80 billion.

The complaint says that the Alhaj group owns offshore companies including Alhaj Energy, Alhaj Energy and Trade DMCC and Alhaj General Trading Company LLC. The complaint says the money received from the NATO under the fuel head was allegedly laundered to Dubai and the US. An Indian company has shares in the Alhaj groups fuel storage terminal and both partners own two petrol pumps on the Shahrah-e-Faisal.

When the daily Jang contacted Taj Afridi, he said there were no FIA investigations against his group. He said the FIA had received a complaint from an unknown person and the law does not permit investigation on a complaint lodged by any unknown person. He said he got no notice from the FIA.

Director Sindh Zone FIA Amir Farooqi confirmed that first there were investigations in the Corporate Crime Circle, but after he took charge, he entrusted these investigations to the Anti-corruption Circle. And now the investigations are under way in the ACC Circle under Inquiry No 42/2021.

Read the rest here:
FIA probing tax evasion of Rs80 bn in fuel supply to Nato - The News International

President Biden is reviving the North Atlantic Treaty Organizationor is he? With President Trump gone, the alliance is back to business as usual, and Mr. Biden has emphasized members sacred obligation under Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, which governs how members respond to an attack on a fellow member. But a military alliance needs a military. Without a clear pathway to European rearmament, NATO wont be able to respond to a crisis.

The money is there to rebuild the allied militaries, a European colleague observes. The problem is the politics of it. Translation: Genuine rearmament across the alliance would signal that Europe is ready to take military action alongside the U.S. and could put European access to Russian oil or Chinese markets at risk. If European NATO allies began to show real exercised military capabilities, it would signal to Moscow and Beijing that NATO is willing to ensure deterrence in Europe holds, freeing the bulk of American military power for the Indo-Pacific.

This clearly isnt going to happen soon. Vladimir Putins seizure of Crimea in 2014 and the war in eastern Ukraine demarcate a polarization of NATO members. On one side, Poland, Romania and the Baltic states see Russia as a clear and present danger, determined to expand its portion of the post-Cold War settlement. On the other side is a very cautious Western Europe, wary of endangering economic growth over the well-being of their formerly Soviet-dominated neighbors. Berlin seems intent on managing rather than opposing Russia through a mix of political and economic engagement.

Looking farther abroad, while Washington sees China as both a military and economic problem, Europe considers it a strategic challenge but also an economic opportunity. The Asian market is seen as too critical to Europes prosperity to risk angering Beijing. Germany is deeply invested in Asian markets, and staking a clear position on the brewing Sino-American conflict isnt in its interest. Frances security priorities are focused southward, toward the Mediterranean and Africa, not eastward. These disparate interests across Europe make a NATO-wide consensus on threats hard to achieve.

Some observers look back fondly on the Cold War, when NATO members goals were tightly aligned. That time has passed. U.S. power has been depleted by globalization and deindustrialization, decades of war in Afghanistan and the Middle East, and political polarization at home. As American global leadership falters, Europe has been increasingly adrift as it triessomewhat awkwardlyto weigh its options. Russia has exploited these fissures while China has transformed itself into a power in Europe by investing in European technology companies.

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NATO Is an Alliance Divided - The Wall Street Journal

In early July, James Appathurai, the North Atlantic Treaty Organizations (NATO) special representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia, held a series of top-level meetings in Georgia.

The Georgian authorities greeted their guest from Brussels warmly and with much fanfare. President Salome Zurabishvili awarded Appathuraiwith the Order of the Golden Fleece for his special contribution to strengthening NATO-Georgian relations and his support for Georgias sovereignty and territorial integrity(Civil.ge, July 3). Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili tweeted that he and the NATO envoy discussed Tbilisis cooperation with the Alliance, Black Sea security, as well as Georgias significant achievements along its Euro-Atlantic path and the need to move forward on the political dimensions of the integration process (Twitter.com/GharibashviliGe, July 2). In turn, Foreign Minister Davit Zalkaliani described Appathurai as a big friend of Georgia, who has done his utmost to make Georgias NATO integration progress irreversible.The top Georgian diplomat added that the NATO summit in Brussels last month (June 14) again reaffirmed the Alliances open door policy toward Georgia, and he assured that his country already possesses all the practical instruments needed to eventually join NATO (Agenda.ge, July 2).

But this glowing diplomatic rhetoric could not hide the indisputable fact that, in recent years, relations between NATO and Georgia have mostly plateaued, moving no closer toward Tbilisis goal of full membership. Tellingly, neither Georgian representatives, nor the representatives of any other partner countries hoping to join, were invited to NATOs Brussels Summit. And the final summit communiqu simply repeated largely verbatim the wording on Georgias membership prospects that was written in previous years communiqus (see EDM, June 17): We reiterate the decision made at the 2008 Bucharest Summit, that Georgia will become a member of the Alliance with the Membership Action Plan (MAP) as an integral part of the process; we reaffirm all elements of that decision, as well as subsequent decisions, including that each partner will be judged on its own merit. The document further notes that the Alliance members highly appreciate Georgias substantial contributions to NATO operations, which demonstrate its commitment and capability to contribute to Euro-Atlantic security (Nato.int, June 14).

Dr. Vakhtang Maisaia, a scholar in political and strategic studies, noted that Georgia remains on what he termed the third level of the NATO integration processIntensive Dialogue. The fourth level is a Membership Action Plan, or MAP, which officially bestows membership candidacy; and the fifthfull membership, Maisaia explained in a July 5 interview with this author. He recalled that Georgia is successfully implementing most of the NATO Annual National Programs (ANP), but these programs are just a transitional stage from Intensive Dialogue to MAP. The strategic studies expert stipulated that the final communiqu of the Brussels Summit is weaker than the decisions that the Alliance took during the 2014 Welsh Summit, when Georgia was granted the Substantial NATO-Georgia Package (SNGP) as part of NATOs Defense and Related Security Capacity Building Initiative (DCB).

The SNGP is meant to improve Georgias defense capabilities, increase its resilience, enhance interoperability with the North Atlantic Alliance, and support the NATO membership preparation process. The program presently consists of 14 initiatives or areas of support: the NATO-Georgia Joint Training and Evaluation Center (JTEC), Defense Institutional Building School (DIBS), logistic capability development, intelligence sharing and secure communications, aviation, air defense, special operations forces, military police, acquisition, maritime security, cybersecurity, strategic communications, crisis management, and counter-mobility. A 15th initiative, on strategic and operational planning, was successfully concluded in October 2017 (Mod.gov.ge, accessed July 7).

The majority of Georgian experts are convinced that Georgia fulfills the annual NATO programs much more successfully than some of the states that have already received MAP; but the Alliance cannot make a similar decision with regard to Tbilisi, fearing an escalation in relations with Russia. Professor Tornike Sharashenidze, who heads the International Relations masters program at the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs (GIPA), is sure that in the conditions that have developed in the region, including around Ukraine, NATO has a hard time coming up with something new for Georgia. Sharashenidze doubts that United States President Joseph Biden and his administration are planning to change something fundamentally in [former US president] Donald Trumps policy toward Georgia and Ukraine. This sad reality, according to the expert, is fully confirmed by the results of the Biden[Vladimir] Putin summit in Geneva [on June 16] (Authors interview, July 6).

On the other hand, political consultant Gela Vasadze has argued that the level of relations between Georgia and NATO is already quite high and creates certain security guarantees for a small Caucasus country even without MAP or full membership: I understand that, emotionally, Georgians expect quick decisions from NATO; but in big politics, the result is achieved with careful, small steps. The current level of relations with the Alliance gives our country a chance to conclude a strategic military-political alliance with regional countries under the NATO umbrella: Turkey, Poland, the Baltic States and Ukraine. This is very important for the creation of a collective security system, and the North Atlantic Alliance will even welcome such decisions. As an illustrative example, Vasadze pointed to the recent consolidation of the strategic alliance between Azerbaijan and Turkey (see EDM, June 23), with the latter country considered the NATO leader in our region, he noted (Authors interview, July 6).

Vasadzes optimistic opinion seemed to be validated by recent developments in in the maritime domain. Namely, the United Kingdoms air-defense destroyerHMS Defenderfollowing its highly publicized military incident near the Crimean peninsula (see EDM, June 24)made a port call in the Georgian Black Sea city of Batumi, were the British officers were greeted as heroes (Agenda.ge, June 27). Subsequently, HMS Defender, together with other NATO member states warships and Georgian Coast Guard vessels, participated in a joint naval exercise designed to boost interoperability between the respective crews and develop Georgian capabilities (Agenda.ge, June 27).

During the August 2008 war, Russian forces destroyed the ships of the small Georgian naval fleet. But Georgias active participation in the annual NATO-led Sea Breeze maneuvers in the Black Sea has helped to reinforce for the Alliance that the country should be seen as an important partner for ensuring regional security.

Original post:
NATO-Georgia: A Pause in the Integration Process? - Jamestown - The Jamestown Foundation

Afghanistan is falling apart. With US and Nato troops leaving the country earlier than planned, experts are warning that the Taliban could take control of the country within six months. Currently the insurgents control the strategically important province of Helmand, and control or contest territory nearly every province in the war-torn country.

As many as 188 of Afghanistans 407 districts are directly under Taliban rule. With up to 85,000 full-time fighters), the insurgents have already forced thousands of troops belonging to the US-trained Afghan army to surrender or flee.

In response to the Talibans onslaught, local militias are fighting back. Most notable among them is a coalition of militias in northern Afghanistan called the Second Resistance, led by Ahmad Massoud (the son of Northern Alliance commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, who was assassinated in September 2001).

The Second Resistance has several thousand fighters and militia commanders who have fought against the Taliban, mostly of Tajik origin. Massoud insists that the Taliban will not have the same success in fighting his coalition due to far greater resolve of his soldiers compared to the Afghan military. But henceforth he will have to operate without the help of Nato troops.

But its not just seasoned veterans that are forming militias. Ethnic Shia Hazaras, thousands of whom were massacred between 1996 and 2001 by the Sunni Taliban, have tended to lack militias of their own. But after a wave of attacks in May that killed 85 people (mostly female students), Hazaras are also now rushing to mobilise.

But while these tribal militias might be able to defend themselves, this was far from the objective of the US-led coalition. The goal was to help build a national Afghan army that could become the sole legitimate fighting force. In spite of these intentions, this clearly never happened.

Much of the problem was that the US never fully grasped how to best support the Afghan military. The Americans relied on a model of trying to arm the Afghan army, training them and providing them with aerial support. But this model was not sustainable or practical for the Afghan military.

Afghanistan does not have the revenues to rely on sophisticated weaponry and technology. This remains a problem even though the US provides Afghanistan with almost US$5 billion (3.6 billion) in aid per year with US president, Joe Biden, asking for an additional US$300 million to support Afghan forces.

US efforts to engage in state building after it invaded in December 2001 was a more challenging objective than the Bush administration understood. For centuries, history has shown that Afghanistan has been difficult to conquer and impossible to govern. The country always struggled to create a unified national military to ward off invaders and maintain internal stability. Instead it has relied on local tribal militias led by warlords that could be immediately called to action to defend their territory. Efforts in the past (such as under Amanullah Khan in 1923) to enforce conscription into the Afghan army resulted in revolt.

As I discovered while researching a book on failed states, in addition to having little experience with a national military, other state institutions in Afghanistan were also almost nonexistent. This was not just because the country had faced decades of invasion and civil war, but also because it is is a nation in name only.

The various Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, Turkmen, Baluch and Uzbek groups in Afghanistan never accepted a central regime. This complicated any effort after Afghanistan gained independence in August 1919 to create unified security institutions to fend off various violent non-state actors that threatened stability in the country.

The Taliban, which overthrew the Afghan government in 1996, was the only group able to exercise control over the country after the 1992-1996 civil war. But, in October 2001, after the 9/11 attacks and the Talibans refusal to turn in Osama bin Laden, US and British forces launched airstrikes against targets in Afghanistan. By early December, the Taliban had abandoned their stronghold in Kandahar and ceded their last territory in Zabul and a new president, Hamid Karzai, was sworn in within two weeks as interim leader.

But the Taliban never accepted a western presence and launched an insurgency in 2002. Over two decades, the Taliban has become the most effective fighting group in the country, building a professional and resilient organisation that has learned to rely on a sophisticated communication apparatus. Its structure has been flexible enough to withstand the death of its leadership, after Mullah Omar died in 2013.

During that time and despite the presence of Nato troops in the country thousands of civilians have continued to die in terror attacks and raids. In 2019 and 2020 alone, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan has documented more than 17,000 civilians killed or injured the majority of which are blamed on the Taliban. Although the Taliban is currently in peace talks with the Afghan government in Tehran, it has little or no credibility when it comes to compromise or adhering to agreements.

So, after spending US$2 trillion and involving over 130,000 Nato troops for over 20 years, the US and its western allies are almost back to square one. Meanwhile almost 50,000 Afghan civilians have died and most Afghan citizens still live in poverty. The one concrete achievement of the 20 years of occupation reversing the Talibans ban on female education could be in jeopardy as well.

Originally posted here:
Afghanistan: two decades of Nato help leaves a failed and fractured state on the brink of civil war - The Conversation UK

The conflict in Afghanistan Americas longest war is at an end, or so President Joe Biden is expected to declare this week. At an end, too, is Britain and Natos military involvement, dating back to the invasion that followed the 2001 al-Qaida attacks on the US. Except the conflict is not over. In truth, it is intensifying. Whats changed is that the western allies are, in effect, washing their hands of it.

By setting an unconditional US withdrawal date of 11 September shortly after taking office, Biden triggered an unseemly military scramble for the exit that has been joined by all residual Nato forces, including most UK troops. It now appears the vast majority will have left by today, without ceremony or fanfare, almost by the back door. The fourth of July is American independence day. It may also come to be remembered as deserting Afghanistan day.

The official silence in Britain surrounding this shabby, half-hidden retreat is deafening partly for justifiable security reasons, but also out of sheer political embarrassment. Boris Johnsons government, so painfully dependent on Washingtons favour, dare not openly criticise Biden. But ministers and army chiefs surely know his unilateral decision to quit, despite the absence of a peace deal or even a general ceasefire, is dangerously irresponsible.

The withdrawal has set Afghanistan back on the path to terror, mayhem and disintegration. A catastrophe is in the making. These are not the predictions of mere armchair critics. Gen Austin Miller, commander of US forces, warned last week that chaos beckoned. Civil war is certainly a path that can be visualised if it continues on the trajectory its on. That should concern the world, he said.

The former Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, is similarly pessimistic. Look at the scene. We are in shambles. The country is in conflict. There is immense suffering... Those who came here 20 years ago in the name of fighting extremism and terrorism not only failed to end it but, under their watch, extremism has flourished. That is what I call failure, Karzai said.

Facts on the ground, as the Observers Emma Graham-Harrison reports, support these grim analyses. While cannily eschewing clashes with departing Nato troops, the Taliban has mounted multiple territorial offensives, overrunning district after district in recent weeks. At least half of rural Afghanistan is controlled or contested by insurgents. Regional capitals, even Kabul, may be next.

President Ashraf Ghanis government looks on helplessly as its Nato-trained and equipped soldiers are repeatedly forced into flight or surrender. Faced with such incapacity, local armed militias are reforming. Majority non-Pashtun groups in the north are also threatening to revive their 1990s anti-Taliban struggle.

Biden assured Ghani last month that the US would continue to provide financial assistance and support. Yet lacking bases in neighbouring countries, US aircraft and drones will be hard put to provide meaningful, timely back-up.

The Pentagon says in any case that its priority is containing Islamic State and al-Qaida, whose jihadists may soon freely roam ungoverned Afghan spaces.

The American decision to throw in the towel privately horrified Britains past and present military leadership, properly mindful of two decades of often thankless, bloody striving. Gen Sir Nick Carter, chief of the defence staff, tactfully said it was not a decision we hoped for. Having rallied to Americas side in 2001, Bidens failure to fully consult the UK and Nato was especially galling.

After the failure of US peace talks in Doha, Carter and UK diplomats in Kabul are quietly encouraging increased security and political cooperation between the Afghan government and Pakistan, a key Taliban supporter and influencer. How ironic that after all the Biden ballyhoo about America being back, they leave and the British are left to manage the mess.

For the Afghan people, the prospect of renewed anarchy is plainly terrifying. Limited recent gains democratic governance, free expression and improved healthcare, education and civil and womens rights are all imperilled. So, too, are the sacrifices of the tens of thousands of civilians and soldiers, Afghan and foreign, who died or saw their lives permanently scarred. Blighted is the hope of justice for those unlawfully killed or, for example, illegally tortured at the CIAs black site at Bagram airfield.

For western countries that imposed forcible regime change in Kabul, then promised to build a new nation of laws forged in their own image, this weekend marks a chastening moment. Who knows what historians will make of George W Bushs ill-conceived, too-costly Afghan adventurism? Yet as matters stand now, its unlikely, thankfully, that any western leader will again risk a similar gamble.

The death last week of Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary who oversaw the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, is a reminder of just how immeasurable, lethal and lasting are the terrible harms done by him and other neoconservatives and reckless ideologues in the Bush-Cheney administration, none of whom has ever been satisfactorily called to account. Like Iraq, coldly abandoned to its fate 10 years ago, Afghanistans post-American future is deeply daunting.

Excerpt from:
The Observer view on US and Nato withdrawal from Afghanistan - The Guardian

The existence of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and its entry into force on 22 January 2021 rang as an earthquake among states possessing or supporting a nuclear deterrence policy, write Jean-Marie Collin, Susi Snyder, and Tuva Widskjold.

The authors are non-proliferation activists Jean-Marie Collin (ICAN France), Susi Snyder (PAX Netherlands), and Tuva Widskjold (ICAN Norway).

This positive evolution of International Law is strongly rejected by NATO, which claims its nuclear capability is to preserve peace, prevent coercion, and deter aggression yet issues thinly veiled threats to those who would join this new UN Treaty.

The Alliance is creating conditions for proliferation and setting a dangerous precedent.

Lets recap. Nuclear disarmaments inertia is a reality. Its carried out by States that possess or support a policy of nuclear deterrence. Compounding the problem, their constant modernization and renewal of their nuclear arsenal undermine the non-proliferation regime.

And if nuclear-armed states are accountable for nuclear weapons reduction, states that accept, support, and benefit from this defence system also have a responsibility.

No one claims that nuclear disarmament is an easy task. But one thing is certain: not doing anything or going against legal progress is a dangerous game.

By rejecting the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), the Atlantic Alliance and its 30 democratic regimes have sent a clear signal to non-democratic States on the right not to comply with International Law.

The TPNW, adopted on July 7th 2017, is in force since January 22nd 2021. The Treaty, which has 86 signatures and 54 Member States, will welcome new Member States in the coming months.

It benefits from broad global support, as testifies the commitment of cities (Amsterdam, Berlin, Bruges, Paris, Manchester, Oslo, Toronto) and parliamentarians from NATO Member States, to support it.

This Treaty reinforces non-proliferation and allows the implementation of NPTs article 6 (nuclear disarmament). The latter, considered as the backbone of the non-proliferation regime, is in danger. Even the Alliance implicitly recognizes this danger in its Statement, the enduring success of the NPT cannot be taken for granted.

However, this reasonable thinking is confronted with contrary and irresponsible actions by three nuclear States of this Alliance: the United Kingdom announced its will to increase its nuclear arsenal, backing away from its 2010 NPT disarmament commitment.

France wants, in a parallel effort to support NATO, while completely renewing its arsenal, to promote the Europeanization of its nuclear deterrence, through strategic dialogue and the opening of French deterrence exercises to the other European States.

Finally, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the United States will spend a whopping $634 billion in the next ten years on new nuclear arms systems.

The facts are crystal clear. These states do not respect the good faith principle, as required by the NPT and the International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion (July 7th 1996).

The Alliance Statement also undermines the democratic values of the UN and its institution. It is important to be aware that the TPNW was subject to open negotiations (2017), during which all States could be present to expose their own point of view, and thus, influence the content of the text.

Except for the Netherlands, all NATO Member States stayed away from these negotiations. By challenging the TPNWs existence, they are equally challenging the functioning of the UN and of its Secretary-General, who is the depositary of the Ban Treaty.

In our report A Non-Nuclear Alliance: Why NATO Members Should Join the UN Ban on Nuclear Weapons (116 pages), we have reviewed the Alliances arguments, point by point, demonstrating that they are based on myths, misconceptions, and deliberate lies. NATOs hostility to the TPNW is in direct contradiction to its own security interests.

By working constructively against the threat posed by nuclear weapons, the Alliance Member States would protect their populations. Yet, today they keep relying on a deterrence policy to tackle this threat which is only adding fuel to the fire.

Some NATO partners, in Europe (Austria, Ireland and Malta) or in Asia-Pacific (New Zealand, Philippines, Thailand), are already States Parties to the TPNW; and more are to come.

Others have announced their participation as Observatory States (Finland, Sweden, Switzerland) to the First Meeting of State Parties, which will be held at the UN in Vienna (12th to 14th of January 2022). And the list is expected to grow.

Yet, the Alliance is attempting to sabotage the sovereign will of countries and prevent them from engaging by calling on its partners and all other countries of the international community, to think twice before joining the TPNW.

This barely veiled threat reveals how scared the three nuclear-armed members are of losing the moral support they need to justify military capabilities, capable of causing catastrophic humanitarian and environmental consequences

NATO cannot hinder International Laws development. The TPNW has no other objective than to create more security, by becoming universal.

When declaring that its member states support the ultimate goal of a world without nuclear weapons, NATO must see the TPNW as an opportunity to put an end to a threat too many generations have known.

Read more:
NATO and its nuclear policy: In contradiction to its own security objectives - EURACTIV

STUTTGART, Germany In less than two years, NATO hopes to have its own, modified version of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) up and running.

Alliance members agreed at the 31st annual summit, held June 14 in Brussels, to launch a new initiative dubbed the Defence Innovation Accelerator of the North Atlantic, or DIANA, meant to speed up trans-Atlantic cooperation on critical technologies, and help NATO work more closely with private-sector entities, academia and other non-governmental entities.

The goal is to have DIANA reach initial operating capability (IOC) by 2023, David van Weel, assistant secretary-general for emerging security challenges, said at a Tuesday virtual roundtable with reporters. By next year, the hope is to have the initial parts starting to come up into fruition, he added.

In the long term, DIANA will have headquarters both in North America and in Europe, and link to existing test centers throughout NATO member countries that will be used for validating, testing, and co-designing applications in the field of emerging and disruptive technologies, van Weel said. DIANA will also be responsible for building and managing a network meant to help relevant startups grow and support NATOs technology needs via grant programs.

The focus will be on national security and defense purposes, and DIANA will not ask for or solicit companies intellectual property, van Weel noted.

While he singled out artificial intelligence, big-data processing, and quantum-enabled technologies, DIANA is meant to support all seven of the key emerging and disruptive technologies or EDTs that NATO has identified as critical for the future. The other four include: autonomy, biotechnology, hypersonics and space.

Sometimes a technology company may not realize that their product could be viable for the defense community, he added.

One key component of DIANA will be a trusted capital marketplace, where smaller companies can connect with pre-qualified investors who are interested in supporting NATOs technology efforts. Ensuring that investors are vetted ahead of time will allow NATO to ensure that the technology will be protected from illicit transfers, van Weel said.

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The fund is modeled after a The U.S. Defense Department set up its own trusted capital marketplace in 2019 as a tool that then-DoD acquisition czar Ellen Lord said could help encourage domestically based venture capitalists to fund national security and defense projects. That marketplace served as inspiration for the announced NATO trusted capital marketplace, per the alliance.

Members also agreed for the first time to build up a venture capital fund to support companies developing dual-use and key technologies that could be useful to NATO, and which will be optional for member-nations to participate in. The NATO Innovation Fund, as its called, would have a running time of about 15 years to start, and would be underwritten by about 70 million euro (about $83 million) per year, per van Weel.

The goal is not for NATO headquarters or for its member-nations to run the innovation fund, he noted. The actual running of a venture capital fund, we believe, should be done by companies that have a broad range of experience in the field. He cited the U.S.-based capital venture firm In-Q-Tel as an example of the type of partner NATO would seek to run the day-to-day business of the fund.

I read somewhere that NATO is not a bankwere not, van Weel said. But it will be the nations providing the funds, and giving the general direction.

These two initiatives of a technology accelerator and innovation fund are hopefully going to bring the alliance forward into the 21st century, van Weel said.

NATO has previously invested in information technology (IT) and software through the NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCIA), but the difference with the innovation fund, and DIANA, is that the alliance wants to better connect with early-stage startups, rather than larger software companies or traditional defense firms, van Weel said.

DIANA is not about taking over innovation for the NATO enterprise, he said. Its a different community, and requires different funding mechanisms and different types of engagement.

These two initiatives have been long awaited and demanded by NATO observers, and versions of both a DARPA-like technology accelerator and an alliance-wide investment bank were included in a 2020 list of recommendations by NATOs advisory group on emerging and disruptive technologies.

But it is still early days. While the IOC goal is 2023, step one is we want to know from allies what they want to offer to DIANA, van Weel said. Once the NATO Innovation Fund has its participating members, for example, a charter will be set up that will lay out the funding models, rapid contracting processes, and leadership guidelines.

We are trying to do this as fast as we can, van Weel assured, but then noted, we do want to get it right, because with the startup community, you only get one chance.

See the original post here:
NATO hopes to launch new defense tech accelerator by 2023

Still, inside European states, Russia is even more directly threatening than China. Russia has attacked Ukraine and Georgia and taken their territories. It occupies part of Moldova right across the border from Romania and without the countrys consent, Volker pointed out.

Just like China, Russia has set out to disrupt societies in the EU and NATO by wielding its influence within certain countries like Slovakia, through bribery, corruption, political parties, disinformation and intelligence services. And it is trying to create an environment where theres no pushback against Russias authoritarianism at home or its regional aggression, Volker ventured.

With several Balkan countries yet to join the EU or NATO, they present fertile ground for Russia to prevent their accession. In the case of Montenegro, Russias even trying to undermine the countrys NATO membership and EU aspirations from within by working with the Serbian Orthodox Church to support an anti-NATO, pro-Russian government, Volker said.

Russia, as Volker concluded, is trying to stop and even reverse the free and peaceful development of Europe that has been the continents direction ever since the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989. Thats the stakes for countries in the V4 region, where security, economy and democracy have been on the growth pattern for 30 years now. Russia would like to see that reversed.

And yet, in some of the former Warsaw Pact countries which joined NATO after the fall of communism, support for NATO is wavering, according to the GLOBSEC Trends 2021 report.

A quarter of Slovaks and Bulgarians would prefer to leave the organisation, though this number has been higher in the past as support for continuous membership has been steadily increasing despite (or perhaps because of) increasing tensions between Russia and the West, the report reads.

Even in Romania, often viewed as a NATO hawk, support for the organisation has eroded in recent years, with close to 20 per cent of the population wishing to abandon the pact, as opposed to 6 per cent just four years ago.

As sentiments shift, talk of the EU becoming a global military power alongside NATO has intensified, though the US remains concerned about wasteful duplication of military resources, Politico reported the Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank with close ties to the Biden administration, as highlighting.

Volker remains hopeful about the prospects for NATO in Europe. I dont think 25 per cent [not supporting NATO] is an outrageous number. It shows theres debate in society. If it were 50 per cent or more, that would be an issue. Im sure that in any kind of crisis the number of people questioning it will fall dramatically, he explained.

Originally posted here:
China and Russia Seeking to Divide EU and NATO, US Diplomat ...

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO is a military and political alliance used to guarantee each of its members' security and freedom. Created after World War II, the goal of NATO is to promote democratic values, cooperate on defense and security issues, and to build trust among members. This, in turn, helps prevent conflict from occurring. NATO also promotes a peaceful resolution of disputes. However, if diplomatic efforts do not work, the military alliance is used for crisis-management operations.

As of 2019, there are 29 members of NATO. Those nations include:

During the 2014 summit, all NATO members agreed to spend 2% of their GDPs on defense by 2025. According to data gathered in 2017, many nations still fall short of this threshold.

The United States is just one of three nations that exceed the 2% threshold. The United States spends 3.6% of its GDP on defense. This equates to just under $686 billion.

Another nation that has met this threshold is the United Kingdom, which spends 2.1% of its GDP on defense or $55.2 million. Greece has spent 2.4% of its GDP on the military, which is about $4.7 million.

Poland has also met this goal by spending precisely 2% of its GDP toward its military.

France falls just slightly short of the goal by spending 1.8% of its GDP on defense. Romania also spends this percentage but, with a smaller GDP, pays a smaller amount. Latvia's military spending is also 1.8% of its GDP, but the total amount spent is relatively low compared to the other NATO members.

By percentage of GDP spent, the U.S. comes out on top. In order of percentage of GDP spent, the top 10 nations include:

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NATO Spending by Country - worldpopulationreview.com

The UKRINFORM website on Saturday featured a brief article on German ambassador to Ukraine, Anka Feldhusen, discussing the prospects of her host country becoming a NATO member.

Feldhusen has an extensive tenure in the country, having been attached to the German embassy there in various capacities from 1994-1997, 2009-2015 (during the U.S.-engineered coup in 2014) and in her current role from 2019 to the present.

She is cited asserting that one of the main benefits of NATO membership is being able to request Article 5 mutual military assistance. If approved, all other NATO members are obligated to enter the lists on behalf of the country asking for that intervention.

She offered this assessment:

There are 30 countries cooperating in NATO, and this is a consensus organization.I think that Ukraine has very influential partners who support Ukraines ambitions to become a NATO member. But this will not happen tomorrow, because, as I said, it will be a political decision. NATO has always had problems with countries at war. Of course. Because one of the advantages of NATO is the fifth article of the Washington Treaty. And everyone is afraid to be in a direct war with Russia.

Not everyone evidently, as her own comments substantiate. As Ukraine has for the past seven years attempted to depict itself as already being at war with Russia in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of the Donbass and has accused Russia of occupying Ukrainian territories in those locales and in Crimea, the moment Ukraine joins NATO the latter would ipso facto be at war with Russia. That appears to be what the German envoy was alluding to.

Nevertheless, she added, the military bloc will continue to cooperate with Ukraine on a daily basis and will closely monitor events in and near what it claims to be its borders.

As with Georgia in 2008, NATO would prefer candidate states first resolve the issues of territorial disputes (or as Ukraine refers to Crimea, temporarily occupied territory) and foreign (meaning non-NATO) military personnel on its soil before becoming full members of the global military bloc. Otherwise, as seen above, NATO enter a war the moment the new member enters the alliance.

Whatever one thinks of Russias reabsorption of Crimea in 2014, for the U.S., NATO and the European Union to support Kievs contention that it is temporarily-occupied territory and demand its return to Ukraine is fraught with the highest degree of danger.

The moment Russia would vacate Crimea not only would the Russian Federation suffer the most humiliating, the most crushing defeat in its 30-year history, but its Black Sea Fleet would be evicted from Sevastopol and Russia be denied ready access to the Mediterranean Sea. Critics of Russias Crimean policy since 2014 dont acknowledge that simple and indisputable fact.

In that scenario its not hard to visualize the naval base at Sevastopol being turned over to the U.S. Sixth Fleet and the Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO. Indeed, that seems the inescapable correlate of Russia being compelled to vacate Crimea.

The spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, responded to the comments of the German ambassador to Ukraine with these comments of her own:

According to the German ambassador, everyone is afraid of a direct war with Russia. So, this is about fear. However, Russias national policy, both domestic and external, is based not on the fear of a war with anyone but on a principal choice in favor of peace and maintaining it. Feel the difference, as the saying goes.

Her interpretation of the Germans comments appear to indicate that even in evoking the danger of a direct war with Russia she was casting the onus of responsibility for such a catastrophe on Russia.

In an all-too-rare display of political backbone, Zakharova added this indictment against the real malefactor in the tragedy:

NATO is unscrupulous. By its own hands, using ambassadors and foreign ministers, they encouraged Maidans [deadly color revolution uprisings] in Ukraine and led the country to the full loss of its sovereignty and the condition of half-disintegration, and rendered the state administration lifeless, set Ukrainians against each other and their own history, and now they recall that they have some legal restrictions. They should have remembered about rights and ethics when they deployed their special services in Ukraines ministries and agencies, designed and sponsored Maidans and trained militants.

Would that the Russian Foreign Ministry had spoken in candid language like that seven years ago.

The spokeswoman also addressed the 32-nation Sea Breeze wars games to be co-hosted by the U.S. and Ukraine in the Black Sea starting tomorrow with these no less uncompromising words:

We understand very well that these drills have two global goals. The first one is endless destabilization along the Russian border. This is a provocation for the sake of a provocation, they are trying to get a response. And there needs to be a response, because this is a sovereign state, a sovereign border. To constantly make this response come off as aggressive actions is provocative activity.

The second [goal] is to transport various types of equipment and arms to Ukrainian territory and leave them there.

The German ambassador to Ukraine was being less than forthcoming when she spoke of NATO being in direct war with Russia only if Ukraine joined the bloc; NATO is daily inching closer to such a war even preceding that eventuality.

Rick Rozoff is a contributing editor at Antiwar.com. He has been involved in anti-war and anti-interventionist work in various capacities for forty years. He lives in Chicago, Illinois. He is the manager of Stop NATO. This originally appeared at Anti-Bellum.View all posts by Rick Rozoff

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German Envoy on Ukraine Joining NATO: Everyone Afraid of ...