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NATO Plans More Visible Presence In Easterneurope - Foreign Affairs - Nairaland

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NATO Plans More Visible Presence In Easterneurope by peteregwu(m): 7:52pm On Aug 27, 2014
NATO Plans More Visible Presence in Eastern
Europe


LONDON — Caught off guard by the crisis in
Ukraine, NATO plans to create a “spearhead”
rapid deployment force and a “more visible”
presence in Eastern Europe to assuage concerns
about Russian intentions, Anders Fogh
Rasmussen, the alliance’s secretary general, was
quoted as saying on Wednesday.
The United States, Germany and other key
alliance members have signaled that they have no
plans for any substantial new NATO military
presence in the region and have been careful to
avoid escalating military tensions with Moscow.
But with NATO leaders scheduled to meet next
week in Cardiff, Wales, the alliance appears eager
to show a united front and to demonstrate the
ability to respond quickly at a time when Russia
stands accused of menacing Ukraine.
The plans described by Mr. Rasmussen seemed
an attempt to balance those pressures.
In an interview with correspondents from six
European newspapers, he said that while the
proposal anticipated the prepositioning of supplies
and equipment at new bases, it would not
infringe on the alliance’s agreements with Russia,
which have prevented substantial NATO buildups
in the lands that joined the alliance after the
collapse of the Soviet Union.
NATO’s strategy in response to Russian pressure
on Ukraine has been to conduct more exercises,
aircraft patrols and the like. Mr. Rasmussen
suggested that the alliance now plans to augment
those measures by increasing its preparedness to
send more troops to Eastern European bases if
necessary.
“We will adopt what we call a readiness action
plan with the aim to be able to act swiftly in this
completely new security environment in Europe,”
he said. “We have something already called the
NATO response force, whose purpose is to be
able to be deployed rapidly, if needed. Now it’s
our intention to develop what I would call a
spearhead within that response force at very, very
high readiness.”
He continued: “In order to be able to provide such
rapid reinforcements, you also need some
reception facilities in host nations. So it will
involve the prepositioning of supplies, of
equipment, preparation of infrastructure, bases,
headquarters. The bottom line is, you will, in the
future, see a more visible NATO presence in the
east.”
“It can be on a rotation basis, with a very high
frequency,” he said.
Mr. Rasmussen added that the plan was designed
to address the fears of newer NATO members
that Russia might intervene militarily to protect
large ethnic Russian minorities, such as those in
the Baltic states. Along with Poland, the Baltic
countries — Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — have
indicated that Russia’s recent maneuvers in
support of separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine
have left them feeling vulnerable.
“The point is that any potential aggressor should
know that if they were to even think of an attack
against a NATO ally they will meet not only
soldiers from that specific country but they will
meet NATO troops,” Mr. Rasmussen said. “This is
what is important.”
The notion of new permanent facilities would be
certain to draw fierce protests from the Kremlin.
The Guardian, one of the newspapers that
published the interview with Mr. Rasmussen,
quoted unidentified NATO sources as saying the
Cardiff summit meeting next week would seek a
compromise formula, avoiding the word
“permanent.”
Asked whether NATO would permanently deploy
forces under its flag in Eastern Europe, Mr.
Rasmussen was quoted as saying: “The brief
answer is yes. To prevent misunderstanding I use
the phrase ‘for as long as necessary.’ Our eastern
allies will be satisfied when they see what is
actually in the readiness action plan.”
Mr. Rasmussen, a former prime minister of
Denmark, became NATO secretary general in
2009. In October, he is to step aside and Jens
Stoltenberg, a former Norwegian prime minister,
will take over.
Most of Mr. Rasmussen’s tenure was focused on
the war in Afghanistan, rather than the alliance’s
original role: the defense of Europe against a
potential Soviet attack. But with Russia’s seizure
of Crimea and its support for separatists in
Ukraine, the alliance is now struggling to return
to its earlier roots.
Since Mr. Putin’s strategy for Crimea and Ukraine
began to unfold in February, however, the alliance
has been casting about for a response in a new
era in which, Mr. Rasmussen said in an interview
in Washington in July, “Russia doesn’t consider
NATO a partner; Russia considers NATO an
adversary.”
In the interview published on Wednesday, Mr.
Rasmussen said: “Russia is a nation that
unfortunately for the first time since the Second
World War has grabbed land by force. Obviously
we have to adapt to that.”
“It is safe to say that nobody had expected
Russia to grab land by force. We also saw a
remarkable change in the Russian military
approach and capability since, for instance, the
Georgian war in 2008. We have seen the Russians
improve their ability to act swiftly. They can
within a very, very, short time convert a major
military exercise into an offensive military
operation.”
In the latest crisis, he said, “we have reports from
multiple sources showing quite a lively Russian
involvement in destabilizing eastern Ukraine.”
At a time when defense budgets are shrinking and
Western appetites for military campaigns have
been blunted, Mr. Rasmussen seemed to
acknowledged the limits of NATO’s role.
“You see a sophisticated combination of
traditional conventional warfare mixed up with
information and primarily disinformation
operations,” he said of the most recent Russian
operations. “It will take more than NATO to
counter such hybrid warfare effectively.”

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/08/28/world/europe/nato-plans-more-visible-presence-in-eastern-europe.html?_r=2&referrer=

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