NATO new strategy, hard to heal the rift?

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NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen speaks with the media during his monthly press briefing at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Monday, Oct. 11, 2010.


NATO's secretary general urged member states on Thursday to endorse a proposed anti-missile system that would protect Europe and North America, saying that is the alliance's responsibility.


Anders Fogh Rasmussen said NATO's new mission statement — expected to be adopted at a summit of alliance leaders next month in Portugal — would focus on reforming the organization to deal with emerging threats.


"NATO's core task of defending its 900 million people will never change, but it must be modern defenses against modern threats," he said.


NATO is proposing to expand an existing system of battlefield missile defense to cover the territory of all alliance members against ballistic missiles from nations such as Iran and North Korea. Fogh Rasmussen has proposed that Russia also join the project, thus creating a network that would stretch from Vancouver to Vladivostok." (From AP)



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The Büchel military base in southern Germany where it is thought that some US tactical nuclear weapons are stored.


Rasmussen hoped discussions this month by Cabinet-level officials would shed light on "which issues will go to the wire" for the November session in Lisbon, according to diplomats.


“So far, the nuclear issue has taken center stage,” one high-level NATO diplomat said. “The nuclear weapons issue has boiled down to this: Is NATO going to retain the status quo by keeping its weapons for deterrence, or is NATO finally going to give arms control and disarmament precedence?”


Five European nations -- Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey -- are believed to house roughly 200 U.S. B-61 nuclear gravity bombs.


Calls by Germany and other European states for the document to prominently promote the elimination of nuclear weapons have placed those nations at odds with France, a nuclear-armed state that believes NATO involvement in nuclear matters could threaten French self-determination.


“If there is a sticking point in reaching agreement, then this is it,” a German diplomat familiar with the document said.


“You can understand why France is not happy with the section on disarmament. It does not want its nuclear deterrent to be in any way dragged into NATO discussions,” said Frederic Bozo, a security specialist with the Sorbonne University in Paris.


Poland and Baltic nations expressed concern that rolling back NATO nuclear deployments could undermine the idea of collective security on which the alliance is premised.


“U.S. nuclear weapons are regarded as a strong symbol of the credibility of the American commitment to the security of Europe,” said NATO Defense College Research Director Karl-Heinz Kamp. “Eliminating the American nuclear presence in Europe, even if the number of warheads is small, could further erode alliance cohesion at a time when reassurance and solidarity are at the heart of the alliance debate on its new strategic concept.”


“Deterrence should and will remain central to NATO,” Latvian Defense Minister Imants Liegis said, adding his country was otherwise "pleased with the draft document so far."


"It meets our concerns, especially over NATO remaining an alliance committed to collective security," Liegis said. “Actually, the document is surprisingly lucid and crisp.” (From Globalsecuritynewswire)



U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates — who is participating in the meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — said he was worried about what European defense cuts will mean for the United States. Britain, Germany and other close NATO allies are expected to slash or realign their defense budgets soon.


Gates said the more that U.S. allies cut their capabilities the more the U.S. may be asked to pick up the slack, at a time when the U.S. also is facing budget cuts. (From AP)


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Is it hard to heal the rift through NATO new strategy?