All In, With NATO's Rapid Response Defence
"NATO's biggest challenge in 2015 will be focusing on and advancing its core mission -- ensuring the security of the alliance's members and promoting stability in Europe."
"This will be a challenge because the alliance's leaders have taken collective defence for granted for many years, because Russia has developed an array of unconventional tactics that will require new and unconventional responses, and because NATO will continue to be involved in training activities in Afghanistan."
Michael Brown, dean, Elliot School of International Affairs, George Washington University
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| Radio technicians of the Russian Air Force controlled the flights of over 380,000 aircraft over Russia’s territory last year Tass |
"[2015] will be about making it more concrete and visible for Russia. The main task will be to decide what this force will be, where it will be based, and how it will be commanded. It's also about money."
"Russia has to see that NATO is resolved to defend its values. And the core value of NATO is solidarity: attack one member, and the whole alliance, including the U.S., will respond."
Marcin Terlikowski, head, European Security and Defence Economics, Polish Institute of International Affairs, Warsaw
The interlude of peaceful co-existence between Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and its near neighbours -- once oppressed living under the weight of Soviet domination, when the near-abroad was captured in a firm grip of imperial ambition as practised by a Communist colossus -- has expired under the reminiscing determination of Vladimir Putin, the master of the deft move in realpolitik, whose actions leave the international community gasping in disbelief.
ITAR-TASS/Valeriy Sharifulin The formation of the Arctic military command is part of Russia’s ongoing extensive program to build up presence in the Arctic
Russia is certainly preparing itself for a renewed show-and-tell in the interests of demonstrating its military capabilities, resilience to Western 'interference' within its near geography, and resolution to maintain what it considers its entitlements, from the Baltic states to the frozen Arctic with its vast undersea treasure stores of natural resources, from petroleum fuels to mineral deposits ripe for extraction. It will back away from what it considers to be its birthright, to no outside influence.
And while it sets about establishing its dominance in its backyard communities of vulnerable nations hovering between fear and defiance, it is setting down parameters as though daring the nations whose dignity and sovereignty it tweaks playfully as a seeming precursor to invasion ostensibly meant to 'protect' the rights of Russian speakers domiciled there, to demonstrating to its most potent adversary, NATO, its serious intent.
For its part NATO has shifted its focus from South and Central Asia to Europe, where 2014 unveiled a surprise Russian annexation of Crimea following on its earlier success in depriving Georgia of
Abkhazia and South Ossetia, to no consequences for its military incursion into Georgia. Denials that Russia has sent its military into east Ukraine are transparently absurd, as is its denial of its military fighting alongside Russian-speaking Ukrainian rebels.
In response, NATO has launched the Baltic Air Policing mission over Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Countries within NATO are set to stockpile fuel, ammunition and allied military supplies and equipment within the front line countries to be used by the rapid reaction NATO force, should it prove to be required. That "spearhead" of a multinational force representing the 28 NATO member countries is meant to reinforce alliance members' security.
According to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, the new force representing rebooted alliance capabilities represents "the biggest reinforcement of our collective defence since the end of the Cold War". None of this, the Russian bellicosity in challenging its neighbours' sovereign rights, and acting in concert with its belief it has the right to dominate the weaker among them, nor NATO's growing membership from within those Russian-near-abroad neighbours bodes well for the future.
The U.S.-approved Readiness Action Plan for the alliance capabilities upgrade for 2015 does represent a response to recognizing Russia's wider ambitions of domination in east Europe. And since NATO was formed for the express purpose of creating an alliance of like-valued democracies allying themselves against the very situation that is now gradually evolving in east Europe, it was inevitable that an geography-avaricious Russia would face push-back.
It is the question of just how far the volatile recklessness of Moscow will push the alliance through rapacious entitlement that will continue to have the international community on tenterhooks of concern. Meanwhile, NATO is looking for funding to match the perceived need of building up meaningful military capabilities to match those of the renascent Russia; the United States alone is more than a match, but this is an alliance of countries working toward a common agenda.
So, although many NATO countries hope that the U.S. will come forward with the funding required to pay for the new reactive force and all it entails, Germany too stands out as a major funding source even while it, like the U.S., has cut back on its own military expenditures. In the opinion of Bruno Lete, senior program officer for foreign and security policy at the German Marshall Fund based in Brussels, to achieve full NATO cohesion, as many of its members as possible must contribute to such payments to prevent a situation where "the plan will lose its legitimacy."
Labels: Belligerence, Conflict, East Europe, NATO, Political Realities, Russia, Ukraine
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, January 08, 2015
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